Tennis
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From a piece I contributed on an Australian site - much like you I have long respected her achievements ... to date.
*"I’m not a tennis follower but I did have the good fortune to witness the sublime skills of Rod Laver, a gentleman; the calm demeanour and reliability of Ken Rosewell, also a gentleman; the long, successful reign of Margaret Court; and the beautiful natural talent of the universally loved Evonne Goolagong. We then witnessed Jimmy Connors bursting onto the scene, followed by John McEnroe, to introduce modern tennis, and we learned pretty quickly what brash New Yorker meant.
I have been fascinated by Serena Williams right from the jump though, and have stopped to watch her over the years. I have admired her exceptional power, physical ability and great success over the past twenty years, and I have marvelled at the discipline she must follow to contain her weight. She is often up against slim waifs from Europe at about 60 kilos maximum, 20 or 25 kilos lighter than her. As a big bloke I am conscious of the amount of extra roadwork one must do to remain in the game (rugby and boxing) especially from the mid 20s onwards."*
I don't know that she'll be booed - the Americans seem to show more affection for their flashy Carlos Spencers than their Dan Carters, dunno about the Frogs and the Poms at Wimbledon, but in Australia she has a good reputation and the crowds respond well to her.
She does deserve a jolly good booing as much as the person of interest to the Tokoroa coppers, the highest paid ex-pat-youse-blokes and un-Wallaby in the history of the known world.
I reckon though that her fitness may shorten her up considerably, and that she may be flat out getting to the next milestone (surpassing Margaret Court's record in majors or something). She is 36 now, well into slowing up age and, as I note above, destined to battle her size. About five years ago I saw her on the road in eastern suburbs Sydney with a trainer and it clearly was super hard work for her then. To find some sort of comparison I checked up on the similarly outstanding Margaret Court, who I remember as also being much bigger than her contemporaries. They were the same height.
Court stood down at 30 years to have her first child (1972), won three grand Slam singles and doubles titles the following year, had her second child in 1974 and that was that. She competed without success until 1977 but, despite her prowess and outstanding winner's mindset, age and children saw her out a couple of years younger than Serena Williams is now.
That's my theory.
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Personally I don’t think the 3 v 5 sets is a valid argument.
Surely if the women get the same tv viewership, attract the same sponsorship etc then they are as valuable as the men and should be paid accordingly.
Disclaimer: I haven’t done any research on whether this is the case.
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@sammyc But the argument is often about equal work, not equal worth.
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@mick-gold-coast-qld said in Tennis:
“I’m here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality”That fight was won long ago, she’s getting herself mixed up with Billie Jean King – The US Open introduced equal prize money for women in 1973, the Australian Open did so in 2001, and the French Open and Wimbledon followed suit in 2007. Of the 31 Grand Slam Tournament Finals in which she has appeared Williams has taken home equal pay 27 times – that’s 87% of ‘em.
She just walked out of this tournament with $1.85 million dollars for coming a churlish second! Our Serena has eked out career earnings of $90 million.
The US Open total prize money is $53 million including $21 m for the men’s singles winners (Rounds 1 to 4 and all finals) and $3 m for men’s doubles winners. The women? $21 m for the singles and $3 m for the doubles.
Prize money has grown from about $25 million in 2012 and $34 million in 2013.
Umpire Ramos was paid $653 for officiating the Williams – Osaka match. $653.
I wonder what she has earned per minute played then? That stat would certainly show her dominance but also, most likely, that she’s only played 2/3 as much tennis for it.
I say make women’s tennis 5 sets, then come calling with your shit.
A painful truth is that SW (and probably many other women) would struggle with 3 long sets let alone 5. Add the heat at the Aus Open and you'd be getting defaults all over the show.
Women have played 5 sets before. I recall Graf playing Huber in 5 at a particular tournament. Grand Slam Cup I think. Was a great match by all accounts.
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Personally I don’t think the 3 v 5 sets is a valid argument.
Surely if the women get the same tv viewership, attract the same sponsorship etc then they are as valuable as the men and should be paid accordingly.
Disclaimer: I haven’t done any research on whether this is the case.
But they don't, that's the thing. I think they might if that Chinese girl plays but then that's an anomaly due to the enormous population in that country. There can also be vast differences in ticket prices at these actual events. One reason for that might be that female games are shorter. Simple solution? Make them best out of 5.
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@antipodean said in Tennis:
@sammyc But the argument is often about equal work, not equal worth.
