By Elliott West
“I have played in invitation events where the money just for turning up is more than what the [women’s] world champion gets – and I think that is disgusting, really. I just wish someone would put a proper women’s tour on and make us professional”.
Reanne Evans
Introduction
I have always been a champion of the growth and support of women in sports. It is true that this has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years but it still constantly fails to pass the litmus test for excellence. Broadcasters in the UK have started to get on the female bandwagon with the BBC and Sky predominantly showing Premiership and international football with other sports such as cricket, rugby and golf. Advances have also been made with a large increase of female presenters and additions to their punditry teams.
However, the biggest, glaring problem is the massive pay difference between male and female sportspersons. Having already cited the headline quote by Reanne Evans at the start of this piece, I would like to explore this matter further, the arguments for and against and how snooker and other sports can overcome this reoccurring problem and find ways to drastically improve pay and conditions for women who frankly only wish to be able to potentially earn the same money for excellence in their chosen field.
The Bones of Contention
I will always give credit for when credit is due and World Women’s Snooker has done amazingly well with the resources they currently have. The stark reality is though that a woman on their tour only wins £8,000 for winning the World Championship whilst, on the main tour, it is a staggering £500,000. This figure is often bandied about when debating this subject and those on the opposing side of the debate would argue that the main tour is open to all with those women who qualify through Q School or those such as Reanne Evans, Rebecca Kenna, and Ng On Yee receiving two-year invitational tour cards to the professional tour with Mink Nutcharut and most recently Singapore’s Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan or Baipat as she is known winning the Women’s World Championship this year with instant qualification for the main tour. Of course, there is no such thing as the men’s tour but to date in recent years, Mink is the only female player to have won a decent amount of money when she and Neil Robertson won the first year of the World Mixed Doubles, splitting the £60,000 two ways. This was Mink’s biggest pay cheque to date.
Snooker fans often accuse the women’s tour of being played to a lesser standard, not my words, theirs. They believe that sponsorship and investment will never come because, without a guaranteed audience and high ticketing revenue, all major investors will stay away. Although these are valid points, they clearly dodgeball the debate. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it theory frankly stinks. The prize money for women on their own tour is insulting and despite the constant rebuttals must be looked at. Please wake up and smell the coffee because this monetary migraine will only otherwise just fester and linger.
Someone said on social media that Reanne Evans was wrong to make her comments and she has the luxury of being able to play on both tours and the World Seniors if she was to be invited. Well for a start, Reanne is only 37 and you have to be 40 to be eligible for the World Seniors. Yes, Evans probably has more leverage than her female colleagues, being contracted into a number of punditry roles for Eurosport during the snooker calendar but frankly in my opinion, she deserves it. The lady wouldn’t have won the World Championship 12 times if she wasn’t highly gifted. To ridicule her comments as an unnecessary whinge, doesn’t help matters, surely she knows what she is talking about, she has been on the snooker since she was a teenager.
Get Better
Barry Hearn and others have said that female snooker player need to improve if they want to earn the big pay cheques. Easy to say but seeing as most of them play on an amateur tour that probably drains their finances by even turning up to events, events that are played in very low-key locations with a depleted audience. I would say that a lot of these players have second jobs and don’t have the long hours of practice that the professionals have. Some have even had the gall to attack Mink, saying that she has only made one 147 break in practice with others only compiling breaks of less than 50 in competitive matches.
That’s why some of the women resort to exhibitions. It is sad to say that they can probably earn more for a night’s work than a few days at a tournament. Reanne Evans is saying that and she still wins titles on the women’s tour, I am sure that Mink and Ng probably do too. It was only a few years ago that Reanne didn’t even have a snooker table to practice on Rebecca Kenna had to battle a men-only ruling in her local snooker association. We are not in the 21st century and yet it seems as if the women’s game takes a step forwards, there is a judder and that advancement goes backwards.
Afterthoughts
Women’s snooker has made advances in recent years but clearly still falls well short of the plate. Some wouldn’t even know that a women’s tour even exists with many of their tour events still held in low-key venues and coverage coming from an internet live stream if you are lucky enough. Sadly some throw nasty and snide remarks towards them, saying they are not good enough and should get another job. Snooker is hard enough to play well and even harder to a high-quality, consistent standard. Factor in being a mother, looking after a home and struggling to pay the bills and will probably get a glimpse of a player on the women’s tour of the few that compete on the main tour experience on a day-to-day basis. Moving from the women’s tour to the main tour is like the educational leap between GCSEs and A levels, you are climbing a mountain that is far steeper than you expected. I will probably get most of the usual comments when I publish this piece but I feel it is necessary to tackle the issues around this subject head-on. Snooker is essentially in a good place but it needs to be in a better one as far as women’s snooker, pay and conditions are concerned.
