Equal pay for women in professional sports… but tennis?

Today on Yahoo, they are promoting an article “On Great Jobs that Profit Women: Five Flexible Careers with Man-Sized Paychecks”.

It made me think of a sports and gender-related issue of equal pay.

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Much has been made of women and men having equal pay in professional sports.

In most cases, I have no problem with it.For something like the NYC Marathon, the men and women each run 26 mi 385 yards… Equal pay? Sure. And there are other fair examples of situations in which men and women should get equal pay.

But why is there equal pay in men’s and women’s tennis?

The French and Wimbledon tennis championships award the winners the same amount of prize money. Why?

The men play best of 5 sets and the women play best of 3 sets. The revenue generated is not equal based upon TV time. Is there a reason women can’t play best of 5 sets?

The people running the French (and Wimbledon) tennis championships should have pushed back to Venus Williams et al and said, ‘You want equal pay, play an equal number of sets.”

It seems pretty obvious. Am I missing something?

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(photo sports.vgreets.com)

A letter to Justine Henin – Congratulations on your retirement from tennis

Dear Justine –

Congratulations on your retirement. You have provided us with great tennis including 7 Grand Slams and 117 consecutive weeks as the world’s top player.

We appreciate your dedication and the entertainment you provided. We greatly respect your business-like attitude and the lack of self-promotion that is uncommon these days.

You will be greatly missed as a player leaving at the top of your game. You may want to check with Jim Brown and Barry Sanders for advice on how to handle it.

Best wishes….

Maria S

PS. We do secretly hope you will change your mind and come back.

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(Not Maria Sharapova)