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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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 Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2002 1:03 pm Post subject: Male/Female equity in the sport |
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I was just reading the Feature Story article by Mary Nicole Nazzaro in today's Runner's World online. I found a few quotes interesting:
| Quote: | I had just finished reading about the curious difference between the prize packages being offered by the host cities for the men's and women's 2004 Olympic Trials marathon -- $250,000 in prize money in St. Louis for the women, and $350,000 in prize money and "development funds" in Birmingham for the men. Then, when Paula Radcliffe ran an astonishing solo 2:18:56 to win her debut marathon in London last April, flirting amazingly with the women's world record, the daily press still made a far bigger deal of the men's race. And if you're into pro tennis, there was the annual annoyance this week of the discrepancy between the men's and women's prize purses at Wimbledon. It's not a huge difference -- the men's champ gets $756,000, the women's winner $700,000 -- but that's not the point.
How is someone that's paid less than someone else for the same achievement supposed to feel otherwise? When the women's pole vault made its debut at the outdoor world championships, the prize money was half that of the men's event.
As a woman athlete, I compete in the same road races as my male training partners. I'll never collect a prize-money check, but the thought of women today making less than men in the exact same event bothers me greatly. |
Let me first say that this forum is made up mostly by male particpants, so we may be lacking on diverse input... However, I'm having a hard time coming up with any response other than, "WHAT THE HELL?"
We're not talking about equity in the work place here. This is entertainment! The return on investment, so to speak, is not the same in men's and women's sports. Just look at the NBA and WNBA, which are the same entity and are problably the closest male/female sports comparison next to track & field. The player contracts reflect how many people pack into the stadiums (no comparison), merchandise sales, promotions, etc. No knock against the women, but whomever more people pay more money to see play will be paid the most. It's such a simple concept, it's almost hard to figure out how to put into words...
Back to T&F and the pole vault example, two points:
1) The women's pole vault is so new that sponsors would be borderline insane to hand out as much bonus money for a world record as for the men. Dragilla setting a women's World record is probably 5-10x more likely than a men's American Record in the same event.
2) The pole vault might not be the best example, given that it isn't the hottest of men's events in this country, but can you imagine how noteworthy it would be for an American to break Bubka's record? I'm guessing that publicity would be well worth the extra bonus money.
An interesting note is the near equity of the tennis example. Just guessing here, but tennis is probably one of the few sports where there is as much overall fan interest in the women as there is in the men. No surprise (to me) that the championship pay is close to even.
How much publicity did Radcliffe's run generate relative to that of Khannouchi vs. Gebreselassie vs. Tergat???
Complaining about unequal pay without analyzing the entertainment value of said performances is so uncreative it's sad, especially from someone who I presume is a journalist. 
Dan |
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2002 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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Also, the article confuses the issue greatly by mixing Title IX and collegiate sports' participant equity with professional sports' financial equity. The former is arguably about character building and extracurricular activities, while the latter is purely about money generating entertainment.
Dan |
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Distance_Guru
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Joined: 09 Mar 2002
Posts: 1280
Location: Nebraska
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| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2002 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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I have no desire to upset anyone here (which is rather unusual for me) so here is my take and I hope nobody takes it to personally. First off I'm in total agreement with Dan. With the exception of ice skating and gymnastics I can think of very few sport where people would rather watch women on a regular baisis than men. In the case of those sports I think that a female ice skater should be paid more than their male counter part because more people will pay to see her skate. When it comes to running on the professional level the same hold true, if more people want to see male runners rather than female then the guys should be paid more.
And if we want to drag title IX into the arguement then all of a sudden things switch. Because of lack of a female sport equivilant to all mighty football there are many more track and cross country scholarships available for female athletes in this sport than for males. (And many more schools that only have female track programs as well). And if you think of the very small number of runners that win prize money at road races and track meets and compair that to the relatively large number of female athletes that are recieving scholarships, at least here in the US the ladies are coming out ahead.
