I was stunned to read that the DA considers one of the problems in South Africa to be the sexist salaries paid to women sports team members.  They apparently laid a complaint with the Commission for Gender Equality after discovering that female cricketers in South Africa get a maximum of R10 000,00 a game – which is more than I thought they would be getting, but male cricketers in South Africa get approximately R46 000,00 per test and more if they win the test.  I have written about this before, and for me it all gets down to who the audience is and if it does not get down to who the audience is, then I ask those who have a contrary opinion as to who will be paying for it?  In other words, if a women’s cricket test match in South Africa has 1000 spectators and does not earn much from television coverage, if indeed there is demand from the TV audience (which of course is both male and female), where exactly is the money going to come from to give this type of increase?  

When I wrote about this before some lady wrote on my blog that you needed more money to be put into the sport before you would get results, and that is true of course, but it is  also true of every business and every sport – if we pumped millions into chess, we would have a lot more people playing chess.  If we put chess on television all day and all night, we have a lot more people playing chess – but is that how a business or sport works?  Is it going to be held up by artificial rules, forcing people to be exposed to something that does not interest them and making sure that all people are paid equal amounts – this is beginning to sound a bit like socialism – for competing in the same sports, irrespective of how talented they may be, or how much commercial success they may have in terms of attracting crowds or people?  

To me, I believe that the market should dictate and I would ask those ladies in particular, who are going to reply on this blog, to tell me honestly if they have ever gone along to a stadium to support South Africa’s female cricket team or if they have ever watched it on TV or have any desire to watch it.  Even if sexism was the problem, If every woman in South Africa supported the female cricket team, then regardless of whether or not there is any male interest in it, it would be a huge commercial success.  Advertisers would fight for advertising space during their games, TV stations would have bidding wars as to who would have the right to flight their games and there would be no problem with raising money for the sport.  It seems to me that sometimes politicians really waste our money – after all, if the Gender Commission decides to take this issue up, we as the taxpaying public will be paying for an investigation into the male cricket team compared to the female cricket team as well as Bafana Bafana compared to Banyana Banyana, hearings, commissioners and report backs.  

It is actually the kind of topic politicians love, because instead of talking about issues like Nkandla, you can divert public attention with absolute nonsense.  I am all for anyone who thinks it is a good idea signing themselves up for a special tax.  To me it is like Samsung asking for money on the basis that both they and Apple make similar types of Smartphones, but that Apple earns much higher profits, which they do.  Is that not unfair to Samsung?  Shouldn’t we investigate why Samsung cannot make as much as Apple? What about people who play action cricket?  Shouldn’t they also be promoted on TV, and paid huge amounts to play action cricket even if there is not that much spectator interest in it?  For those who do putt-putt, perhaps claiming that the basics come from the game of golf and why should golfers earn more than the world putt-putt champion?  

The second you leave business and economic principles, you get into a world of government subsidies and taxpayers having to pay for the equality of others and that may make sense in a political sphere or in human rights, but it surely cannot when it comes to people’s leisure time?