by Matt Weik, BS, CSCS, CPT, CSN
Let’s reduce the fluff and get proper to it. I respect 8x Olympia champ Lenda Murray, however once you’re related to the Olympia and make feedback in regards to the Arnold Basic, you must contemplate something that comes out of her mouth as being considerably biased.
In fact, she’s going to attempt to put down the Arnold Basic when she works with Wings of Power. However the reality of the matter is, she’s a hypocrite. You possibly can’t complain a few distinction in prize cash when the Olympia is not any totally different, and even in her personal present, there’s a drastic distinction in prize cash.
So, both put up or shut up. Put your cash the place your mouth is and cease being a hypocrite. She even has extra girls’s divisions in her present than males’s divisions.
However if you happen to’re studying this and don’t know what’s happening, right here’s a fast abstract to get you on top of things: Arnold Schwarzenegger not too long ago elevated the prize cash on the Arnold Basic. Throughout the board. Each division acquired a bump.
However (cue the outrage), the lads’s open bodybuilding prize purse noticed the largest soar.
That triggered some individuals. One in every of them being Lenda Murray. She mentioned it was “unfair” how rather more the lads’s bodybuilders are making in comparison with the ladies. Once more, I respect what Lenda has accomplished within the sport. She’s a legend.
However let’s be actual.
Arnold doesn’t owe anybody something. Particularly with regards to how he spends his cash.
On this article, we’re going to dive deeper into this subject and have a look at issues from totally different angles. Will this text set off some individuals? I’m certain it would since we have now a bunch of snowflakes roaming amongst us lately. Do I care in the event that they get triggered? Not one bit. However let’s get into it.
Disclaimer: This text is for informational functions solely and isn’t meant to deal with or diagnose any situation. It’s endorsed that you simply converse along with your physician earlier than beginning any train program, making modifications to your diet plan, or including any new dietary supplements into your present routine.
Males’s Open Bodybuilding Is the Major Occasion
Go to any Arnold Basic. Stroll the expo ground. Watch who the followers line up for.
I’ve been there a few years, and I’ll inform you precisely who the persons are there to see. They need the freaks. The mass monsters. The fellows pushing 300 kilos shredded.
That’s the draw.
Positive, individuals respect the traditional guys. They benefit from the wellness division. And sure, there are followers of girls’s bodybuilding, bikini, determine, health, and so forth.
However let’s not faux they’re on the identical degree of mainstream enchantment. The one athlete who may get a line that wraps across the aisles was Dana Linn Bailey. Aside from that, there wasn’t a feminine who ever competed who even acquired near any male bodybuilder.
And that’s a reality.
The boys’s open bodybuilding division is the primary occasion for a motive. That’s the one everybody talks about. That’s the one which fills seats and sells livestreams. That’s the division with the historical past, the rivalries, the legends.
In the event you don’t consider that, you’ve by no means been to an occasion. Otherwise you’re mendacity to your self.
The Worth Isn’t Equal — And That’s Okay
We’re not speaking about equality of alternative. We’re speaking about worth delivered.
And right here’s the deal: not all divisions convey the identical worth to a present. That’s not sexist. That’s economics.
Consider it like a hospital.
You’ve acquired a receptionist. Nice particular person. Tremendous essential to the day by day operations. Greets sufferers, solutions telephones, and retains issues transferring.
Then you definately’ve acquired a mind surgeon.
Now, who do you suppose brings extra worth with regards to why individuals go to the hospital?
No person’s driving throughout city as a result of the receptionist is superb. They’re going for the surgeon. The specialist. The one performing the life-saving process.
Within the health world, males’s open bodybuilding is the surgeon. The headliner. The present nearer.
That’s why they’re getting paid extra. As a result of they’re price extra within the context of the occasion.
Arnold Put His Personal Cash into This
Right here’s the kicker.
Arnold personally added to the prize pool. This wasn’t some sponsorship bump or authorities grant. This was Arnold taking cash out of his personal pocket.
And persons are mad at him?
That’s insane.
He didn’t reduce anybody’s prize. He didn’t decrease anybody’s payout. He raised the cash for everybody. However as a result of the largest increase went to the lads’s open, now it’s an issue?
That’s not a dialog about equity. That’s entitlement.
We Must Cease Pretending Every part is Equal
Regardless of your emotions, the lads’s and ladies’s divisions will not be the identical. In actual fact, they’re not even shut.
The opponents prepare simply as exhausting, certain. They eating regimen, they undergo, they dedicate their lives to the game. However that doesn’t imply the demand from followers is equal. It’s not.
You possibly can’t drive individuals to care equally. You possibly can’t demand the identical payout when the product doesn’t generate the identical pleasure or income.
And look, I’m not making an attempt to tear anybody down. I’ve acquired respect for all opponents. It takes guts to step on stage.
However the concept that all divisions ought to get the identical prize cash simply because they exist is ridiculous.
Ought to Ladies Be Paid Extra? If They Earn It
Let’s have the proper dialog somewhat than getting panties in a bunch and feeling entitled to extra money simply since you step on stage.
If girls’s divisions need to earn extra prize cash, the aim shouldn’t be to bash the lads’s divisions. Or to name Arnold out.
The aim needs to be to develop the division. Deliver in additional followers. Promote extra tickets. Create extra hype.
That’s the way you get a much bigger slice of the pie. You develop the pie first.
And let’s be sincere, if a girls’s division turned the preferred division in bodybuilding, and it bought out arenas and moved probably the most product, I’d be the primary man saying they deserve the largest prize.
However that’s not what’s taking place proper now.
I’m a businessman, and the market determines the place that you must put your cash. If the market needs a sure product, you place extra money into increase that product, advertising and marketing it, and getting it on the market for shoppers to take pleasure in.
If a product isn’t bringing in income and isn’t displaying development, it’s not going to get the identical love from a financial standpoint because the homerun merchandise.
It’s not private to girls’s divisions, it’s enterprise.
Arnold Nonetheless Helps Each Athlete
Say what you need about Arnold, however the man has accomplished extra for bodybuilding than virtually anybody else.
He’s constructed platforms. He’s stored the Arnold Basic alive by powerful years. He’s continued to put money into the game, even when others walked away.
He’s supported feminine divisions. He’s promoted all athletes. And now he’s rising prize cash for everybody.
And in some way, that’s not sufficient?
The Actual Downside is the Narrative
We stay in a time the place individuals confuse “honest” with “equal.”
Life’s not equal. Particularly not in enterprise.
Bodybuilding is leisure. It’s about drawing eyeballs. Creating buzz. Promoting tickets. Those who try this greatest are going to get rewarded probably the most.
That’s how each skilled sport works. Desire a larger paycheck? Deliver extra individuals by the doorways. Get individuals speaking.
As an alternative of telling Arnold easy methods to spend his cash, perhaps we must always thank the man for nonetheless caring about you once you’re a small fish in a giant pond.
He may’ve walked away from bodybuilding a very long time in the past. He didn’t. He’s nonetheless right here. Nonetheless constructing.
So, right here’s the underside line:
Don’t inform Arnold what to do together with his cash.
He’s earned the proper to name the photographs. In the event you don’t like how a lot cash you make, go away. It’s no totally different than a job. Assume you may make extra elsewhere? Then give up and discover one thing else to do.
However cease complaining once you don’t have the numbers to again up your entitled rant on social media.