Equal pay is discriminatory
I found a few different viewpoints, so I decided to beat the almost dead horse a bit more.
If women tennis players were “equal” to male tennis players then the whole issue of equal pay could be solved by abolishing the gender distinction and having everyone compete for the combined pot of prize-money.
But women want to have it both ways. They insist on excluding men from their events on the grounds of inequality (men are more powerful, etc) but then demand to be paid the same amount on the grounds of equality. The arguments of the likes of Billie Jean King are, therefore, not only economically dubious but deeply hypocritical.
When Venus Williams wrote in The Times last year that the unequal prize-money was discriminatory, she was right – but not in the way she thought. She pointed out that the men’s champion received 5 per cent more cash than his female counterpart (£655,000 compared to £625,000). What she failed to mention is that men also generate far more revenue. Although income streams for a tennis match are diverse, a good comparison is to be found in the television viewing figures. If you take the past five years, the men’s singles final has averaged 20 per cent more viewers than the women’s.
In other words, the men were generating 20 per cent more income while receiving only 5 per cent more income. So, while the women were complaining about unequal prize-money they were actually benefiting from a significant cross-subsidy. That is what I call discrimination.
The only final in recent years in which the women commanded a higher audience than the men was in 2005. Williams wielded this as a clinching argument for equal prize-money (it was, in fact, an argument for higher prize-money in 2005), but she failed to mention that this was an exception. Why else is it that the ATP pays significantly more prize-money than the WTA for comparable events? Williams also talked about the symbolic value of equality. In which case she should take aim at the insult to women represented by the fact that they are considered too frail to compete over five sets.
One notes in passing an additional anomaly. If a sexy and popular player loses to a lacklustre opponent, it is the latter who pockets the prize-money even though it was the former who generated the public’s interest. One can imagine a system in future years in which a player is paid a fee based upon, say, viewing figures, which is then topped up with prize-money. Appearance money in golf competitions approximates to this approach. Times Online