When the Wimbledon women's singles champion is crowned next week, she will receive the same royal treatment from Queen Elizabeth II that the men's champion will enjoy. About the only difference in the ceremony will be the size of the winners' purses.
|  | | Jennifer Capriati seals her second straight Grand Slam title with a kiss. |
The women's singles champion will earn 92.5 percent of the purse for the men's tournament.
While the men's and women's champions of the U.S. Open and, for the first time, Australian Open will receive equal pay for their Grand Slam achievements, the French Open and Wimbledon continue to cut the purses for their women's champions.
At Wimbledon, this year's female lawn champ will receive approximately $54,000 less than her male counterpart. To boot, "there are no plans" to equalize men's and women's pay, a spokesperson for the All England Lawn Tennis Club said.
If there is any sport where inequality of pay is a real issue, it is tennis where the women's game has surpassed the men's in recent popularity. A recent ESPN Sports Poll revealed that out of 8,000 surveyed, more people considered themselves fans of women's tennis than of men's tennis.
That claim cannot be made in professional golf, soccer or basketball on a worldwide level. While NBA players make about 50 times more than WNBA players, that is because the male version of professional basketball, at least revenue-wise, dwarfs its female version, the WNBA.
"In other sports, women still don't have the tradition or the visibility," said Martha Ackmann, a women studies professor at Mount Holyoke College, who penned a New York Times opinion column two years ago on the inequality of Wimbledon's winners' purses. "But Wimbledon is tradition and is very visible, so without equal pay, it's laughable."
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Wimbledon purses
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Year
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Men
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Women
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Differential
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1971
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$5,300
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$2,120
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40 percent
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1976
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$17,668
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$14,134
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80 percent
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1981
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$30,531
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$27,421
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90 percent
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1986
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$197,889
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$178,100
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90 percent
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1991
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$339,239
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$305,315
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90 percent
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1996
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$554,798
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$498,965
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90 percent
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2001
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$707,749
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$653,036
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92.5 percent
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Pay converted using current exchange rate. Prizes awarded according to 2001 Wimbledon Compendium.
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WTA Tour chief executive Bart McGuire supports equality of purse values in Grand Slam events. "As the entertainment value, attendance totals, television ratings and overall interest in women's tennis have soared, the logic behind the equalization of prize money has become increasingly clear," McGuire said before the 2000 Wimbledon.
In the past, critics have said that men play longer matches -- best of five, instead of best of three -- and Wimbledon officials have said surveys over the past decade reflect the majority of the ticket-paying public who travel to watch men's singles.
"(Officials) at Wimbledon will do whatever they want to argue their point of inequality, using selective use of data in their favor," said Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates gender equity in sports. The foundation was founded in 1974 by tennis great Billy Jean King, a six-time Wimbledon singles champion.
In 1999, top women stars, including 1997 Wimbledon champion Martina Hingis and 1998 champion Jana Novotna, signed a petition demanding equal pay at Grand Slam events. Without equal pay, the women threatened to boycott future tournaments.
But Lopiano said equality probably won't happen until "the female players finally get collectively tired of being devalued," and actually follow through on their threat and boycott either Wimbledon or the French Open.
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on ...
Fans appetites for Wimbledon's traditional strawberries and cream appears to be insatiable. Some 60,000 pounds of strawberries will be shipped from Kent, England, to the All England Lawn Tennis Club throughout the course of the two-week tournament. The strawberries, which are packed in pods of 10, cost approximately $2.61 each.
Players could be asked to pitch in
|  | | Vladimir Guerrero, like other Expos players, could feel the pinch of taxes if the team relocates from Montreal to Oregon. |
If the Expos leave Montreal for Oregon, more than $270,000 of Expos outfielder Vladmir Guerrero's state tax bill would help pay for the team's new stadium if the current stadium funding proposal passes the Oregon State Legislature. Under proposed Senate Bill 978, 9 percent of professional athletes' state income tax would be earmarked for the construction of a new stadium.
Other state's have similar laws. However, while Arizona's new athlete tax reportedly could raise as much as $4 million a year to help offset the cost of the Cardinals' new football stadium, Oregon legislators calculate the athlete income tax alone will help offset bonds for the entire $150 million stadium project.
A recent Wall Street Journal article estimated that California's tax on athletes last year was about $94 million, a number that had tripled since 1995.
The art of fandom
While most youngsters grew up hoping to be the next Mickey Mantle, 24-year-old James Fiorentino just wanted to be the next Dick Perez, the world renown sports artist.
Fiorentino, who played baseball in college at Drew University, was the youngest artist to be featured in the Baseball Hall of Fame at the age of 15. Since then, Fiorentino's watercolor paintings have been displayed in the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Cycling Hall of Fame and the Roberto Clemente Museum in Puerto Rico.
After painting 10 cards in the 1999 Topps Gallery set -- like his predecessor Perez did with Donruss' Diamond Kings -- other card companies began to take notice of the budding star. Earlier this year, Fiorentino signed an exclusive contract as an artist for Upper Deck, the trading card manufacturer. As part of the deal, Fiorentino will design 60 cards -- called the Fiorentino Collection -- for the Upper Deck legends set.
"I think these cards will really put me on the map," said Fiorentino, whose name did not appear on the 1999 Topps cards.
Fiorentino's work can be seen on www.jamesfiorentino.com.
New billionaire boys club
So what if Major League Soccer is hemorrhaging money? According to Forbes magazine's recent issue on the 2001 World Billionaires list, two moguls with interest in MLS are among the 25 richest people in the world. L.A. Kings co-owner Phil Anschutz, who pumps mega bucks into MLS, is the 16th richest person in the world at $15.3 billion, while Metrostars operator John Kluge is 24th at $10.9 billion.
Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at darren.rovell@espn.com. He can be seen on ESPNNEWS each Wednesday afternoon and during his "Money Talks" segment each Sunday morning on SportsCenter.
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