Wimbledon: Women finally = men.
By on Feb 22nd, 2007 at 11:08 am
Wimbledon: Women finally = men.
“After years of holding out against equal prize money, Wimbledon bowed to public pressure Thursday and agreed to pay women players as much as the men at the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament. … Last year, men’s champion Roger Federer received $1.170 million and women’s winner Amelie Mauresmo got $1.117 million.”
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It´s the Sharapova effect. No doubt. :P
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 am#1 – Sharapova is SO beautiful!
And I had no idea the pay was different. Amazing to learn.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 amDo they charge the same price for a ticket to the men’s tournament and the women’s?
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:17 amWait a sec, less than %1 difference between the two prize purses, and there was public pressure?
Does this mean that the lady players should now play best-of-five?
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:17 amOr play as well?
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:21 amCrap, I heard about this years ago, but just assumed it was corrected back then. Finally, Wimbledon….
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:24 amI’ll have to agree w/ Dale here.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:25 amShouldn’t the women now have to play best of 5 now.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:26 amLet’s just make it a 2.4 million dollar prize and let everyone compete for it equally.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 amCrap, I’ve got people agreeing with me; I’m gonna have to post something pro-Bush now :-)
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 amDale is correct.
Equal pay for Equal work.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:31 amA contest called “Find the Illegal Immigrant” – a mock hunt for a student posing as just that – is being met with widespread protest on campus and receiving local and national media coverage.
The event, sponsored by NYU’s College Republicans, is planned for today in Washington Square Park from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The student posing as the illegal immigrant will wear a name tag saying so. Other students will try to find him or her, playing the part of border patrol agents and wearing nametags that say “INS,” referring to the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.
What morons. They go to college to learn how to be Barney Fifes?
Go. to. the. recruiter. idjuts.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:33 amTucson, Arizona | Published: 07.26.2006
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:37 amadvertisementThe average U.S. teacher salary fell 0.1 percent in the past school year to $46,953, while pay for superintendents rose 1.1 percent, according to a survey by the nonprofit Educational Research Service.
The decline in the 2005-2006 school year follows an increase the previous year, as measured by the National Education Association, of slightly more than 2 percent, below the rate of inflation.
Is sports now an acceptable topic on ThinkProgress???? May Jane Schneider and I discuss the Mets?????
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:38 amEqual pay for equal play.
Heh. Yet they still can’t dig a ditch in the heat of the summer.
Wimpledon.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:39 amtennis players have fuzzy balls?
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:39 am#12 “Find the Illegal Immigrant Contest”..
Already been done, Stupid Repulsivescums..
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 amNazi Germany, in the late ’30’s……
the ‘targets’ wore star of David armbands, and the ‘hunters’ wore badges with the letters SS……..
Yikes! I am a staunch feminist, and I more or less agree with Dale on this one. It’s impossible, but it seems to be true. Don’t scare me like that.
As for the contest mentioned in post #12, Republicans are bad enough, but College/Young Republicans blow my mind. The Republican student group at my campus are an ugly, mean-spirited, hateful lot, relentlessly pro-war and pro-torture (but too cowardly to serve), and willing conduits of rightwing Fox-style propaganda. These Karl Rove wannabes possess a level of cynicism, selfishness, ignorance, and intellectual dishonesty that I find disturbing in anyone, but breathtaking in a young person at a college campus. I view them as a bunch of little Nazi brownshirts.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:44 amIt must really be a slooooowwwww snoooze day if we are discussing over-paid (and most of the time, very arrogant) professional sports players.
Can we start a topic on Anna Nicole Smith?
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:46 amBritney?
Crap, I’ve got people agreeing with me; I’m gonna have to post something pro-Bush now :-)
Comment by Dale
Oh god no. Um, I totally disagree with whatever it is you’re saying. :)
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 amIs sports now an acceptable topic on ThinkProgress???? May Jane Schneider and I discuss the Mets?????
Comment by Exley
You do anyway…
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 amEqual pay for Equal work.
Nonsense. Sports is an entertainment business. They should be paid like all other entertainers and athletes, and that means pay should be commensurate with the revenue they generate, or are expected to generate.
I haven’t seen the ratings. I don’t know what the All England Club charges for tickets. I don’t know how much money they make off of each championship. But if more people care about the womens’ tournament than the mens’, then by all means, they should get paid more, and vice versa.
PGA Tour players make more money than LPGA tour players. Not because they’re better, or they work harder, but because more people want to watch them play. I don’t see this as a “they work just as hard so they should be paid just as much” issue. All of the discussion about who is more skilled or who plays more sets misses the point.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 am(yes, my plan for evil dominion over TP and it’s commenters is nearing fruition. Next step, Spudge_boy, then BigPapa.)
