Wimbledon has finally agreed to equal pay. The NY Times reports:

- After years of holding out against equal prize money, Wimbledon bowed to public pressure Thursday and agreed to pay women players as much as the men at the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament.

The U.S. Open and Australian Open have paid equal prize money for years. The French Open paid the men’s and women’s champions the same for the first time last year, although the overall prize fund remained bigger for the men.

My views are pretty much uniform on the equal pay issue which I had expressed in a detailed post about a year back:

I scoff at the idea (of equal pay). The issue is not about women’s rights. The issue is not about equality. The issue is about market worth. If women’s tennis is more sellable, I would not grudge it even paying more than men’s tennis does. I do not like that the other 3 Grand Slams have succumbed to the pressure tactics in one way or another, at one point or the other other.

Women’s tennis and men’s tennis are different sports. So if one has more spectators than the other, one gets more revenue and distributes more to the players.

Equality in pay is not the right answer. If the women attract more money, pay them more; if they attract less money, pay them less. I don’t see why equal pay should ever even come into the equation in the given scenario.

The pay issue in tennis has all the ingredients which captivate the mind - authority versus player, man versus woman. The issue has reached boiling point with the announcement of the All England club. Reports CNN:

The All England club announced on Tuesday that its singles winners would receive a four percent increase, but with the men’s champion receiving 30,000 pounds ($51,000) more than his female counterpart.

This leaves Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam which gives away less prize money to its champions. French Open announced equal pay for it’s champions earlier this year. However, they still give more money to the men compared to the women. The US Open gives it’s prize money down the middle though as seen by the 2005 prize money distribution.

The women are fuming. Former player’s Chris Evert and Billie Jean King’s views from the same CNN article:

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