xivarmy
Well-Known Member
Honestly most of the gap (entertainment-wise) is caused by money. Where there's more money for the men's sport than the women's you naturally get a higher degree of competition in the men's game because people can play the game as their job and live off it - so more people are inclined to try for the dream.
Tennis having been a sport picked as one where it's "as fun" has been the most-equitable situation $-wise of any sport for a very long time - with the grand slams, the biggest tournaments of the sport, providing equal prizes for both mens and womens singles tournaments.
Soccer's been getting there - partially driven by the relative success of north american teams in the womens game vs lack thereof in the mens. But it still lacks the sponsorship and television deals at the club level to really thrive.
Hockey has a problem where there's only two competitive nations in the women's game (canada and the us). Watching either of them play teams from the rest of the world is just not much fun (like watching a major league team play a minor league one). It also has lacked a league setup so that the players can make a decent living and broaden the playerbase.
So with these sports that lack well supported professional leagues you have a bit of a chicken and an egg situation - because there's not as much money in the sport, there's less people trying to play it - especially on a worldwide basis. Which leads to a poorer quality of competition which is used to justify there not being a league or the league not getting good tv/sponsorship deals.
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Incidentally amateur sports that don't receive much coverage outside the olympics for *either* gender - do tend to be equally fun to watch regardless which gender is competing
Tennis having been a sport picked as one where it's "as fun" has been the most-equitable situation $-wise of any sport for a very long time - with the grand slams, the biggest tournaments of the sport, providing equal prizes for both mens and womens singles tournaments.
Soccer's been getting there - partially driven by the relative success of north american teams in the womens game vs lack thereof in the mens. But it still lacks the sponsorship and television deals at the club level to really thrive.
Hockey has a problem where there's only two competitive nations in the women's game (canada and the us). Watching either of them play teams from the rest of the world is just not much fun (like watching a major league team play a minor league one). It also has lacked a league setup so that the players can make a decent living and broaden the playerbase.
So with these sports that lack well supported professional leagues you have a bit of a chicken and an egg situation - because there's not as much money in the sport, there's less people trying to play it - especially on a worldwide basis. Which leads to a poorer quality of competition which is used to justify there not being a league or the league not getting good tv/sponsorship deals.
----
Incidentally amateur sports that don't receive much coverage outside the olympics for *either* gender - do tend to be equally fun to watch regardless which gender is competing
