The Chief Executive Officer of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Geoff Allardice has said that bringing parity in prize money for “finishing positions of teams” in women’s and men’s world tournaments will be part of the ICC’s discussions around the next eight-year cycle of women’s events, stretching from 2024 through to 2031.
Allardice made the assertion about a potential review of the prize money for Women’s World events when asked in Wellington, New Zealand why the winners of the ongoing 2022 Women’s One Day International Cricket World Cup in New Zealand would take home roughly just a third of the sum won by the champions of the most recent Men’s One Day International Cricket World Cup in 2019 in England.
Ahead of the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup semi-finals today, Allardice said: “One of the things that we did at the start of the cycle, was we projected through this event cycle. Most of the ICC’s finances are done with an eight-year view, and what we’ve been trying to do over this cycle is to bridge the gap between the women’s prize money and the men’s prize money.
“We are about to start discussions around the next cycle and one of the starting points for that discussion is going to be trying to get parity for the finishing positions of teams in women’s events and comparable men’s events. So, we’re not there yet, but we’re on the journey to getting towards prize money parity.”
The ICC had doubled the prize money for the winners of eight-team 2022 Women’s ODI Cricket World Cup to US$1.32 million, and brought about a 75% increase on the overall prize money pot which stands at US$3.5 million, US$1.5 million more than the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup which England won.
Yet, the total prize pool of this Women’s Cricket World Cup is still US$6.5 million less than the US$10 million awarded at the 10-team 2019 Men’s ODI Cricket World Cup, where champions England won US$4 million while runners-up New Zealand took home US$2 million for making the final of that event. The two losing semi-finalists, Australia and India, walked away with US$800,000 each.
Though an expansion of the Women’s One Day International World Cup from an eight-team event to a 10-team one will happen only in 2029, and not in 2025, Allardice singled out the difference in the number teams in the two events as a reason behind the women’s winnings being less than the men’s.
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