Carmen and I were having our normal Friday morning coffee together, and the conversation turned to the subject of padel as it often does. Carmen brought up an interesting question about whether professional padel was equal pay. I said that I was sure that padel was equal pay seeing as income equality and the gender pay gap were hot topics these days. So we took to Google to find out and were shocked by the answer.
Is padel equal pay? As at the end of the 2019-World Padel Tour season, padel is not an equal pay sport among the professional ranks. The gender pay gap in padel for the champion’s check varies from 29% at the low end up to 64% at the high end.
The size of the gender in padel is easily the biggest that I have seen in the different sports that I have been involved in. It certainly needs a closer look into why this might be.
An Earnings Gap That Is Glaringly Obvious
Thanks to the World Padel Tour publishing their “Normativa Tecnica 2019” on their website anybody can scroll through and see their prize money tables for the different tournaments side by side. It takes no more than a quick glance to clearly see the more than 60% gender pay gap.
Causes Of Gender Pay Gaps In Sports
One of the key factors leading to a historical gender pay gap in sports has been the lack of female representation at key management level. Sports like triathlon have got this right by appointing a woman president of the international federation. Padel still needs to gain sufficient female representation at an international federation level in order to make earnings equity a priority.
Media Coverage
Many sports justify their gender pay gap on account of male players gaining more media coverage, specifically television coverage, than female players. This excuse does not work for padel as the men’s and women’s tournaments have equal television coverage. What’s more, at least in Spain, television rights are negotiated on a tournament by tournament basis and not at different levels based on gender.
Economic Return On Events
One notable factor in sporting events is that they need to be commercially viable. No sporting event is able to survive if it continues making losses.
One economic model that has been cited is the difference between the WNBA and the NBA. WNBA events attract 7.716 spectators per game. On the other hand, NBA teams routinely attract crowds of over 20.000 spectators and those tickets are at a higher price point too.
Therefore the NBA justifies paying the players more than the WNBA on the basis that each NBA game generates millions more in ticket sales.
This line of reasoning cannot apply to padel events as the male and female tournaments are played on the same court and tickets sold cover games by both genders equally.
Biological Differences
Some studies have revealed that the gender pay gap in sports is linked to overall athletic performance. Male athletes have on average more muscle, higher blood volume, and more red blood cells and this accounts for as much as a 30% athletic advantage.
This argument holds true for the game of padel as well. You are more likely to see powerful and spectacular shots during a men’s game on the World Padel Tour with players sprinting out of the court to recover the ball after a smash and keep it in play.
As true as that may be, it has no impact at all on the economic viability of the tournament.
Impact Of The Gender Pay Gap On Participation
When it is no longer financially viable for an athlete to generate an income from a sport that athlete will leave the sport to pursue other opportunities.
Star athletes are what attract young players to the game. Lower prize funds attract fewer athletes which, in turn, creates fewer star athletes and, consequently, reduces the growth opportunities for the sport.
Surprisingly, padel has a much higher percentage of female participation than tennis in spite of having a much higher gender pay gap.
How Many Sports Hide The Gender Pay Gap
One sneaky way that many sports are able to hide/disguise their gender pay gap even to this day is by creating separate governing bodies and having different events/tournaments for each gender.
An example of this is the WTA and ATP in tennis. The WTA generates less revenue than the ATP and is therefore not able to pay players at the same level. However, at the four big Grand Slam tournaments where both genders are in the same event, tennis can get the PR boost by having equal pay at those highly public opportunities.
On the other hand, at least padel does not do what some other sports have done in the past is make the women’s and Men’s champions stand next to each other on the podium holding giant checks showing the vastly different prize money.
Padel tournaments have different podium opportunities for the women and the men and present identical trophies. The World Padel Tour keeps all reference to prize money in the background, out of the public eye.
That is exactly why I was under the impression all this time that padel was indeed equal pay.
Entry Level Padel Tournaments Have The Smallest Pay Gap
It is ironic that in the entire World Padel Tour the tournament that has the smallest gender pay gap is the Challenger Tournament. It is also the tournament with the smallest prize fund. These tournaments are mainly used by new professionals to gain the ranking points needed to qualify for the more lucrative tournaments on the tour.
All the Challenger Tournaments are concentrated in the second half of the season where players are competing for slots in the following year’s season.
The gender pay gap for the winner of a Challenger Tournament in 2019 was 29%.
Top Professional Padel Tournaments Have A Gender Pay Gap Of Over 60%
It is in the Open, Master, and Master Final tournaments on the World Padel Tour where the possibility of earning a living from padel exists. I have written an extensive piece about the different levels of the tournament and what the prize fund is for each. You can find that full break down by clicking here.
The gender pay gap at this top end of professional padel is over 60% with Open Tournaments in the 2019 season having the biggest gap at 64%.
There are 317 professional padel players on the women’s ranking list for 2019. I seriously doubt whether many players outside of the top ten will be able to cover their living and travel costs without having outside employment.
Female padel at WPT-level is very entertaining. Moreover, for amateurs trying to improve their game it can often be better to watch the females play, as the tactics and techniques are easier to compare with how padel should be played below the elite level.
I think the audience and sponsors should demand equal pay on the WPT for both genders as they both are very popular watching!