Curling Canada leads the way in pay equality following Sunday announcement

Professional curlers will now be paid equally for Canada’s top tournaments.

On Sunday, Curling Canada announced payouts for both the women’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts and the men’s Tim Hortons Brier will total $300,000.

Winners of the major bonspiels will receive $105,000 each.

In 2019, winners of the Brier were paid $100,500, while the Scotties champions took home $59,000.

Curling Canada CEO Katherine Henderson told 650 CKOM it was “the right time” to make the change due to the increase in exposure in the women’s game.

“(The Scotties) has really risen to be a tournament that competes at the very top echelon of Canadian sports,” Henderson said.

She said Curling Canada needed to “make it right” by the athletes and change the way the prize money was dished out.

Henderson joined the organization in 2016, and since then, she said she has seen a “turning point” with the sport, and this was in investment in the women’s sport.

“They’re working this hard (and) they’re demonstrating the same type of skills as the men’s are,” she said. “That’s really the genesis of it.”

Henderson said she can’t comment on other sports, but she knows there are different business models that those leagues and associations need to abide by.

“I can really only speak for curling. I know it was absolutely the right thing to do for curling. I think that curling has always been quite a gender-developed sport,” she said.

“There are sports out there that are thinking, ‘Is this the time to do it? Should we be doing this?’ I can tell you the only feedback that I’ve had about it is positive.”

Henderson said Curling Canada tournaments such as the Canada Cup and the Continental Cup have had their prize purses equal, whether it’s the men’s or women’s games.

“This was kind of the last step for us,” she said of the national championship tournaments.

The 2020 Scotties Tournament of Hearts will be held in Moose Jaw from Feb. 15-23, while the 2020 Tim Hortons Brier will be held in Kingston, Ont. from Feb. 28 to March 8.