When we talk about inequality in sports, people often gravitate toward examples like pay gaps, sponsorship disparities, or uneven media coverage. But sometimes, the inequality is quietly and systemically baked into the very rules of the game. Tennis – which by many metrics is one of the most gender equitable sports – offers one of the clearest cases.

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At the four Grand Slam tournaments – the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open – men play best-of-five sets while women play best-of-three.

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On the surface, that might seem like a minor difference. But in practice, it has massive ripple effects that disadvantage women athletes.

Per The Athletic, the average men’s Grand Slam match lasts 2 hours and 54 minutes, while women’s matches average 1 hour and 40 minutes. That’s a built-in gap of more than one full hour every single time a match is played. Multiply that hour by hundreds of matches across a tournament, and the disparity is staggering. 

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This time gap matters for two big reasons. The first is media exposure. Plain and simply, the longer a match lasts, the more airtime it gets. That’s more highlights, more storylines, and more face-time for athletes. Men’s matches naturally dominate broadcast windows, while women simply aren’t on screen as long.

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The second is commercial (or sponsorable) inventory. In sports, airtime typically equals revenue. More minutes on court mean more sponsorship slots, more ads shown, and more branding opportunities. By playing shorter matches, women athletes are inherently set-up to generate fewer commercial impressions for their sponsors and less exposure for their sport.

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It’s not that women aren’t talented enough, exciting enough, or marketable enough. It’s that the system is designed in a way that automatically gives men more exposure, more time to connect with fans, and more commercial value.

This isn’t a new critique. Billie Jean King has been vocal about the impact of match length for decades. As she’s pointed out, if women are consistently given less time on the biggest stages, then of course they’ll have fewer opportunities to build the same kind of cultural footprint as their male counterparts.

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The reality is that this isn’t just about tennis; it’s about broader systemic barriers across women’s sports that hold the industry back. Things like women’s leagues playing shorter seasons, receiving fewer prime-time broadcast slots, or being forced into smaller venues. Each of these decisions (which are rooted in outdated structures) unfairly chips away at the visibility and marketability of women athletes.

Traditional models like this one need to be revisited. Perhaps the solution isn’t to have women play best-of-five, but to have men play best-of-three? The point isn’t about who should play longer – the point is that equality should be the standard. Men currently have an advantage when it comes to media exposure and commercial opportunities while women are being asked to do more with less time.

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Equal prize money at Grand Slams was a landmark step and a massive win for women in tennis, but true equality requires more than just equal pay. It requires equal opportunity for exposure, storytelling, and growth.

Caroline Fitzgerald is a contributing writer for TOGETHXR.com and a leading expert in women’s sports business and gender equity. A Sports Business Journal "2024 Power Player in Women's Sports," she covers the forces shaping the industry’s next era of growth.

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