What's the issue with women's tennis?

The Game Room
41

I can’t follow the US open site at all. It doesn’t say which matches you are buying for.

Here is avery simple site that sells tickets for all the tennis majors. In every case the cost of the final round men’s matches are more expensive, Often double the price, sometimes triple or more. No “Murray factor” at work for most of these.

They run slower, move slower, serve slower and hit the ball slower. Objectively true.

If it helps, let me clarify my judgement of “skill level”. I see the men hitting shots just as accurately as the women, if not more so (the evidence of male vs female performance in all other bat and ball sports suggest this is likely to be the case…unless tennis is an anomaly for some reason) and they do it at greater speed and power (see my first point above). That to me shows greater skill, If you are going to argue against it then you’d be suggesting then women are either hitting targets more accurately or that their equivalent accuracy at a lower speed of play is in some just as skillfull as the men. I don’t buy it.
But of the three I’ll concede that this latter one has a degree of subjectivity in it so feel free to re-define skill level in a way that suits you and perhaps I’ll agree.

42

Which I’m not interested in. As I said all along I am purely passing comment on the sporting product itself. Look at my links above what do the ticket price discrepancies suggest to you?

I’m not interested in what is “important” to the sport. I merely make that point that…bums on seats…people are wiling to pay more for the men’s final than the women’s.

43

While that is indeed important, I’m not sure why you think it’s so much more important than what advertisers are willing to pay to place ads during those matches, or which athletes they are paying as sponsors. People are putting their money where they are getting the best value for their dollar. How they measure that (by better entertainment value or better ROI) may deliver different answers but I think the amount of money spent is an important factor.

44

I’m surprised and a little annoyed that we’re hashing out this subject again…because for the life of me, I can’t remember ANY time when women’s tennis wasn’t as shallow as a puddle.

On the men’s side, even the most ignorant follower of the sport (e.g. me) can pull up a plethora of big names. The women? Lessee…I remember, from the early 80’s, two superstars named Chris Evert Lloyd and Martina Navratilova. Then Steffi Graf came along and started blowing the doors off of everybody. Someone mentioned in another thread winning the final of the 1988 French Open 6-0 6-0, and frankly most of the crowd didn’t even look all that surprised. Then Monica Seles came along and became a Jeff Gordon-esque powerhouse, but sadly like Gordon couldn’t keep it up due to a deranged fan, whereupon Graf started lapping the field sideways. (IIRC she completed a career Grand Slam four times when all was said an done.) After she stepped aside, a pair of sisters named Venus and Serena filled the gap, and despite numerous stumbles became the faces of the sport for the better part of a decade. Meanwhile, Jennifer Capriati was rushed in too soon, flamed out in about a month, rehabbed, came back, then lasted two months before vanishing into the void forever, Martina Hingis came, saw, dominated for maybe a year, and left, Lindsey Davenport did something to make it to Virtua Tennis 2, Arantxzcxzs-something Sanchez-Vicario made some noise, Gabriela Sabatini did…something, and I vaguely remember someone named Kornikopia or Kasanova or Koonaboona becoming incredibly famous due to drooling horndogs in the Internet, and I’m pretty sure nobody saw THAT coming. Oh, and Jana Novotna blew like 9 championship points. You could list the competitive female tennis players of the past decade on post-it.

And it has nothing to do with physical limitations: women’s beach volleyball, soccer, snowboarding, skiing etc. are highly competitive on pretty much every level. Golf even more so; there hasn’t been a runaway success story in forever. (In addition to Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Rory McIlroy have had stretches of overwhelming dominance, and let’s not forget a couple of gentlemen named Jack and Arnie.) Maybe it’s the equipment, maybe it’s the intense demands of the sport, maybe it’s the expense, or the complexity of the rules, or the mental toughness required, something. But once we see an actual successor to the Williams sisters, don’t expect anyone to challenge her for a long time.

And you know what? I’m cool with that. Not every league has to be the NFL. If that’s the nature of the game, so be it.

And if you’re telling he that what’s selling the WTA is sex appeal, if the only reason people are watching are pretty legs and hairdos, I got just one thing to say…What’s your point? These are jocks, not public officials. It’s nothing of critical importance; their whole point is to be seen. If short skirts and bare midriffs are getting tickets out the window, they’d be damn fools not to exploit that.

Well, anyway, good luck convincing anyone to get paid less. :slight_smile:

45

They call them sessions instead. You can check elsewhere on the site to see which session is which, but the last session is the men’s final and the one before that is the women’s final and the men’s doubles final.

46

Well I’ve just checked out the last session and can see tickets prices quoted.
When I look at the previous day there are no prices available as they are not on sale yet so I don’t know how you can say they are about the same.

Where are you getting the equivalent ticket prices for the women’s and men’s final?

47

None of that is relevant to the point I was making. People are willing to pay far more to watch he men’s final than the women’s, that is a fact.

48

I’m not disagreeing with that. But if advertisers and will to pay similar money for ads during women’s tennis as they are for men’s then that’s equally valid. I don’t know if they are, but the endorsement money indicates that it’s somewhat close. Ticket prices at Wimbledon are one way to measure things, not the only way.

49

yeah, it shouldn’t be about gender equality in this. there should be some minimum pay and after that, pay should paid proportional to the revenue generated by viewership.

maybe due to glamour, women’s tennis may someday generate more money than men’s tennis, they should be paid more than men then.

50

You forgot Maria Sharapova.

51

And how can you miss the Belgians? That was some of the most fun tennis I remember in the past decade and a half: Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.

52

kim Clijsters was very likeable player.
Mary Pierce was very attractive, though i wasnt old enough to understand what is hot till her career’s later years.

53

BUMP.

I was the OP and nearly a year on, I have to say last nights match really might make the arguments made in the OP superfluous. Damn that was good tennis.
This is what I was saying, womens tennis needs to be good and enjoyable, like the men’s game has been for a decade and how the womens game was back in the 1990’s.

54

Agreed - if only they would shut the hell up!

55

If I could drop in this serve so to speak - I think the problem with tennis is so few people play it anymore that their just isnt the audience for it.

Around here some kids, mostly rich ones, take some tennis lessons and some of them go on to play a more serious game. Boys tend to drop out because their are so few collage scholarship opportunities for them. Now compare that to lacrosse which is a sport growing by leaps and bounds I’m seeing kids playing it more and more, high schools are adding it, and that all leads to growth at the professional level.

Now all the things mentioned already in this thread - you have to be someone well versed in the game to notice and understand the various types of play.