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2002 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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I didn't think anyone would bite. 
I agree about the figure skating and gymnasics examples, by the way. I'm curious what their respective viewership makeups are world-wide, though.
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Distance_Guru
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| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2002 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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All I know is in my own family. I'm the big sports nut and will watch just about any sport that's on the tube, except ice skating. Where as my mom has no interest in sports what so ever but will watch ice skating every time its on and even record it and watch it again when there's no ice skating on.
And just out of curiosity, are there any other Americans out there that think soccer is a girls sport? I can't stand mens soccer even when we were winning games during the world cup I just couldn't watch, but if there is a womens soccer game on and the only other choices are a juicing info-mercial and the mens ice skating championships I'll watch it. Just a curious.
Of coarse now I'm sure to get the snot beaten out of me by a couple of English Soccer Cyber holagans.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 2:41 am Post subject: |
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There are no more hooligans - England fans were the darlings of the World Cup!
I won't beat up on you for disliking football (soccer to you!). I feel sorry for you Americans on that one actually. The entire rest of the world is captivated, transfixed by the World Cup, the last truly global sporting event - entire countries come to a halt during games and world leaders take time out from discussions to watch matches - yet you yanks miss out on it all through blithe disinterest.
There is only one global sport and it's football. Around 2 billion people watched the final. Half the England population watched each of England's games, including the ones which started at 7.30am our time. In some countries 90% of people watched games. David Beckham (England's best player - damn I can't believe I feel the need to explain that) is better known around the world than Michael Jordan, Shaq and everyone in the NHL, NFL and Major League Baseball combined.
Where my sorrow evaporates and turns to irritation is in the face of sneering jibes, of which "it's a girl's game" is only borderline.
Until then, you're the ones missing out!
Sermon over!
Justin |
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Justin
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Joined: 08 Oct 2001
Posts: 312
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 2:43 am Post subject: |
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Sigh. Not a guest. It was me.
Justin |
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Micah Ward
Olympic Medalist
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Location: Hot&humid, GA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 3:57 am Post subject: |
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I'm pretty much ok with everything said so far. Except track and field. The difference between a track meet and the NBA and WNBA is that the men and women are there at the same time in the same place, and who knows how many are there to see Mo run and how many are there to see Marion.
So in a track meet the prize money should be the same for each event. You guys may disagree but if I had to chose between seeing the men run a particular event or see the women run, I would chose the women.
And I do like ice skating. Especially when they are skating backwards and those little skirts flip up......  |
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Hammer
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Location: New Mexico
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 5:23 am Post subject: |
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Dan was right in the begining when he talked about sports being entertainment. That's why so many americans watch Football (American Football) I think most Americans would rather watch Men's Track and Field because they are watching the fastest athletes. Many people will comment on a superb womans' race that the cometitors ran fast "for girls." This is true even if the people watching could never run as fast.
If the Women and Men were seperated into 2 track leagues the Women's league would get less attention from American audiences. I don't know how attendence would be in Europe for the meets. |
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Conway
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Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 6:34 am Post subject: |
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Man, you can't miss a day around here !!! Good topic .. And I would have to say that I am in agreement withthe tone that has been set ...
