Mens Tennis Forums banner

Equal prize money debate (Rob Koenig and Tipsarevic agree with Gilles Simon)

119K views 2K replies 412 participants last post by  Dmitry Verdasco 
#1 ·
Apologies if this has been discussed on here before, but what do people think about this? I'm a huge fan of the women's game, probably more than the men's but I just can't condone the issue of equal prize money at all for several reasons. Women don't play as many sets as the men in the majors and ticket sales suggest that people would rather watch the men's game, although that gap is narrowing I think.
Also, there is much more of a gap between the top women and those
outside the top 50, and that's why they breeze through the early
rounds in less than an hour, as opposed to the men, who are almost
always given a tough test. Anyone got any views on this? Is suppose if I
posted this on the WTA board I might get a different response
 
#1,704 ·
I wasn't aware either, until I clicked on Istambul out of curiosity in the scoreboard and found out it was the year end event :lol:
 
#1,705 ·
Appears some former Polish ATP top 10 went to Mallorca to interview Rafa and Toni. The Radwanska/Errani match had just happened or something so the guy asked them about that. They weren't aware the WTA YEC was going on (and/or didn't know that the women even had one) and said they didn't watch it - they'd watch Federer in Basel, some of the tennis in Valencia, but women's tennis was unknown territory to them.

Don't think it's that odd that he wouldn't watch it. Why would he? Makes more sense to watch ATP if he's going to watch anything at all than to watch WTA in his spare time. Would be weirder if he didn't have any idea the WTA YEC existed, though when all's said and done I don't think ATP players really play much attention to the women's tour at all.
 
#1,706 ·
Appears some former Polish ATP top 10 went to Mallorca to interview Rafa and Toni. The Radwanska/Errani match had just happened or something so the guy asked them about that. They weren't aware the WTA YEC was going on (and/or didn't know that the women even had one) and said they didn't watch it - they'd watch Federer in Basel, some of the tennis in Valencia, but women's tennis was unknown territory to them.

Don't think it's that odd that he wouldn't watch it. Why would he? Makes more sense to watch ATP if he's going to watch anything at all than to watch WTA in his spare time. Would be weirder if he didn't have any idea the WTA YEC existed, though when all's said and done I don't think ATP players really play much attention to the women's tour at all.
Except they're obsessed with criticizing it.
 
#1,707 ·
Someone else said on Twitter Nadal used to argue with Ivanovic about equal prize money years ago but I am not sure where that information even came from. Still hilarious to find myself supporting Nadal on issue :haha:. I myself have not watched a single match from their YEC champs - only a point where Sharapova reached and won the point after Radwanska played a dropshot and then had a fit screaming and shouting and fistpumping to show how much it meant to her :rolleyes:.
 
#1,708 ·
But it's ok for male tennis players to roar, fist pump, and beat their chest when they win a point...but it's not ok for women to show such emotion because it's not feminine enough.

Right.
 
#1,709 ·
No use in arguing. Sharapova is disgusting, so is Azarenka and Serena (but she's calm and badass most of the time). I loved women's tennis when Kim and Henin were playing. It's a freak show nowadays.

PS No, it's not. I can't stand more than two pts of Nadulle matches but then again I'm not a fan of Djoker such as yourself :shrug:.
 
#1,710 ·
:superlol:

I am a Federer and Del Potro fan. I dislike Djokovic and Nadal.

I just don't see the point of being disgusted with women showing emotion when men do the same exact thing.
 
#1,712 ·
It's not emotion. It's wild screeching on slice BHs FFS. When you see how much hate Granollers gets here for his on-court antics, you realise why I and others can't stand the WTA.
Stop lying, Looner. I haven't seen a WTA player play a proper BH slice since 2008.
 
#1,713 ·
It's great how some men make fun of women just to make themselves feel better. :haha:

The WTA is going through a bad patch right now, just like the one the ATP will have with Tomic winning slams and everything. But it used to be great, and it will be again.
 
#1,715 ·
We make fun of the women but the WTA is really dire. The top players are like underpowered versions of Golubev; just hit the ball as hard as possible with no thought or tactics at all and whoever has more power wins, hence why Serena mops the floor with the field when she bothers.
 
#1,720 ·
GOATsol, you take this far too personally. I'm sure if you come back to MTF in 4 years' time and Tomic is winning slams, the opinions of people here will be far more extreme than the nice stuff we have to say about those females screeching on a tennis court somewhere in Turkey :angel:.
 
#1,722 ·
Where all the haters at? Go hate on Kneedull like you did on Janko. Oh yeah, I remember, you only hate on guys who speak their minds, not the silent haters and 'sexists' :eek:

But w/e who the hell cares anymore, I wanted to ask, if anyone here follows WTA and can anybody say if Kvitova is going to play Fed Cup final? I just remembered that Serbia is playing in the final vs Czech Republic and heard long ago something about Kvivota might be skipping it...
 
