Navratilova talks about the pay inequality at the BBC

[Moxie]

Again, we also need to include the fact that commentators are entertainers - sports is part of the entertainment business. It isn't simply about equal work and their careers as tennis players.

Actors aren't paid based upon amount of work, experience, or even history. They are paid based upon their current market value - how big of a draw they are, as deemed by whatever formulas they use (e.g. box office sales). Whether this is fair or not, it is how the entertainment biz works.

I have no idea how the BBC and other networks determine pay scales, but I'm guessing it is mostly (if not entirely) based upon who they think will make them the most money, that is garner the most views.

While I will agree to some extent that in the entertainment business (which I work in,) actors are paid based on box-office heft, etc., there is, within that, it has been coming more and more to light, a large inequality of pay between male and female actors of relative "weight" and co-star status on the same picture or show. I will give you a recent example that caused an uproar: Ridley Scott reshot his "All the Money in the World" for a week to exorcise Kevin Spacey. Michelle Williams did it for $80/day perdiem. Mark Wahlberg was paid $1 million. Worse yet, they are represented by the same agency. When it came out, Wahlberg donated the money to a women's charity. But it was bad, and embarrassing. On the good side, there are male stars that are making sure that all of their female co-stars of the same work level make the same money. Things are changing, but I just wanted to make clear that, while there is such a thing as market value, it doesn't mean that it is compensated fairly.

 

[Moxie]

@Federberg: I trust you on the eye-test of how much Mac works v. Martina. I still think the discrepancy feels a bit much, but anyway...thank you for the points you make, especially about the BBC, the recent issues that have come out, and being a public entity (meaning they're about the last company that can play fast-and-loose with this sort of thing.) I think you alluded to this, but if all the highest paid are men, because they have the plum jobs, there is an inherent sexism in who gets the best jobs.