[Cricket] The Hundred - gender pay gap

[Steve in Japan]

Oh, and the 100 format should be taken out and shot.

 

[Invicta]

Yes they are. But having been going for decades, womens tennis is very popular in its own right, and skill levels and fitness at the top level are very comparable with the blokes. I don't think you can say that yet about the Cricket, having watched some of the "Ashes" and the WPL recently.

I just answered the question about equal pay, fine by me!

 

[The Grockle]

Are the ladies at Wimbledon now paid the same as men?

Even though they play best of three, rather than best of five sets.

Tennis is often used as an example when it comes to fair pay in women's sport but women's tennis is commercially very successful. The gap between the men's and women's game is nowhere near that of football or other core sports.

 

[Happy Exile]

Yes they are. But having been going for decades, womens tennis is very popular in its own right, and skill levels and fitness at the top level are very comparable with the blokes. I don't think you can say that yet about the Cricket, having watched some of the "Ashes" and the WPL recently.

I prefer women’s tennis to men’s. I know irrelevant to this argument but what you say about fitness and skill is correct, or arguably women now need more skill and fitness than the men. The men’s game is more power and ace dependent - a men’s winner can serve almost as many aces in a final alone as a ladies winner will in the whole tournament…so actual time with the ball in play is more for women, and winning a point is more tactical and skill based. And the explosive fitness and distance covered by a woman over 3 sets is around the same as a man will cover in 4 - Andy Murray is/was considerably grumpy about the belittling of women’s tennis and suggestions it was in any way “easier” for many very good reasons.

 

[Steve in Japan]

I just answered the question about equal pay, fine by me!

Yes you did, I didn't mean to reply to you as well!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

To be fair, the argument for and against equal pay is not the same as the argument for and against the gender pay gap.

Equal pay is a non-starter all the while there aren't enough people (especially women) prepared to pay to watch women play sport. On the other hand, narrowing the gender pay gap is probably necessary to avoid the chicken and egg situation of "which comes first - filling the stands for women's sport or the good salaries?"

Football leads the way on this, and in a decade or so, we will find out if it was right that big clubs saw the potential in a fully professional women's league. Some clubs (especially Arsenal) are seeing huge crowds for women's football, but others are still watched by 2-3,000. Will crowds and interest in women's football gravitate towards Arsenal's levels of interest, or only, say, Manchester City's? Certainly there are more girls playing football at clubs and school than ever before.

Precisely. The 'gender* pay gap' is about unequal pay for the same work.
If women could compete equally in an activity with men then there would not be a 'gender' based separation.
(there are female jockeys competing with men, for example, because they can).
I now enjoy some women's football, and occasionally watch on the telly.
But I am not sufficiently moved to go to a live game.
It is a different sport to men's footy, and salaries can only be set by market forces,
that means what people are prepared to pay to watch live or on TV.

That said, my (former) union disregarded the fact that men and women are paid the same, based on grade and spine point,
in order to politicize a 'gender pay gap',
arguing that women were being discriminated against because average pay was lower than that for men.
A spurious argument because there are more older male professors on professorial salaries.
This being a legacy from women dropping out to have kids and not returning.
This has been largely fixed and where I work with 'back to work' assistance, and even earmarked research funding,
and now more than half the staff are female and most of them (6 or 7) are full professors.
(and one female colleague jumped ship recently owing to what she described to me as 'women punching down',
but that's a separate issue.....)

*Should really be the biological sex pay gap. I know only one transgender academic and she is a full professor.