Mike Hosking: Why pay parity doesn't work in sport

If the new Sports Minister's idea of pay parity is giving everyone the same wage, then we are in a world of trouble.

The Black Ferns have begun negotiations over their conditions with the New Zealand union, also NZ Football, as in soccer, are looking to have the men and women under the same collective deal, which would be a global first.

Grant Robertson's view of pay parity, apparently, is they get paid the same as the All Whites.

Your trouble in these sorts of matters is the emotive side of the equation. My biggest shock in dealing with the Black Ferns, for example, was when they came back after their victory a couple of months ago, they flew economy.

You're a world champ, and you're at the back of the plane with your trophy. That cannot be right.

But there is a big gap between whether they deserve a better deal, and whether a deal on par with say the All Blacks is at all reasonable, if even possible.

What Grant Robertson clearly doesn't get, and this is why pay equity is such a mess, is that people are paid on return. Well they are in this case. The All Blacks is a brand. Like, to a degree, the All Whites. But they are in two completely different categories. And that's the other complexity of sport: all sports are not created equal. Both are a business, they generate income, that income is tangible, you redistribute part of that income to the people who are at the sharp end of the equation.

The more they win, the more marketable they are, the more deals that are done, the more money is available to pay the players. If you apply the same equation to the Ferns, which you must, do they deserve a better deal? In theory, yes. But in reality, I don't know. What are the broadcast rights for womens rugby, what are the commercial deals worth how many tickets were sold and so it goes. All of those questions have very real and tangible answers, and once you add all that up you have a total and the total is what you have to cut a deal with

Under Grant Robertson's idea of commercial operations, you give them the same as everyone else whether you can afford it or not, and if you can't afford it, which I wouldn't have thought they could, someone else pays. Who is that someone else?

I am sure, at its essence, women's rugby or football wants a fair deal, and surely a fair deal is a deal based on the same equation the men get.

In a government department, it might be different, but in sport it's commercial. The money is earned, not received, via a tax. You can't simply wake up and raid someone's pocket. That's Grant Robertson's world, not the real one.

The Black Ferns and the Football Ferns should earn what they're worth, the same way the All Blacks and the All Whites do.