Yeah understand that, I reckon the total work is pretty comparable if you include all the training hours to get to the top.
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Personally I don’t think the 3 v 5 sets is a valid argument.
Surely if the women get the same tv viewership, attract the same sponsorship etc then they are as valuable as the men and should be paid accordingly.
Disclaimer: I haven’t done any research on whether this is the case.
I wonder if that viewership isn't related to sex appeal with a male dominated sports market, (I remember an issue with beach volleyball insisting on uniforms as a gross example). Perhaps traditionally only?
Just a suggestion in what will be a multivariate explanation when assessing market value
But I'm probably not allowed to even posit that these days....
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I don't really get into tennis, but mens is much duller than women. All that emphasis on the first serve means that rallies of any duration are the exception.
Top women often have very short games, because they can win easily on the opponent's serve. Hence 6-0 is far more common for women than men. But at least you see some rallies.
Nor do I particularly want an event to last as long as five sets takes. Especially if it is effectively watching who serves better.
(Watching the likes of Phillipousis and Isner play and being told that it's better than watching women actually return the ball confuses me.)
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Personally I don’t think the 3 v 5 sets is a valid argument.
Surely if the women get the same tv viewership, attract the same sponsorship etc then they are as valuable as the men and should be paid accordingly.
Disclaimer: I haven’t done any research on whether this is the case.
I wonder if that viewership isn't related to sex appeal with a male dominated sports market, (I remember an issue with beach volleyball insisting on uniforms as a gross example). Perhaps traditionally only?
Just a suggestion in what will be a multivariate explanation when assessing market value
But I'm probably not allowed to even posit that these days....
It's a good point. I don't think Anna Kornikova ever won a singles title, yet made shit loads more than most players in endorsements. She also appeared on the cover of sporting mags far more often than her actual oncourt achievements would have warranted.
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@rancid-schnitzel yeah, perhaps mine is a spurious point now, outdated even but someone would have to explain the Williams sisters outfits at times and if the women train in shorts or skirts. I suspect shorts would be more practical to play in and wonder if there is a dress code enforced by the progressive WTA?
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I always wanted to see the 5 set thing in womans tennis. I suspect it would have given Serena and the other power players a lot to think about. You would have to win fast I guess as the lighter players would find it easier to get conditioned for 5 sets.
Would have been interesting to see how it played out.
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It is weird/strange that they don't play 5 sets, but I'm not in the they shouldn't get equal pay camp for this.
If the ticket demand is the same, the prices are the same, then the pay should be the same - sport is just another type of entertainment, after all. If a band plays for 2.5 hours, should they charge higher prices than those that play for 1.5? I certainly wouldn't' choose a concert for concert length, I'd choose to pay to see who I want to see.
The other point which her husband has quite glaringly chosen to ignore, is that modern journalism comes up with the answer, then seeks statistics to prove the answer, not the other way around. For him to say what the argument is, then offer zero statistic to back up his argument, whilst simultaneously trashing another for providing real statistics which do actually prove an argument, is staggering given his appeared intelligence. (Reddit founder, etc).
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@majorrage as you say, how sure are we that revenue from the women's game matches the 3 set value?
Equal prize money:
US open 1973
Aus open 2001
French 2006
Wimbledon 2007Not wishing to downgrade the value of 3 sets observations but some data needed in what is another not so simple, multi variable situation.
It could be the case that women's tennis makes more money, (in which case yhey should be paid more!), or it could be that the world has once again resigned women to a charity case and offered another hand out in a world of "equality"
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Data is a bit older, but the men’s tour appears to generate a lot more revenue:
ATP outstrips WTA in revenue growth
Seven years ago, the men’s and women’s professional tennis tours arguably had parity in their sights. After years of resisting, Wimbledon had agreed to equal prize money, and revenue flowing through the ATP World Tour was a slim 4 percent, or $2.6 million, higher than the money coursing through the...
I’ll keep reading.
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No other sport decides prize money on the duration of the encounter - not sure why tennis should be any different. And eventually the grand slams will become 3 sets because TV will demand it ....
Fair point, but I wonder what people would say if the Black Ferns games were 60 mins only because they were women. There are no fitness reasons why a woman can't play 5 sets of tennis.
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It would be interesting to see a comparison of the average prize money of ATP and WTA events for the full year, excluding the Grand Slams. Using Auckland as an example, total prize money for the Men's event was $561K but only $250K for the Women's event. And those events are the same - best of 3 sets.
