Equality & Controversy

So, today I'm going to be controversial. Yesterday I went to the Australian Open tennis. I went to 2 matches at the Rod Laver Arena (Centre Court) and saw one women's match and one men's match.

Now, the Open programme mentions that the women receive equal prize money to the men. Interesting. Why do i say interesting? Well, to me the word "equal" implies getting compensated the same dollar amount for the same hours of work. If I lay bricks for 60 minutes and a woman lays bricks for 60 minutes, we should get payed the same amount. That is the meaning of the word "equality," at least as far as I am concerned.

But in tennis, that clearly is not the case. Consider this:

In grand slam events, ie; Wimbledon, US Open, French Open and Aussie Open, the men play best of 5 sets. The women play best of 3 sets. In yesterday's match, Serena Williams finished her match in under 60 minutes of playing time.

Then Lleyton Hewitt came on court--and in the same amount of playing time (60 minutes) they had just barely completed 1 1/2 sets. The match went to 4 sets. I left after 3 sets and they had been going for about 90 minutes of playing time. I walked home. It took me about an hour. Every bar i passed on the way home they were still on court. They finished just about at the same time as i got home around about 11.30-12. In other words, 4 sets took them about 3-3 1/2 hours.

This is not inconsistent for men's tennis. There have been monster 5 setters that have lasted 5-7 hours.

I've looked it up-so the statistics in this paragraph are not my own--they are official. According to the ATP (association for tennis professionals), in their 2011 statistics covering the 4 majors, the average time for a ladies final to take at a Grand Slam event (again, best of 3 sets) is 90 minutes. The average play time in the same event (best of 5 sets) for men  is 240 minutes.

240/90=2.666. So the men play on average over 2 1/2 times as long than the ladies.

Lets add in the additional factor of the actual prize money. The prize pot this year for the Australian Open is US$2.3 million to each winning  singles finalist So you're a lady, and you play at  a 90 minute final. You win. You take home $25,500 per minute played. You're a man, and you play the average 5 set final, taking 240 minutes. You win. You take home a little over $9,500 per minute. Again:

Ladies winner: $25,500 per minute for 90 minutes work.
Men's winner: $9,500 per minute for 240 minutes work.

So: on the per-minutes played basis, as well as on the number of sets played basis, women's prize money now actually more than doubles what the men take home.

How, in anyone's world is that "equal" labour?

Now, this is not to deny that the ladies don't put in the same amount of preparation--workouts, practice sessions, travel time etc, etc as the men do. But in professional tennis the prize money is for playing and winning tournaments.

I could be cheeky here and add the following fact, again from the ATP: men's tennis (in the finals) have higher TV viewing figures and in general, higher actual attendance figures. Most people would rather watch Federer/Nadal/Djokovic etc, than Stosur, Williams, etc. So men's tennis also brings more income into the tournaments (at least at the 4 majors) than ladies tennis does.

Equal prize money in my book therefore, at least at the 4 majors should never have happened. There's not going to be a backward step in reality. Once you've given "equal" prize money, you can't take it back again.

Its now skewed the other way. Sorry ladies--but this aint "equality." You want "equality"? Fine. Start playing best of 5 sets. Then we can say things are equal.