#1,723 ·
This is a men's tennis forum, so I doubt many people follow the WTA here.

If you go to tennis forum, many people follow the WTA.
 
#1,736 ·
Not like anything Nadal allegedly has said is wrong.
 
#1,740 ·
I was previously against the equal prize money, as i thought the guys worked more and had more spectators.

But i started slowly changing my mind, starting with the stats of the men and women finals at USO.

Yes, local player, Monday, Sunday, whatever. But, the women top 10 (which is a very volatile ranking, so the potential top 10 are actually 20 girls) have Russians, Chinese players, Aussie, American, German, Italian and French players, which in potential spectators is half the planet.

ATP we all know - 2 Spaniards, 2 Argies, a Swiss, UK, 2 Serbian, Czech and French - try to count the potential spectators and compared to China only...or the USA, or Russia..

So inevitably WTA would produce more money for tennis at the moment compared to ATP, or minimum the same amounts, so before we get a Chinese, an American and a Russian in top 10 ATP, forget about men deserving to get more money than the ladies.
 
#1,749 ·
Yep, bigger city, between Europe and Asia, it's clear WTA is the deal atm. And after the Olympics you won't get much attention to this event in London. Luckily a local will participate to drag some ppl on the stands.

And WTA has 2 tour's finals, answering the big demand for high quality tennis. Sofia is all tennis atm and will be till the end of it.

So yeah, you're right - nuff said
 
#1,750 ·
I find your points concerning nationality interesting latso (especially with a vastly undertapped market like China), do you have any numbers on viewers per branch of the sport? So how many viewers does the WTA have, and how many does the ATP have?

Basically we are just stabbing in the dark here. We are all biased in that MTF unanimously disregards women's tennis as boring. Because of this we are imo unable to imagine people getting excited about it and may thus underestimate the fanbase women's tennis has. TF on the other hand does the opposite ofcourse. So I would like to see numbers, does anyone have those?
 
#1,751 ·
What I know about numbers is that last year men's YEC had 250,000 spectators whereas women's YEC had 70,000. But that's difficult to compare because of different cities and the fact that men's YEC is two days longer as it has more doubles matches and it has two sessions in most days.

Anyway, in China women's tennis seems quite popular. Joint event in Beijing seems to have more spectators than men's only TMS in Shanghai. But Germany is another country that is currently better in women's tennis. Still, I'd think men's only TMS would be a bigger success in Germany than joint ATP 500 and WTA Premier Mandatory. Once a country has tennis culture, then ATP is always more popular, it has better quality. But if people care only about their countrymen/women, then WTA can be more popular, people only want to see their national stars do well.
 
#1,753 ·
I have another theory as well - it is cheaper and easier to form a competitor if your kid is a girl, compared to if you have a boy.

Simply because your own level would match hers until she is 14-15yo and if you decide you can be your kid's coach for the rest of her career.

This is smth very popular in WTA and far less in ATP. The transition period (getting a real good coach and staff) is a very expensive and unclear process, which involves possible sponsors, long term contracts, etc. while with the girls it's much easier.
Interesting point, I hadn't thought about that.
 
#1,757 ·
Well, we can't see anything as
While there was no official encomium from the top leadership for her extraordinary feat of becoming the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam, the state television telecast her matches live while the official newspapers praised her to the sky.
:mad:

We'll have to check Nike's numbers in China after this final... j/k

But despite there isn't solid info, i'm sure the big sharks are making their own forecasts and a Fedal would sell less than Li Na - whoever final.
 
#1,776 ·
But despite there isn't solid info, i'm sure the big sharks are making their own forecasts and a Fedal would sell less than Li Na - whoever final.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I genuinely don't know. However, since you clearly don't know either, I do think you're wrong to make that assumption. Federer and Nadal are huge global stars and the ATP is more popular overall than the WTA. The extent to which the 'home star' phenomenon counteracts that probably varies hugely country to country, culture to culture and sport to sport.
 
#1,760 ·
118 pages of bull. Now comparing this with an average life example:

There's a Mcdonalds down the road. The employees there serve an average of say 5 people per minute. They earn £7.60 per hour.

There's a Burger King across the street from the Mcdonalds. The employees there serve an average of about 3 people per hour. They earn £7.60 per hour.

Now if Mcdonalds were the ATP and Burger King were WTA, which Tennis organisation sells the cheapest double cheeseburgers? Wait.. no, there was a point in there somewhere.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pirata. and arm
#1,770 ·
I don't think you can use the spring as a comparison but you can definitely do it with 5000m. Both men and women run the same distance. Women do NOT run 3000m.



This is a fine example of BS and lack of reasoning as well as that other post about 3 countries being the important places (typical of some Americans' reasoning, of course).
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top