This is a hot topic right now and I just thought I would ask the SUP Zero folks what they thought. Obviously there are some strong feelings amongst the athletes as to why is it right or wrong to have equal prize money. What is the point of equal prize money? Does it encourage or discourage certain people?

I'll just put it out there that my opinion is this: First of all the event's need to be transparent about this and where the money comes from.
If the prize money is solely raised from high registration fees then it should be equal to the participants to the gender that are paying up to 200 per event. SO for example if there are 100 men entered at 200 and 20 women entered at 200 bux thats a huge difference and would not be fair to have equal prize money.
Another scenario is when the vendors/sponsors are supplementing the prize purse and request an equal payout which is fine with me.

What are some options?
Pay deeper in the mens field when there's way more men?
Sweep and weep concept-When a women finishes overall against the men then she wins the womens money and the men's money for that position?

What are your opinions and thoughts on this. It would be nice to get some ladies to chime in too

I see what you're saying as it is important where the money comes from. In sports in general, I always think about it by how much of a draw people are. More people will go to a PGA event, pay more for advertising, etc than an LPGA event so the men make more money.

In sup, it seems as though there are women who draw as much attention as the men, so r they should be paid equally.
Morally, I feel that equal work deserves equal pay, but sponsors also have to factor in where their return on investment comes from and pay accordingly.

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It's not a moral question, it's a business decision.

It's no more "immoral" to have less prize money for the women than it is to have less prize money for the kids classes, or the seniors, or the recs.

This is the least of the sup race worlds problems. As long as the promoter is clear about the distribution it's the ladies choice to race or not.

Besides the stunt Candice pulled at the orange bowl drafting off of her man in the 14 foot class just makes me care even less for these ladies, the lady that placed behind her didn't file a complaint because she didn't want to make any waves, the men would never roll over and take that crap.

People get paid to paddle standup surfboards in races?

That's freaking cool!!!!

Seriously though, I don't care.

If you don't think the prize is big enough... don't race... male female.

I thought that it was hilarious when they equalized the money in Grand Slam tennis events... the men played best of five... the women best of three... and they got the same money... BUT Anna Kournikova was playing at the time...so there's that!

SL