Australia's women players to be paid for test matches under new deal

Equal pay in sports debate is a complicated beast.

(FOR) If you pay women more then more women will be attracted to a traditional male sport professionally and thus the female version will become more exciting to watch due to better athletes being involved.

(FOR) The popularity of a sport doesn't need to be based on who is the best, fastest etc. It's about the competition. College football is extremely popular in the USA, but it's not the top level.

(AGAINST) Sport is based on popularity. The more people who watch it, the more money goes into it. Trying to artificially manipulate it won't work in the long run.

(AGAINST) Many people want to watch the top level of sport. Unfortunately most traditional male sports like rugby, cricket etc, aren't conducive to women being able to match their male counterparts due to biology. For example, the fastest female cricket bowler is around 115-125 kph. Compare that with the fastest man who is around 150-160 kph. It's like riding a roller coaster at ¾ speed.

In Melbourne, they introduced a female AFL league. It is very popular. 20,000 to a game. Thing is, entry is free and Melbournians will watch paint dry in a stadium if given the chance. They are an incredible population of live sports watching people. The aim would be for it to gain traction in the minds of the public and then slowly introduce payment at the gate and build from there. To get a young generation of people interested so in the future they will watch it on TV and then advertising dollars can support it at a professional level.

The player of the tournament last year was previously a man who had a sex change operation and got her testosterone levels down to the required levels. A lot of the female born players were very unhappy about it. Said it was an uneven playing field.

How about female tennis? Shorter games, less advertising and fewer people watching on TV, yet the same amount of prize money. Is this okay or is it wrong?

How about female tennis? Shorter games...yet the same amount of prize money. Is this okay or is it wrong?

Its clearly a case of gender discrimination and PC gone mad again. I don't see how anybody could argue differently. In any other field of endeavor, if you said we will pay this group the same wage as this group, everything else being equal (which it isn't by the way, because the men are arguably a bigger draw) and they only have to work 2/3's as hard, is that fair?

No, it clearly isn't fair.

Sure, but does that mean that if a male player wins a grand slam final in three sets as opposed to 4 or 5, then his prize money should be less?

What if both the male and female champion go through the tournament only playing three-setters? Then there would be a definite disparity. Or what happens when one of the male’s matches is scratched for some reason and he ends up playing fewer games than the woman?

Also, there are many tournaments in which both male and female play best of three yet the purses differ.

I just don’t think it’s fair that the hard and fast rule is that the man gets more prize money than the woman.

I think standard tournaments, in which its best of 3, it should be equal prize money

I think in grand slams, women should get 3/5's of the prize since they still only play best of 3 sets, versus men playing best of 5 sets.

Seems unlikely a man would go through a tournament winning 3-0 in every match in a grand slam. Sure its happened and yes games can be forfeited at any point due to injury. These are exceptions and can't create sweeping rules about prize money based on small exceptions to the norm. The reality is than women play the best of 3, and men play the best of 5, in all grand slams and that never changes as far as I know. As such, 3/5's of male prize money in grand slams seems rational and appropriate.

But the time commitment, travel, training, sacrifice and so on are the same for both sexes.

Definitely would agree on that. Seems logical.

Also, the players don’t make the rules as far as best of three, best of five. Is that in itself somewhat sexist? Maybe the women want to play to five, or the men only to three.

So the solution there seems obvious. Men and women should play the same number of sets in every tournament in which they enter, including grand slams, which means women step up to 5 sets and get paid the same as men.

That solves the problem from all angles ;)

Same should apply to all sports btw, Equal time/equal pay. Doesn't get fairer than that.