Too bad the article combined Title IX AND professinal sports becasue they really are TWO separate issues ... And I say that because what Title IX has done on the collegiate ranks is dilute men's sports in the effort of create the "level playing field" ... And THAT has been a shame ... Through its reduction of scholarsips we have seen collegiate track and field reduced to athletes running for marks to make the NCAA's instead of the great cmpetitive dual meet seasons of years gone by .. We have also lost many track and field programs across the country as a result of this program ... And many individuals have been hurt as a result !!! And that is not fair ... So I feel that Title IX has been as destructive as it has been constructive ... |
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
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Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 6:34 am Post subject: |
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Just had to say that ... Now on to professional sports ... Sports at that level is purely entertainment (there are some other factors to collegiate sports) ... And Micah, while you and I (and I am sure others here) can appeciate equally men's and women's performances, there is a large majority out there that simply want to see the best !!! And the best performances are turned in by the men (relatively speaking) !!! There have been few women that were true attractions (bringing individuals to the stadium on their own) the way that Carl Lewis or Edwin Moses or Seb Coe, or MJ, or Mo Greene could/can ... FloJo for season ... Marita Koch and Jarmila Kratochvilova ... I'm not even sure that Marion is that kind of a draw .. During her run there has always been Mo and MJ ... And then Dragila has come along in the PV ... So really hard to measure her drawing power .. But none the less I think that those who put em in the seats deserve the money ... In many events I think the women are lucky that the payouts are as close as they are as the men clearly are the event headliners ... Marathon being a case in point ... London for example was CLEARLY about Geb !!! And the performance of the race was the Geb/Tergat/Khannouchi triumvirate ... Which says something else for the men v. hte women ... In any given event you have several men competing to win, whereas for the women there is generally a dominant female ... Not their fault, but it lessens the competition ...
Just some thoughts ..
Conway |
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
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Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2002 6:47 am Post subject: |
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| Oh ... Soccer ... Love it ... Played it (wing) ... Great sport ... Unfortunately the US is very self centered ... And we tend to feel if it isn't done here it must not be improtant ... Well 2 things we hvae missed out on - the metric system and soccer .. Both we dissmiss .. And both are inundated throughout the rest of the world !!! American football is a fun sport (played that too) .. But gotta say soccer is a lot more fun and one can have a much longer career doing it ... |
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Justin
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Location: London
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2002 3:17 am Post subject: |
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The prize money issue is being discussed at Wimbledon at the moment. They still pay the women less than the men and have two arguments to justify this:
First, that women play best of 3 sets not best of 5 so are on court shorter; this means that they also tend to play doubles, unlike men, with the effect that the women's champions of the past few years have won more in total than the male champion because they also did well at doubles. Not too relevant to t&f this point as there is no difference between male and female events.
Second, that the men's competition is much deeper and tougher. This is obviously true in tennis - in the men's event anyone in the top 100 is capable of giving Lleyton Hewitt a game but the drop-off in the women's events is much more dramatic. This does have some relevance to t&f because the same is arguably true.
Pam Shriver has been a commentator at Wimbledon and she's also written a piece pointing to Title IX, arguing that it was at least in part responsible for the success of the US women's soccer team. What is interesting is how few men are now prepared to make the arguments above in public - both John McEnroe and Boris Becker have refused to be drawn! It seems that the argument for parity is so strong - it's just the right thing to do - that it's just a matter of time.
Incidentally it is not true in the UK that more fuss was made over the men's London marathon than over Paula Radcliffe. The coverage both on the day and since was hugely biased towards Paula - so much so that I actually felt sorry for the men, who had just had this wonderful race yet were being ignored. And if it was the case that overseas the men got a bigger focus, perhaps that's because it was a better race and there were four greats involved, whereas Radcliffe ran alone - athletically great, but not as exciting to a non-expert audience.
Justin |
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2002 8:11 am Post subject: |
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It's one of those things that, if you speak out on, half the people will be at your throat and the other half will applaud you... Sort of like politics, I suppose.
| Quote: | | Incidentally it is not true in the UK that more fuss was made over the men's London marathon than over Paula Radcliffe. |
Always interesting to hear how different media outlets put a spin on the same story. I have relatives in Canada, and whenever I talk to them about a story that affects both countries, it's shocking to hear the differences in how it's reported. You'd never guess it was the same issue... Having said that, I'm surprised the men's race at London could be overshadowed with all the buildup to it, even by Britain's beloved Radcliffe. That's quite a testament to her popularity.
Dan |
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2002 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| Would that be a testament to her popularity or moreso a testament to how much support the Brits give to their own ??? I doubt if Laroupe would have been given the same attention and she is arguably as popular internationally ... |
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