Wimbledon and Unequal Prize Money

There’s been a bit of an uproar in tennis circles this week as Wimbledon announced that the total prize money for the Men’s singles winner would be larger than that for the Ladies champion, and thus would be the only tennis Grand Slam that does not offer equal prize money. The difference between the two is only $53,000, so Wimbledon’s declaration of un-equal prize money appears to be symbolic and almost defiant of the current trend in tennis.

When I first read about this issue, I have to admit that I was conflicted. In tennis, we’ve been brainwashed to believe that the women deserve equal prize money without question. It’s not a question of why?, just that it must be that way. This latest controversy prodded me to move beyond the programming in my head and look at the issue more critically. Does Wimbledon have a point in not offering equal prize money to the women? What follows may anger most, if not all, of the females that I know, however, as usual, my logic is impeccable and undeniable. ;)

Wimbledon’s public rationale for this decision centered around the fact that the top ladies are able to play more events (singles, doubles, mixed doubles) because their singles matches are only the best of 3 sets, and thus they can earn more money across all of those events than the Men can earn in singles only. The Men play the best of 5 sets and the top players rarely play doubles or mixed doubles because of the rigors of the singles draw. Although this rationale is valid, I don’t know that it is actually a logical justification for not offering equal prize money. Even if the men played best of 3 sets in the early rounds, I’m not sure how many would play doubles or mixed.

Another argument against equal prize money, and one not proffered by Wimbledon, is also related to the best of 5 set format and how the men are on court longer and have to work much harder over the course of the fortnight. This argument is slightly more compelling, but prize money has never been paid out at an hourly rate. A Ladies match that goes deep into a third set could certainly last longer than a Men’s straight set victory. Yet, I think it would be fair to say that the top men have to work harder to advance through the draw than the top women. It’s not only length of match, but also quality and depth in the draw.

The true determinant in the question of offering equal prize money is value. Does the women’s game provide equal entertainment value as the men’s game? And is the quality of the product the same? Tennis is unique in this argument because it is the only sport in which a person might answer “yes” to those questions. The women’s versions of Golf, Basketball and Soccer don’t even come close to rivaling the value and quality of the men’s games, but in tennis, it doesn’t appear to be as clear-cut at the surface.

The other factor that confuses the issue for tennis is that the Grand Slams host the men’s and women’s events simultaneously. A ticket for the day gets you access to all of the action. In Golf, the men’s and women’s Grand Slams are held at different locations and on different weekends, and that keeps the value proposition of those two tours very separated. To my knowledge, there isn’t much of an uproar over the disparity of prize money between men’s and women’s golf even though the difference is obscene in comparison with the $53,000 deficit at Wimbledon.

At last year’s Men’s US Golf Open, Michael Campbell earned $1,170,000 for winning the tournament. Compare that to the $560,000 that Birdie Kim took home for her victory last year and you have a difference of $610,000. Not only did Birdie Kim earn less than half of Michael Campbell’s take, she also earned $140,000 less than Tiger Woods earned for finishing second. Where’s the outrage about this??? Perhaps I’m not listening hard enough. Of course, the fact that golf doesn’t pay women equally isn’t a justification for tennis to do the same thing. I’m simply pointing out the far larger disparity, with a far smaller amount of outrage, if any.

As I stated earlier, when you buy a ticket for the day to Wimbledon, you get access to all events, but what if Wimbledon decided to segregate the events and forced patrons to buy either a men’s ticket or a women’s ticket? Would one sex outsell the other? Well, during the first week, I guarantee that the men’s event would outsell the women’s because the quality of the matches in the early rounds is much higher in the men’s game because of the greater depth on the ATP Tour. The women’s tournament is a snooze-fest until the quarterfinals because the top players are simply not challenged. The increasing number of injuries and absences on the WTA Tour doesn’t help the boredom factor in the early rounds.

In my recent post on Tennis in America, I stated that the men’s game is more popular and interesting than the women’s right now because of the depth on the tour and because of Roger Federer’s quest for total dominance. Rafael Nadal’s clay court match winning streak is another interesting topic that has captured the attention of fans. Right now, the women’s tour has no similar story lines and it suffers for it. That’s not to say that there aren’t some interesting matches being played on the women’s tour. In fact, the Maria Sharapova – Tatiana Golovin match in Miami was highly entertaining tennis, but that type of match seems to occur on rare occasions only on the WTA Tour. Thus, if one had to judge the men’s singles and women’s singles events’ entertainment value from the first round through the final, the conclusion would be that the men are a better buy for the entertainment dollar.

Although rarely discussed publicly, the men play tennis better than the women. None of the top women can beat any man in the top 500 in the world, and it possibly goes beyond that. Is that possibly a justification for unequal pay? As noted earlier, the pay disparity in golf is much larger than it is in tennis, yet there’s a movement in golf to have ladies play in PGA Tour events. Guess what? If the women can succeed on the PGA Tour, they get access to the bigger dollars. In that respect, you could say that the PGA Tour is the top tier in golf, and the LPGA is a lower tier and subsequently has lower earning power. Although no woman has yet to make the cut at a PGA event, it appears to be within reach. Should we consider the WTA Tour to be a lower tier than the ATP Tour? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting question. The possibility of a woman playing on the ATP Tour is infinitesimally small.

To conclude, I’m not advocating that the Grand Slams that do offer equal prize money reverse those decisions. I have no problem with that, but I do have a problem with vilification of Wimbledon for maintaining a slight inequity in pay given that the quality and depth of the WTA doesn’t come close to that of the ATP. The outrage over $53,000 seems misplaced to me when prize money and pay differences are so much larger in every other sport. Maybe those that are up in arms about Wimbledon’s decision should take care of those other differences first.