also don't misquote what I said, 'people want to watch the best level they can get, except the idiots.' I don't know any sane tennis fan who would watch worse players when given a viable choice. why do you think fans would choose players several levels below when they can watch top level players? lol
So. A couple things. Everyone has a viable choice these days. There are several women's players who draw more eyes and money than the vast majority of the men. Because in their respective fields those women are better than those men. Serena and Venus and Sharapova and Vika and now Kerber and Muguruza and Stephens and Halep and Osaka and other top 10 players draw more eyes and attention than ... lets conservatively say 80% of the men on the tour. And if I've got a choice between Anderson/Roanic and Kerber/Halep. I'm taking Kerber/Halep all day. That's me. I have always cared about women's tennis. But for the most part, I think the vast majority of people today would rather see two ladies battle than two serve bots.
But what's most important is, they put men and women on these courts. These are joint events. The seats are charged for the DAY. Whether more people watch mens or womens matches at that point is irrelevant. Naturally, more people wanna watch Rafa/Fed or Fed/Djokovic or Djokovic/Rafa more than they wanna watch any womens match or any other mens match. But they wanna watch Serena verse any top 10 competition more than they wanna watch Thiem/Zverev. But again. It's rather irrelevant. Because there are usually an equal amount of womens and mens matches on the show courts and people pay for them based on the day. You may see a womens match start out more empty. But it'll usually fill up. But at RG this year it looked to me like all matches, mens and womens were down compared to every year I've watched it before.
Tennis is based on its best players, on both tours. It is a sport of personalities, just like every other sport. People go to Wimbledon to see the top players on both tours. Therefore it stands to reason that men and women get equal prize money because the top men and top women are the main draws.
As to your discussion of quality. I could be wrong. But it basically seems like you're defining quality based on men's play. The women play different and that is ok. Women, smaller in stature, are going to be more breakable. No matter what. But they therefore build their games around different facets of the game. But it's the fact that so many of the women have gotten so good at breaking their opponents that has made the women's tour look like no one can hold. But that's ok. Because again. The top players become top players because they come out on top more often than not. They are the most solidly consistent. Or they are the ones who can take over a match more than the others. The quality on the women's tour, with the depth they have today, is arguably better than it has ever been.
And there are so many players on the womens tour, as there are on the mens tour, who have a single shot that is so good it can change the dynamic of any point. Case in point. Kerber. Kerber LOVES to pull that move where she crouches to the point where her knees are almost on the ground and she digs out a forehand and sends it wherever she wants to, usually up the line. As a lefty, it is incredibly effective and it's incredible how often it works. She has put in hours and hours and hours to perfect a shot like that. It is one of the reasons she's got 3 slams, 2 of them being wins over Serena. And you will NEVER, in your life see a man pull it off. Men aren't that flexible. You'll see Djokovic come close to something like it. But it's not the same. But what it does it makes great returns from her opponent, that land close to the baseline, less effective. Because she can stay in the point because of that shot. And that is good tennis. Yes. Her serve is more prone to attack. Than any of the men and a lot of the women. But she's 5'8". David Ferrer was still 5'9". Schwartzman is 5'7". She's a taller woman. But on the tour she's about mid height. Not tall enough to have one of the great serves like Serena or Venus or even as great of a first serve as Sharapova or Vika. All of who are 6' plus, except for Serena.
Sloane Stephens inside out forehand, that she sets up for so well and seems to come out of nowhere quite often is one of the best shots in tennis. Men or women.
Halep's dtl backhand. Serena's serve. Venus serve. Both of their backhands. Henin's one handed backhand. I mean. That thing was possibly the most beautiful thing any of us have ever seen and it dominated women's tennis for a couple years.
Yes. We've seen much fewer dominant players on the women's side over the course of the Big 3 men's careers. But we've also seen Serena, plagued by injury her ENTIRE career, fight to come back over and over and over and win with little to no preparation quite often. She absolutely has some physical advantages most of the women on tour simply do not have. But the fact that she's been beatable says that her height and strength are not enough for her to win every match she plays. And yet she's been so dominant. So even though players like Stephens and Kuznetsova and Vika and Wozniacki have all had ups and downs and haven't dominated like some thought they might and have been down right bad at times, you cannot fault them for being imperfect when we've seen all of the men not in the big 3 or big 4 have ups and downs and not even get slams. The best they could muster were slam finals or semis. The depth on the women's tour is quite frankly astonishing and impressive.
I am far from a far left liberal who cares about being PC. I tend to be PC because I find that most of the people who are not PC tend to be thick skulled, stubborn people (men and women) who refuse to take the time to think outside of their own perspective or worldview. Who think their thoughts and beliefs are more important than other peoples LIVES or livelihoods. Who don't take the time to find the nuance that is part of life. But, specifically, I am SICK of men acting like just because sports were the male domain first and because men are naturally bigger and stronger and because more men watch sports and therefore men care to watch men more, that women do not deserve equal pay. It's lunacy. It is in fact sexist and quite frankly pathetic. ESPECIALLY in tennis where men and women have been playing the sport, alongside each other, for over 50 years now. And the women weren't given equal prize money until 2007. That's LUDICROUS. The women's tennis tour is the best female sport league on the planet, and it's not close. If we in tennis at our 4 biggest tournaments at the very least, that ARE joint events, can't give equal prize money to men and women, that's just sad and pathetic and not an example to set for anyone. This sport would be A LOT less rich, culturally and monetarily, if Graf and Seles and Evert and Navratilova and BJK and Court and Hingis and Tracy Austin and Sabbatini and Novotna and Henin and Capriati and Davenport and Goolagong and Sanchez Vicario and Pam Shriver and ... I mean. I could go on and on. They are all so important to this sport now and we wouldn't have had the pleasure of watching them if they hadn't gone out and set up their own tour and put in the work to draw the crowds. Because lord knows the men told them they couldn't join them. And BJK laughed and said, I'll make it happen. And she did. Those ladies then and the ladies playing today have put in every bit as much work to get to the top of their field as the men have to get to the top of their fields. Equal prize money at the 4 biggest events that sell tickets and tv rights based upon the fact that the men and women will both be playing is just common sense. It shouldn't even be a question.