adminSports need to engage “in the battle for gender balance and fairness,” says UK Minister for Sport Helen Grant after a BBC Sport study into prize money found 30 percent of sports reward men more highly than women.
The biggest disparities in prize money were found in football, cricket, golf, darts, snooker and squash.
“There is a gap, it needs to be closed, but it’s not going to happen overnight. We know that women’s sport is very exciting, we know it can draw really big audiences, but we need more media coverage and more commercial investment,” Grant said.
“It’s not just about the bottom line and profits and the return on investment which I believe they will get, it’s also taking part in the battle for gender balance and fairness in the 21st century.”
A total of 56 global sports were looked at in the extensive study. Out of 35 sports that pay prize money, 25 pay equally and 10 do not. Fourteen sports, including rugby union and hockey, do not pay any prize money at all.
Five sports did not provide information for the investigation and men and women compete alongside each other in horse racing and equestrian. Athletics, bowls, skating, marathons, shooting, tennis and volleyball have all paid equal prize money since before 2004.
In the past decade, nine more sports have starting doing so with five – diving, sailing, taekwondo, windsurfing and some cycling events – achieving equality in the past couple of years.
Grant was encouraged by the number of sports which do pay equal prize money, adding: “In 70 percent of sports there is parity and that’s great and that’s what we want. But we also want the others moving in that direction, too, and I feel it will happen when the full potential of women’s sport is seen and realised.”
Female footballers are rewarded significantly less than their male counterparts.
For winning this year’s World Cup in Brazil, Germany received more than £21m more than Japan’s women did after they were crowned world champions in 2011.
This season’s men’s FA Cup winners, a competition watched in more than 120 countries, will secure £1,8m in prize money while the team who lift the Women’s Cup will net £5 000 – the same amount as the winning semi-finalists of non-league competition the FA Vase.
The Football Association has said men’s and women’s football i incomparable, describing them as “polar opposites” in global reach.
Kelly Simmons, the FA’s director of the national game and women’s football, said: “The men’s game is a huge multi-million-pound industry so when you compare it to the women’s game, which until three or four years ago was played by amateurs, the gulf is enormous.
“We are investing £12m in women’s football this year but we want to direct that investment where we think it will have the biggest impact and at the moment we do not think that is in prize funds.
“However, we are reviewing it and are looking for a commercial partner to take the women’s FA Cup to bigger audiences.”
Women golfers can earn a handsome living on the LPGA Tour, with Michelle Wie taking home £452 000 this year for winning the women’s US Open.
But the American’s reward was considerably less than the £1m cheque received by 2014 US Open winner Martin Kaymer. Ivan Peter Khodabakhsh, chief executive of the Ladies European Tour, said he was striving for parity in prize money.
“The current significant difference in the prize money between men’s and women’s golf cannot be justified, taking into consideration the competitiveness and quality of professional women’s golf worldwide,” he said. – BBC.
Online Reporter