The winners of the women’s and men’s singles tournaments at Wimbledon this year each receive £2M ($2.6M), "making this the tenth successive year of equal prize money for the champions of each sex," according to John Burn-Murdoch of the FINANCIAL TIMES. But although it "might look like women’s and men’s tennis players now compete on a level financial playing field, true parity is still a long way off." In '15 the top 100 men -- as ranked by prize money -- earned a total of $124.7M from singles tournaments, compared to $94.7M across the top 100 women. So "why the disparity?" Essentially, the Grand Slams and other large tournaments "are the exceptions to the rule of unequal pay." There are "two reasons for this: first, the high profile of these events means they have felt public pressure to redress the balance more keenly than smaller tournaments elsewhere." And second, "the value of the women’s and men’s tournaments at the Grand Slams in terms of ranking points is exactly alike, making it impossible to explain away any discrepancies for reasons of differing importance." Stepping back from individual tournaments to look at the men’s and women’s tours as a whole "shows the extent to which this imbalance prevails." Putting aside the Grand Slams, in '15 there were "twice as many events on the men’s tour" with total prize money pools of more than $1M than there were on the women’s tour. But the "good news is the gap is shrinking." So far this year the 100 highest-earning men’s players have pocketed 25.5% more than their female counterparts -- "the smallest the gap has ever been" (FT, 7/10).
