The FINANCIAL TIMES' Ashling O'Connor wrote on female
tennis players seeking equal pay and noted that both the
French and Australian Opens increased the women's prize
money by "more than the men's to narrow the gap" to within
5% and 6%, respectively, while the "difference between the
pots at Wimbledon is still" 10%. WTA Tour Communications
Manager John Dolan: "Wimbledon didn't recognize the fact
that women's tennis is such a marketable sport when the
other grand slam events did, and that upset the players."
O'Connor added that "on average, each men's event is
allotted $33,000 more prize money" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 6/26).
The DESERET NEWS' Doug Robinson: "The men's game is boring.
It's slam, bam, thank you ma'am. Blink and you miss a
couple of points. ... The women are the real show. They
just don't get treated like it" (DESERET NEWS, 6/26).
MORE NOTES: Int'l Speedway Corp. (ISC) and Penske
Motorsports have accelerated the timetable for closing their
proposed merger, with a closing date now set to follow their
July 26 shareholders meetings (ISC)....In Indianapolis,
Robin Miller wrote that CART officials have voted to remove
Cleveland's Medic Drug Grand Prix race from the schedule and
"replace it with Road Atlanta." The deal "came apart
because CART wanted to increase its sanction fee" from $1.5M
to $2M in 2000. IMG, promoters of the Cleveland race, said
that "it can't afford that." IRL Exec Dir Leo Mehl said
that "there have been conversations" with IMG about a
replacement event "but nothing is official." Miller noted
that the IRL's "standard sanction fee is $1 million"
(INDIANAPOLIS STAR-NEWS, 6/27)....In Philadelphia, Stephen
Smith, on the NBA's special committee seeking to "speed up
the game": "How about reducing the shot clock from 24
seconds to 20 seconds, and changing the half-court violation
from 10 seconds to seven seconds?" (PHILA. INQUIRER, 6/27).
