You cannot be serious!
BBC pays Martina £15k for Wimbledon as McEnroe gets TEN times as much
MARTINA Navratilova is paid just 10 per cent of the amount handed to fellow BBC Wimbledon pundit John McEnroe, she has revealed.
The tennis star re-ignited the Corporation’s gender pay row, accusing it of being an ‘old boys’ network’.
Three-time Wimbledon singles champion McEnroe, 59, is among the BBC’s top- paid talent, earning between £150,000 and £199,999 a year.
Now Miss Navratilova, 61, has said she was paid around £15,000 for a similar role, despite being assured by the BBC she was paid an amount ‘comparable’ to that of male colleagues. ‘It was a shock because John McEnroe makes at least £150,000,’ she told Panorama, which is shown tonight on BBC1.
‘I get about £15,000 for Wimbledon and unless John McEnroe’s doing a whole bunch of stuff outside of Wimbledon he’s getting at least ten times as much money.’
Miss Navratilova, who won a record nine women’s singles titles at Wimbledon, added: ‘ We were not told the truth, that’s for sure.
I’m not happy, it’s shocking, it’s still the good old boys’ network. ‘The bottom line is that male voices are valued more than women’s voices.’ The BBC insisted the roles were ‘simply not comparable’ as they performed ‘different roles’. But Damian Collins MP, chairman of the Commons’ digital, culture, media and sport committee said there could be ‘no excuse’, adding: ‘This is wrong, and clearly no one was considering wider issues of allowing such a vast pay gap to exist.
‘We will have further questions on this for the BBC.’
McEnroe made about 30 appearances for the BBC at Wimbledon last year, compared with Miss Navratilova’s ten appearances. On top of 12 live match commentaries, McEnroe co-hosted regular slots with Sue Barker as well as highlights programmes and shows for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Meanwhile, Miss Navratilova did three live commentaries, four highlights appearances, one video and two studio appearances.
The gender pay gap has been in the headlines since salaries of top BBC talent were revealed last summer. Radio 2’s Chris Evans topped the list on more than £2million, while the highest paid woman was Claudia Winkleman at between £450,000 and £499,999.
An internal review found a 6.8 per cent gender pay gap – but ‘no evidence of gender bias in pay decision-making’.
The Corporation has tried to correct imbalances by asking some male stars to take pay cuts while giving rises to women.
The BBC said: ‘Martina is one of a number of occasional contributors who is contracted to carry out a fixed volume of work and paid per appearance. The BBC believes her pay reflects what she is asked to do, her time commitment, her level of broadcast experience, profile and track record and expertise.
‘John is contracted to be on call for the BBC across the entire 13 days of the tournament.’ It said McEnroe’s pay reflected that he was considered the sport’s best commentator and his contract stopped him working for other UK broadcasters without permission, adding: ‘Gender isn’t a factor.’
Tennis is used to pay battles between the sexes when it comes to competitors’ prize money, but that now looks set to spill over into the commentary box at Wimbledon.
Martina navratilova has revealed that John Mcenroe is paid, minimally, 10 times more than she is for the expert analysis the two provide during The Championships for the BBC.
The Czech-American legend tells a wider BBC Panorama investigation this evening — Britain’s Equal Pay Scandal — of the disparity between what they receive for their services over the iconic fortnight. she has instructed her agent to ask for more money and relates her upset when discovering the different remuneration scales.
‘Overall it was a shock because John Mcenroe makes at least £ 150,000,’ says navratilova, a long-time campaigner for equality in different areas of life. ‘i get about £15,000 for Wimbledon and unless John Mcenroe’s doing a whole bunch of stuff outside of Wimbledon, he’s getting at least 10 times as much money.’
Furthermore, navratilova alleges she was told she was paid a comparable amount to men doing a similar job: ‘We were not told the truth, that’s for sure. (i’m) not happy, needless to say. i mean it’s shocking, it’s still the good old boys’ network. And you know the bottom line is that male voices are valued more than women’s voices.’
The programme estimates that Mcenroe appeared about 30 times for the BBC at Wimbledon last year, compared to his female counterpart’s 10 appearances.
BBC sport told Panorama: ‘John and Martina perform different roles in the team, and John’s role is of a different scale, scope and time commitment. They are simply not comparable. John’s pay reflects all of this. Gender isn’t a factor.
‘Martina is one of a number of occasional contributors who is contracted to carry out a fixed volume of work and paid per appearance. The BBC believes her pay reflects what she is asked to do. Along with sue Barker, John is regarded as the face of our Wimbledon coverage. He is a defining voice within the BBC’s coverage.’
Gender politics are rarely far below the surface in tennis, with Andy Murray establishing himself as a powerful voice from the men’s side of the game arguing for equality.
Wimbledon put the prize money argument to bed in 2007 when it became the last of the four Grand slams to introduce full parity. That does not extend to all levels further down the game and it remains a sensitive subject.
Mcenroe became directly involved in the issue just before Wimbledon last year when he was asked Williams the greatest about could claims tennis be described that player serena as of all time.
While acknowledging her greatness as the best female ever, he refused to go along with such a straightforward analysis. ‘if she had to just play the circuit — the men’s circuit — that would be an entirely different story,’ he said, speculating that ‘she’d be like 700 in the world’. Williams was unimpressed, asking amid the ensuing storm that he ‘please keep me out of your statements that are not factually based’. Blessed with an extremely sense of humour, sharp it mind is Mcenroe’s and wry capacity for original thought and provocative analysis that have made him the star of the BBC team since he started appearing in the late nineties. He works a very busy schedule during the major tennis events as he is also in huge demand from the big American and international broadcasters, often ducking from one studio to another for his various stints.
Mcenroe could therefore cite that there is very much a market rate for his services.
in terms of the BBC, his clearest parallel would be with Michael Johnson. Athletics is another sport that the Beeb still covers extensively with comparable levels of interest between men’s and women’s events, and Johnson has also proved himself to be a peerless analyst who can reach out to an audience well beyond the hardcore fan.
While navratilova can definitely boast a superior playing record by any measure — 18 Grand slam titles to Mcenroe’s seven, for example — few would consider her to be an equal draw as a broadcaster.
The parity issue in tennis is not one that is likely to go away. As
Sportsmail revealed just before the recent Australian Open, novak Djokovic has become a strident voice in declaring that the men should be fighting harder to secure themselves better levels of pay and more sympathetic scheduling.