A new report found that 70% of sports now pay women the same prize money as men. Glen Poole considers the arguments for and against "equal pay" in sport.

I love women’s sport. One of my earliest sporting memories was running home from school at the age of eight, to watch Virginia Wade defend her Wimbledon title in 1978.

There have been other favourite over the years including Tessa and Fatima fighting for javelin gold in the eighties; Sally Gunnell breaking the 400m hurdles world record in the nineties; the GB curling team winning gold in Salt Lake City in 2002; Kelly Holmes bagging two golds in 2004 and the great list of women’s gold medallists in the rowing, boxing, cycling, equestrian and taekwondo at London 2012.

I’m also a champion of gender equality, so you may assume that I’m an unequivocal supporter of equal pay for women in sport. However, my love of sport’s raw individualism and the caring collectivism of equal outcomes don't make the best of companions.

Should the winner take it all?

For those of a rational, objective mind who have no issues with the individualistic, hierarchical nature of sport--- paying female champions the same as male champions makes no sense whatsoever.

Take a look at this table of world records for example:

Event Men’s Record Women’s Record 100m 9.58 seconds 10.49 seconds 100m freestyle swim 46.91 seconds 52.07 seconds Cycling 1km time trial 56.303 seconds 69.01 seconds Ski Jump 809 feet 418 feet Weightlifting (Clean & Jerk) 263 kg 192 kg Javelin 98.48 72.28 Long Jump 8.95m 7.52m High Jump 2.45m 2.09m Pole Vault 6.16m 5.06m Marathon 2:02:57 2:15:25

If you believe in equality in its rawest form, measured by hard scientific units like seconds and metres and kilograms, then there is no argument for “equal pay” for women in sport.

At the 2012 Olympics, not one single sprinter in the 100m Women’s Final ran faster than the slowest male sprinter who got knocked out in Round One, Heat One of the men’s competition.

When you think about performance-related pay, the question isn’t whether the gold medallists Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Usain Bolt should be worth the same prize money, the question is should Fraser-Pryce be paid more than Holder da Silva of Guinea-Bissau, who crossed the line last in Round One, Heat Four of the men’s competition in a time that would have won him gold medal in the women’s event.

Why is Holder da Silva worth less than Fraser-Pryce when he can run faster? Because he is a man. To some, that paradox, speaks not of gender equality, but “positive discrimination for women against men”.

Should female champions be given equal value

One example often cited by those who oppose equal pay for female sport champions is the tennis, a sport in which men often have to play more sets than women.

Some claim that his is unfair because men have to spend more time on court for the same pay. This is a weak argument. All tennis champions train for thousands of hours in their careers to reach the top of their game, the argument that they should be paid less because they may (or may not) spend a few hours less on court to win a championship is a minor detail.

It is reasonable, however, to argue that women should be paid less, because they play at a lower standard to men. Some campaigners for equality disagree and have successfully argued that the top women should receive the same as the top men in 70% of sports.

This is an example not of “equal pay for equal work” but of “equal pay for work of equal value”. It has been deemed, that winning a women’s competition is of equal value as winning a men’s competition.

This is a difficult concept for many sport fans to understand. When two men throw a javelin, it is easy to measure which throw has greater value in sporting terms----it comes down to a simple, objective question---how many metres did he throw the javelin?

But when it comes the question of whether winning the women’s competition is the same value as winning the men’s competition----this is a subjective question that will always produce conflicting answers.

One of the deciding factors seems to be whether a sport is seen more as a business asset or a cultural asset.

Take boxing, formula one and football as three examples. It’s extremely difficult to imagine the businesses behind these sports paying women the same as men.

However, when a sport is seen as a cultural asset, it becomes easier to make a case for the top women to be paid the same as the top men, because this is seen to be the right thing to do, from a cultural perspective.

The problem with equality is it never ends

In the vast majority of sports, if women were made to compete against men they would never be among the top earners. So we have created a tradition where women don’t have to compete against the best in their sport, they only have to compete against the best in their gender.

So if most sports have already come to the conclusion that special allowances should be made for women to create equality, then what about other groups? Why don’t we:

Pay disabled competitors the same as able-bodied athletes

Pay people over 80 the same as people in their twenties

Pay the best black swimmers the same as the best white swimmers

Pay the best white sprinters, the same as the best black sprinters

Pay the best transgender athletes the same as their “cisgender” peers

If Serena Williams is worth the same as Andy Murray when they win a grand slam, why isn’t the best wheelchair tennis player worth the same as Serena Williams? Does sport think that able-bodied women are more valuable than disabled men?

And what about the sports that allow women to enter both the women’s and the men’s competitions, like snooker and darts? If women can step up into the men’s game, how about letting boys under 16 (for example) enter women’s competition and see how they compare?

Most people believe in equality and think men and women should have equal pay for equal work. Most people are also comfortable with the idea that workers who consistently perform better are likely to get paid more.

But the trouble with “equal pay for work of equal value”, in sport and in wider society, is that it is an ever-changing concept defined by what certain people “feel” should be of equal value, from one week to the next.

So in conclusion, which approach is right---paying women the same or paying men more? Ultimately it's down to sport's governing bodies to make these decisions. but there is one thing worth remembering: men may get more prize money in 30% of sports, but they outperform women in 99% of sports.

---Photo Credit: K.M. Klemencic

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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