FWIW, while I don’t agree with your characterization of Republicans as being ‘bad enough’ (and I can’t speak to the College/Young Republicans), I think the contest in #12 is just plain stupid.
Now, if they were trying to track a liberal…. (stop it, quit trying to cause trouble :-)
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:49 amDale,
Actually, the difference between 1.170 million and 1.117 million is a bit more than 4.5%
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:49 amoh, and btw, /sarcasm for most of my previous post :-)
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 am#21, True, Zooey…But we always feel guilty about it.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 am#24, damn calculator
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:57 pm.053 million? That’s it?
I guess women’s tennis is really the only women’s sport (that men also have) that’s popular. So, I’d expect nearly the same pay.
Unfortunately, in other sports like basketball, the women’s side isn’t popular. So they CAN’T give the same amount of money.
Sorry folks, but that’s life.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm#21, True, Zooey…But we always feel guilty about it.
Comment by Exley — February 22, 2007 @ 11:55 am
But Exley, there are so many other things worth feeling guilty about! Voting Republican for instance…
I actually don’t mind the sports digressions that much! You are one of the few people of the opposing viewpoint that we can have a conversation with! If you were a troll on the other hand, we would be shooing you and your Mets adoration out the cyber door…
So go for it. If two Americans with wildly different political stripes can’t talk about baseball, this isn’t America anymore.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm#Dale,
Actually, the difference between 1.170 million and 1.117 million is a bit more than 4.5%
Comment by Peter — February 22, 2007 @ 11:49 am
Or about $565,000.00 – or the price of a house in my overpriced part of the world!
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:51 pmSKdeA,
Thank you for kind words and your blessings on the baseball talk. I appreciate them both….
LET’S GO METS!
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:09 pmI’m afraid I’m going to have to side with Dale and others on this one. Equal pay for equal work is the way it should be, which means they MUST play best of 5 rounds OR the men must now only play best of 3 rounds. We’re not even taking into account the money draw between the two competitions (NBA money draw vs. WNBA). Just talking about their performance on the court, they must play equal times now.
A perfect match in this instance would be as someone pointed out, to just have one mega prize and have both the men and women play for it. There’s absolutely no reason in tennis that women cannot play men.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 pmAs a former tennis player (not pro) I am all in favor of equal pay for equal services. BUT, a Women’s match is still best 2 out of 3 sets. The Men play Best of 5. Not very equal.
I am sure that the Ladies can handle an extra couple of sets with all their rigorous training. They are world-class athletes, right?
It is the equivalent of playing from the “ladies” tee’s in golf.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pmI know I’ll enjoy watching the 5 set rather than 3 set women’s matches this year!
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:14 pmIf that were the case, a woman would never win the championship. At the professional level, there’s simply too much of a difference physically speaking. Anybody familiar with tennis will tell you the same thing. Roger Federer would annihilate Maria Sharapova.
…all right, Federer annihilates everybody, but you get the point. The top women in the world would be hard pressed to beat any man in the top 50, maybe even top 100. Prize money should be the same for men and women, but having them play in the same tournament would be lunacy.
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm@ 35. I’m not so sure I’d say that Federer would “annihilate” Williams. Not saying that she would win, but who knows. The fact of the matter is, you don’t know until they actually play. This is NOT a contact sport like football.
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm@ 36. True, tennis is not a sport like football or basketball. Despite that, it’s still the case that the professional men are physically stronger than the women. You can tell just by watching matches. Yes, it’s possible for one of the top women to beat one of the top men. I just wouldn’t bet on it.
When Venus and Serena came onto the scene, their big advantage was power. Many times they just plain overpowered their opponents. That kind of power game simply will not work against men. Take the recent Australian Open, for example. In the semifinal between Federer and Roddick, they served at an average of 193 km/h and 202 km/h respectively on their first serves, with a drop of about 40 km/h on their second. In the final between Sharapova and Williams, they served 167 and 178 respectively. Keep in mind that Federer is hardly known for his power game, but he still handily outserves Serena in terms of speed. Roddick has toned down his serve, but he used to regularly serve around 230 km/h.
Heck, during the Australian Open broadcast, McEnroe said the same thing. I would take Federer 99 times out of 100 to beat any woman.
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:10 pm@ 37 I wholeheartedly agree that it would be extremely difficult. But everyone has their off day. As the saying in football goes, “Any given Sunday.”
That said, I still think that if they are making the same money now, they must at the very least play the same number of matches.
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 pmAs long women´s outfit is unchanged, I dont care they get paid the same. /joking
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:20 pmI am pretty sure Serena Williams when she is in the zone, can play better and beat a lot of the men players!
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:55 amIt does not matter what the pay difference was. That’s now irrelevant. What matters now is equal work for equal pay. Best of five sets now for the ladies. If that does not change, then the situation remains unequal only now on different terms.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:30 amEQUALITY is what COUNTS in this world…no joke!
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