Thoughts on the U.S. Open.
Last weekend, I watched large parts of the U.S. Open women’s tennis finals on Saturday and men’s finals on Sunday. I watched some very good tennis.
At various times during both matches, the camera would show Billie Jean King and an announcer would say, with a celebratory voice, that she was the one who had persuaded the organizers of the U.S. Open to give equal prizes to the male and female winners. This year the prize was a cool $3.6 million.
For the last 45 years, I’ve paid attention to the call for “equal pay for equal work.” I don’t necessarily agree with it, for reasons that don’t matter in this context. But I always thought that the vast majority of the people pushing for it did believe in it.
Now I wonder. Why? Because the prize in the U.S. Open is the opposite of equal pay for equal work. The men work much harder. To win, the men must win 3 sets. But the women need win only 2 sets. And this is true for the whole 2 weeks. Every match between men is the best of 5. Every match between women is the best of 3.
Yet I hear no one making that point.
Was the call for “equal pay for equal work” insincere? Is it bad if men get the same pay for less work but fine if women get the same pay for less work?
READER COMMENTS
John Hall
Sep 10 2024 at 7:00pm
People made that very argument at the time…
Regardless, that argument is making some assumptions. The big one is that the profit that the US Open brings in for men vs women is proportional to the length of matches. They might be able to sell more concessions for longer matches, but I don’t think the ticket price compensates for the difference in length. And TV rights are a huge component of their revenue, which are typically negotiated as a package for the entire event and not easily separated out into men’s vs women. At best, they could estimate how much the TV networks are making from the matches based on ratings, length of match, and advertising rates. But are advertising rates the same for men’s vs women? I don’t know.
So what’s fair? It’s not obvious.
David Henderson
Sep 10 2024 at 8:00pm
Actually, ad revenue is much greater for the men. One quick way to see: Look at the fact that the men’s was on ABC while the women’s was on ESPN.
roundtree
Sep 10 2024 at 7:00pm
Obviously, the women need to play three sets moving forward. Otherwise, it’s terribly sexist and demeaning to those working so much harder for the same pay.
Kevin
Sep 11 2024 at 2:07am
As stated above, the women generate less revenue/profit because of lower viewership. The whole thing is absurd. I think that Rafael Nadal spoke out about your best-of-5 vs. best-of-3 sets argument several years back. He stayed as respectful as he could, but common sense is not going to win the day here, as I can’t imagine it will anywhere else much.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but according to the NFL, at this year’s draft, ‘the future of football is female,’ was a serious slogan used to pander to people’s emotional sensibilities.
Why some people think/expect men and women to produce in the same way will never make any sense to me. They, on the average, at a group level, have different capabilities, interests, and personality traits. It obviously matters.
I don’t think it is at all wrong to point out, that adult women score nearly 5 points lower than men on intelligence tests. Their spatial intelligence deficit in particular, which has an indirect effect on working memory and mathematical ability puts them, on the average, at a disadvantage. There are other intelligence gaps as well between men and women. It makes a huge difference on the extremes. This is obviously politically incorrect to mention.
Women, to the best of what I can gather aren’t as driven as men. Fewer women want to put in the long hours necessary to get to the top of their respective fields. Maybe it is a lazy stereotype, but they do work fewer hours for many reasons.
Also, women score higher on the big five personality trait agreeableness. This may be great for a worker drone, but is less well-suited for leadership positions, where difficult decisions need to be made.
This may not be easy for everyone in the general population to swallow, but as per usual, the truth is much more interesting than the lie that we are all the same, should all achieve at the same level, and ought to all have the same pay.
Kevin
Sep 11 2024 at 2:11am
I hope that I haven’t drifted too far from the ‘equal pay for equal work’ here, but men and women obviously aren’t doing equal work, in general, and I thought that some of this was worth mentioning.
Kevin
Sep 11 2024 at 2:17am
I think I was mistaken to say that Nadal used the argument about match length, though it would no doubt impact the revenue generation he did mention.
S. F. Griffin
Sep 11 2024 at 4:48am
With all the data on advertising and concession revenue they must be able to track profit to a much finer grain than men Vs women. They know who is and is not drawing revenue I to the tournament.
An obvious question: why aren’t they going the other way by having different prize scales for different players? Break it down more, rather than consolidating.
Do they already offer appearance fees separately to the prizes? If so, are they based on how much money each player brings in?
steve
Sep 11 2024 at 12:27pm
Not a tennis fan but pretty serious basketball fan. Pay for athletes should be related to how much revenue they generate. In basketball many, many more people watch men’s games so since they generate more revenue they should earn more. If women want more money get more viewers. Unfortunately for them, that wont include me as women’s basketball largely sucks. I will watch some highlights from the NCAAs or highlights on ESPN but am not going to watch a game.
Steve
Monte
Sep 11 2024 at 3:53pm
It’s money. Both sexes place a premium on men’s (especially team) sports. Why? Generally speaking, men’s sports provide more entertainment value per dollar and are in higher demand than women’s sports. Even with calls for equal pay and greater media coverage, I suspect this will continue to be the case well into the future. Contrary to woke opinion, revealed preferences aren’t misinformation.
Sports aside, disparities persist due a multiplicity of factors, including systemic biases, unequal access to opportunities, and social norms. But mostly because men have a better developed sense of humor than women. 😉
Megan Rogers
Sep 12 2024 at 2:28pm
I am no tennis expert. Is it possible that women do 3 sets instead of 5 because their sets take longer on average than men’s sets? I am sure that pro women would not mind playing 5 instead of 3 sets if they got the same pay as men. However, that might make a normal women’s tennis match far too long for the viewers. Put another way, if they had men play the best of 3 their games would be far to short for the viewer.
AG
Sep 12 2024 at 3:39pm
You are still not thinking about it right. If Djokovic plays me and then plays Sinner, he will not have to put in equal work in those matches, even if he has to play best of seven against me and best of three against Sinner. He could beat me without breaking a sweat. The amount of work put in has more to do with the quality of the opposition than the length of time on the court.
Not only do the men play best of five, but in order to win, the champion will need to beat Djokovic or Sinner or Zverev. In order for a woman to win, she only needs to beat Swiatek or Sabalenka or Gauff. Accomplishing the former is much harder than the latter, even if the length of the sets were the same.