Prize Money in Sport

Should Men and Women Receive Equal Prize Money in Sport?

The BBC recently carried out a study on prize money in sport, not surprisingly the results showed an overwhelming gap between the top prizes on offer for male and female competitors. Cricket, golf and football were some examples of the largest gaps in prize money.

Having spent a few minutes searching on Google the men’s world cup final in 2010 reportedly attracted ~900 million viewers, compared to ~ 60 million who tuned in for the woman’s world cup final in 2011. Should equal prize money be paid out? Simply put no.

BBC – The Biggest Prize Money Gaps

If we consider the FA cup for example where £1.8 million is paid out to the winner of the men’s competition compared to just £5000 for the women’s. The men’s competition filled the national stadium with a capacity of just under 90,000 and the woman’s final half filled a league one side’s stadium with just over 15,000.

In any walk of life supply and demand dictates cost, it is no different in sport. Attendances, TV money, advertising and sponsorship dictates prize money. You only have to look at what TV rights have done to the prize money/wages in the Premier League. That said there are a number of sports that have made prize money equal between male and female competitions.

BBC – Equal Prize Money

Tennis is an interesting example due to the way in which tournaments are interlinked and played in tandem. As the tournaments are linked sponsorship is effectively combined, and live audiences watch matches from both the male and female tournaments. This year Petra Kvitova and Novak Djokovic received 1.76 million each in prize money for winning the prestigious Wimbledon title. We must admit to not being huge tennis fans. Interestingly the format of the game differs, with men playing 5 match sets and women 3 match sets in comparison, so maybe it isn’t an even playing field after all. If we offered you a ticket to the either the men’s or women Wimbledon final which would you take? We know what our answer would be.

Another way in which to eliminate this discussion is to have cross gender competition, which is the stance some sports have taken for example snooker and darts. We don’t think in anyway the reduction in prize money seen is sexist but simply based on supply and demand. Where applicable we see nothing wrong with cross gender competition and this one day maybe the answer for individual based sports. Squash is bidding for equality by merging the Professional Squash Association and the Women’s Squash Association, which is due to take place on the 31st December.

However for team based sports such as football prize money will probably remain at opposite ends of the spectrum for the foreseeable future. It is up to governing bodies to ensure that women’s sport is given the chance to grow and increase its popularity. The Women’s Super League (WSL) had an average increase in attendances of 30% this season and over 33,000 tickets for the friendly between England and Germany have already been sold, which shows The FA are starting to get things right. Media coverage of the last day of the WSL was superb and is a big step in the right direction, but the game in comparison to that of the mens has some way to go.

We firmly believe the gap in prize money has to change but do think that prize money in any sport regardless of gender can be related to the equation below…

Attendances + Sponsorship + TV Money = Prize Money

For women’s sport to grow the media needs to provide the platform and from this sponsors need to put more money in.

Rob/Pilly