Money Mayweather became the third person after Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods to make a billion dollars in career earnings from sport.
Awesome! Whilst there’s still no females on this list, I am sure the 4th person will be a woman. The would be more women on this list if the earnings parity between men and women was the same. It was only 10 years ago that women were awarded the same prize money in Wimbledon.
Eight of the 10 highest-paid female athletes are tennis players. Top-earning Serena Willanms has pocketed some $81.7 million in prize money since the start of her career, during which she has claimed a record 39 grand slam titles. The highest-paid male tennis professional, Novak Djokovic, has taken home $108.8 million but won only 12 grand slam titles.
There is also a compensation disparity amongst men and women when it come to the creativity side. Of the highest paid actors in Hollywood only 3 out of 15 are women!
This is obviously a gross injustice as you can’t tell me that a person’s acting ability is influenced by their gender. In other words because you are a woman are you less funny or dramatic?
Sports, arts and culture are three important aspects that can bring a society together. For hundreds of years these three activities have kept nations together. They have elevated nations from their down trodden emotional disparities to the sense of euphoria that comes with competition and winning. Sports and acting have been events that man and women have participated in since the dawn of time. The awesome thing about arts and sports is that the barrier to entry is not high, all you need is imagination and some skill. To be great, talent helps.
Culture is basically the combination creativity and activity. It is the social behavior and norms found in humansocieties. Culture is a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies.
If arts and activities make up culture, and culture clearly is important, why is it that we pay so little attention to fostering it?
Why is it that cultural activities in school are usually an after thought? Maths and science subjects are on top of the the pyramid. I think maths and science are important but I think they should be important as separate academic track. I think people who are so inclined should be on that work stream but I think art and design should be a different academic track. As a separate track, art and design subjects should be on top of that track’s pyramid. The same should apply to sports. The future world is going to need all three academic tracks.
Movies and actors gross millions of dollars each year. Sportsmen and sporting events do so too. Fashion as well as art do so too. It is clear that these are multi billion dollar industries. I would think if that’s the case breeding artists, sportsmen and women, designers, musicians, etc would be an imperative and not an after thought.
Africa is going to benefit most in the 4th industrial revolution. Our art and stories have not yet been told, our athletes have been slowly making strides. If you look at the English premiere league you would think it is an African Premiere league. African musicians, actors and artists are starting to impregnate the global stage in a big way. Charlize and Trevor are just two African off the top of my head. In sports Castor and Wayde. The cool thing about art and sports is that they easily exportable!
Africa’s future will be in creating and activity. It will be in creativity. Robots and AI cannot replicate creativity. The future will not be in technology it will be in content. Technology has given the world a platform to democratize content. Samsung has just released TV that is an art frame. See here This means an artist anywhere in Africa can now digitize their works of art and make it available for sale globally with just a click. Much like iTunes democratized music. It blows my mind that it’s year 2017 and Shaka Zulu has not been in cinema! How many movies about vampires, English empires can one watch? There are many real life historical games of thrones that have played themselves out in Africa. No one has told these stories because we as Africans don’t put enough premium in our culture and creativity. Technology will also help in that regard, you as screenwriter can write a script and upload it to Amazon today, see here That means if they like your screenplay they will buy it and produce it into a movie with you.
Not sure about you but I have seen more Bollywood films in South African cinemas than I have seen Nollywood! Just saying.
HERITAGE MONTH and women’s day, should be every day!
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