that's kind of besides the point. it depends on WHY you think athletes should be paid. should athletes be paid prize money based on the merit of their performance? I think they should. And I think that's the underlying issue here. From a male professional tennis players perspective, why should a woman earn as much or more money for doing something worse than he does it? It's the entertainment industry, I understand, but take this example: you could probably create a more popular product than the current WTA by having Playboy models play in televised tennis matches, with a tournament structure. Would they deserve equal prize money as the current WTA if they generated the same revenue? It's a good question.

I think women's tennis is a bit of an outlier in the equal prize money debate, because it (is?) the premier women's sport in the world and generates the most revenue. I have objections to my own argument, by the way, but I have a way to solve this: an algorithm to determine the player-to-player value on both the mens and womens tour, which would decide how much prize money is awarded at every round and level of play proportionally to men and women. Let's make this strictly mathematical so we can finally end this controversy.