All Sport Report

It’s finally happened, the All England Club has gotten it’s act together and evened the playing field, or court as it were. For the first time in nearly a century and a quarter the women competitiors at Wimbeldon will earn the same amount of money as the men.

Wimbeldon is the biggest, most prominent tennis tournament and one of the most popular sporting events in the world and though the margin in difference of pay has slowly decreased over the years the women weren’t being treated as equal. Other major events already had an equal pay structure in place including the US Open and Austrailian Open.

The French Open still has a little ways to go, the overall winners are awarded the same money, but the men’s purse overall is larger than the womens, so the secpnd and third finishers among the men would take home more than their female counterparts.

It’s reported that it will cost in the neighborhood of one million dollars to make the men’s and women’s purses for Wimbeldon even across the board, but it’s certainly going to be money well spent and for those of you who site the men’s best of five sets workload to the women’s best of three as your reasoning behind why you feel men should earn more here’s a few thiongs to think about:

Roger Federer won the Australian Open in three sets, that’s less work than he could have done. Should he have made less money for having been so much better than his opponent that he didn’t work for as long as he could have?

Raja Bell of the Phoenix Suns plays an average of 37 and a half minutes to Steve Nash’s 35 minutes. Nash averages four more points and 9 more assists per game, should Bell earn more because he “works” more?

Center Brad Richards of the tampa Bay Lightning spendes more time on the ice than team mate Vincent Lecavalier, despite Lecavalier having 19 more goals and ten more assists, just because Richards plays more per game does it mean he’s worth more?

Okay maybe these examples are a bit extreme but I’m trying to illustrate a point - the women who play professional tennis at this level are every bit as talented as the men and in my opinion often offer more entertaining matches, so it’s only right that, espescially on the biggest stage tennis has to offer, they make the same amount of money - even if the men have a chance of being out there a little longer.