Equal Promotion Takes Center Stage

The original draft of this post opened with the fact that the primary point of contention in the U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team’s ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation isn’t about equal pay, but rather equal promotion, marketing, and opportunity. In making that point, I referenced an article from the Atlantic published in August of 2019. Yesterday this story exploded back into the headlines due to language used in court documents filed relating to the gender discrimination lawsuit earlier this week.

The official position of the US Soccer Federation, as reflected in the court documents, is that male players have “more responsibility” and that men’s soccer “requires a higher level of skill” than the women. I am shocked at what the US Soccer Federation submitted to the court in this case. This is not because blatant misogyny is at the core of the issue, but rather because it is so deeply rooted that the US Soccer Federation thinks that it is a valid legal claim.

So what does this have to do with tennis? While I had the match length data from the 2020 Australian Open discussed yesterday, it also occurred to me that I could also use that information as a proxy for examining how the tournament promoted matches for both the men and the women. To do this, I examined the number of matches that had been assigned to the larger courts at the tournament this year.

There are 5 “premiere” courts used at the Australian Open. Following is a table of those courts, capacity, and the number of matches played in each venue for both the men and the women. I should note that I included Court 3, which is the twin of the court formerly known as Court 2. Court 2 is now known as the 1573 Arena. I am sure sponsorship opportunities are available for Court 3.

The women were assigned to the largest venue, Rod Laver Arena, more times than the men. The men were assigned to the second to largest venue, Melbourne Arena more times than the women. In a related note, Australian Ash Barty played all of her matches in Laver Arena while Nick Kyrgios drew Melbourne Arena for all of his matches with the exception of when he played Rafael Nadal, which was in Laver. In terms of capacity, the women’s matches had about 52% of the seating available to spectators.

I have to give the Tennis Australia and the schedulers for the Australian Open an solid “A” on this one. Maybe they caught a break with the current marketable stardom of Ash Barty, but the numbers were a lot better than I had anticipated. Certainly they did a lot better on this front that the US Soccer Federation.

1. “What the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Needs More Than Equal Pay,” Maggie Mertens, The Atlantic, August 3, 2019.
2. “US Soccer claims it won’t pay women equally because being a male player requires more skill,” Lauren M Johnson, CNN, March 12, 2020, viewed March 12, 2020.
3. “Women Get Equal Pay, But Not Equal Billing, At Wimbledon,” Carl Bialik, FiveThirtyEight, July 9, 2015, viewed March 9, 2020.