The unequal treatment between men and women doesn’t ever seem to stop since it’s been reported that tennis legends John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova’s pay scales are wildly unbalanced for their Wimbledon commentating. Apparently McEnroe makes about ten times as much as Navratilova does and yet doesn’t do much more to earn that kind of pay. The BBC Panorama however has begged to differ as they’ve stated that McEnroe gets paid commensurate with his work and experience as he does a great deal more and has more time in as a commentator than Martina does. In some ways this feels as though the BBC is attempting to cover itself for yet another pay discrepancy between men and women since John and Martina have been considered the best in their sport during their time and yet still earned far different amounts during their time on the court.
This has been a running problem in many sports over the years as well as in the business world but here and now it seems highly unfair. If McEnroe is in fact doing a great deal more work then his price should still be slightly lower than his $200K salary that he’s being paid. Martina is only making a fraction of this and is doing roughly the same commentating job that McEnroe is. The disparity between their pay is so great that one can just barely fathom how anyone would be able to justify this and explain it away. But that’s just what the BBC does. They’ve put a tremendous amount of stock in McEnroe and virtually tossed Martina a bone for her work, which is about as insulting as it can get really. The kind of disrespect shown to women in this sport is nothing short of appalling as it shows the utter disdain that people still have for women’s sports.
Credit is due in this case and a much more balanced rate of pay is due as well. Honestly a lot of athletes seem like they’re being vastly overpaid but in those sports where women and men compete in equal measures it’s about time to stand up and recognize that men are being given the longer end of the stick for the act of simply holding on and doing what’s expected of them. At the same time women are holding the other end of that metaphorical stick and are being told that they’r being given what they’ve earned while men hang out on the other end with all the leverage in the world and not as much of the work. It’s time for this to stop really. If Martina is in fact not doing as much then the issue of being paid as much needs to end, but McEnroe’s salary still needs to go down. If she is doing just as much then the scales need to seriously balance and someone needs to come to the realization that women need to get paid just like the men do.
It’s not strictly a boys club anymore when it comes to sports.
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