If they generate the same interest, then the ladies should be paid equally. It could be revised every couple of years, and if demands for women's tennis grows more and the interest for their game exceeds men's, then they should even be paid more. Unfortunately I don't think it is the case for quite a few years. Odd Serena matches shouldn't be a norm. At least I know that ticket prices are higher and the attendance is bigger in Toronto when men play here. I can't be a hypocrite and say that they should be paid equally now when I hardly watch a women's match. I can enjoy a good match now and then, but they can't hold my interest for very long. I don't pay them, so it is all the same to me, anyway.
Equal Prize Money Revisited
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Moxie
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Let me ask you this, though, @Billie : if we're only talking about the tournaments that are completely co-ed, where interest can't really be determined by gender, do you have a problem with keeping the pay-scales completely equal? TBH, I think it would be hard and very subjective for a tournament to determine, year-by-year, the relative interest per gender, and adjust their prize money accordingly. I'm not concerned about the tournaments that are purely men's or purely women's. Those are governed by their own associations, and are what the market will bear. As to Roger's Cup, the pay isn't equal, so you needn't be fussed.
by and large, the interest would lie with the group that produces the higher level of play. there are times of exception....yes, exceptions. it is nothing but blindly being argumentative to use exceptions as basis of argument. The only fairest way, in absolute terms, like BB already pointed out, is that players play the same competition.....regardless wether you are a kid, girl, grandpa, malaysian, lives in the jungle, whatever, as long as you are good enough. once you separate from that group, then equation of 'equality' is broken, as external factors come into play and distort it. hopefully someone will think about this before crying out loud with PC crap or illogical rubbish.
I am not fussed, like I said, I am not paying them from my pocket. Let me ask you this: Hypothetically, let's say we know that women's tennis doesn't generate the same interest and money revenue in separate events, then how can you say it is different and difficult to determine in the tournaments where the tours are combined? Wouldn't it be a reasonable deduction that the interest is the same (less than men) and being equally paid as men would not be fair to men?
You know my opinion on this and I don't know why you are pushing me to repeat myself. There will be 4 or 5 channels here in Canada that will show the top show courts in Melbourne. Canadians will also go and look for a live coverage of their representatives (no matter what court they are playing, unless it is not televised). I'll watch matches that will interest me the most, in most cases those will be men's matches.
Moxie
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Now here's an interesting article from the NYTimes today: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/...-239th-ranked-australian-open-qualifying.html
It's a lot to do with how qualifying works, which I think is a mystery to a lot of us. And the money involved. But another thing came out of it: That while the USOpen has an equal qualifying field of 128 for both men and women, the AO, RG and Wimbledon only allow 96 women in the qualifiers, though they all allow 128 for the men. I suppose this is how they keep their costs down on equal pay for the women? That's a lot of difference in the options for men and women, as to who might even get a chance to play qualifiers, which is a big pay-day for lower ranked players.
It's a lot to do with how qualifying works, which I think is a mystery to a lot of us. And the money involved. But another thing came out of it: That while the USOpen has an equal qualifying field of 128 for both men and women, the AO, RG and Wimbledon only allow 96 women in the qualifiers, though they all allow 128 for the men. I suppose this is how they keep their costs down on equal pay for the women? That's a lot of difference in the options for men and women, as to who might even get a chance to play qualifiers, which is a big pay-day for lower ranked players.
Good point and logical one, if there is difference in interest generated in separate events then it is reasonable to deduce that there is difference in co-ed events. I am confused how it evolved over the years, that in the 90s when interest levels were closer there was gap in prize money yet since the eras of Fed, Nadal and Djoker when men clearly have more interest, they've made prize money all equal. Clearly justice was never the concern, and what we see now is simply a result of manipulation......the women threaten to boycott the tournaments and they succumbed to it.
Now if the men were to boycott, i think tennis would suffer significantly more without a doubt. ATP players have been a generous bunch, like Djoker has pointed out (difference in interest level). Imagine Djoker himself, Murray, Fed and Nadal were to pull out, i would guess that the tournaments would lose a big chunk of the market. But if top WTA stars pull out, the impact would be so much smaller, that those events would simply have ATP stars carry the weight.....which will suffice.
