Women Demand Equal Pay For U.S. Female Soccer Team, Men Try To List The Reasons Why They Shouldn’t In Response
After making the nation proud with yet another soccer World Cup triumph, fans and players of the all-conquering U.S. Women’s National team immediately restated their demands for equal pay with their lesser-decorated male counterparts.
As FIFA president Gianni Infantino strode onto the pitch for presentations after the USA beat Netherlands 2-0 in the final, a large section of the crowd could be heard loudly and clearly, chanting their wish for gender equality. Equal pay! Equal Pay!
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When you look at the stats related to performance alone, it’s impossible to argue against equal pay, at the very least. The USWNT has dominated women’s soccer championships since the first World Cup in 1991, winning four titles and placing at least third in the other four.
In contrast, the men’s team has struggled. The best US Soccer Team’s result in the illustrious tournament is the 3rd place, back at the very first World Cup in 1930, when only eight teams entered.
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When it comes to World Cup prize money, this is decided by FIFA. As the men’s World Cup is a much older and more established competition, interest and revenues are still far higher, and the prize money reflects this.
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The prize for the 2018 men’s World Cup stood at $400 million, while female players will receive $30 million this year. FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the organization would double it for the next women’s World Cup in 2023, but star player Megan Rapinoe said there still would be a long way to go.
“It certainly is not fair,” she said. “We should double it now and use that number to double it or quadruple it for the next time.”
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The issue with the US team is that the players earn less despite generating more revenue locally than their male counterparts
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Domestically in the U.S. market, the women’s team are by far the more successful both on and off the pitch. US women’s soccer games now generate more revenue locally than men’s—but the players still earn less.
The Women’s team filed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation some months ago, suing them for gender discrimination by paying the women less than members of the men’s national team.
The claim is that the women do “substantially equal work and are denied at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions; equal promotion of their games; equal support and development for their games; and other terms and conditions of employment equal to the MNT.”
“At this moment of tremendous pride for America, the sad equation remains all too clear, and Americans won’t stand for it anymore,” said Molly Levinson, spokeswoman for the USWNT players in their equal pay lawsuit.
“These athletes generate more revenue and garner higher TV ratings but get paid less simply because they are women.”
This is why the lawsuit is going ahead, with support from the men’s team.
“The United States National Soccer Team Players Association fully supports the efforts of the US Women’s National Team Players to achieve equal pay,” they say in a statement. “Specifically, we are committed to the concept of a revenue-sharing model to address the US Soccer Federation’s ‘market realities’ and find a way towards fair compensation.”
What do you think? Should the U.S. Women’s National Team be getting equal pay to the men from the US soccer federation?
What about the World Cup? Is the division of prize money fair, when revenues are taken into account? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Equality of opportunity? Yes. Equality of outcome? No.
@Nico7431 Congratulations - that´s the most stupid thing i´ve ever had to read in a while. Hey, female pornstars earn much more than male counterparts... soooo... let´s have an outrage about that, too?
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A man has the opportunity of winning X$ even if his team loses. A woman has only the opportunity of winning Y$, Y being less than X, even when her team is the best on the competition. How is that equality of opportunity? "equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome" is usually used fallaciously by people who don't even realize they defend inequality of opportunity.
The teams get a share of the revenue that they generate. The women's team receives a bigger portion of the revenue that THEY generated compared to the men's team. But, the men's team generated more income despite scoring less, so even though its a [smaller piece of the pie] there was significantly more revenue generated by the men's team. If you really want to correct the issue, start watching women in sports. If you already do watch, and like it, invite friends over on the weekend and turn it into a little party. Your support and finances are what get teams paid, not trying to steal money from a more successful business model.
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@ Ford Summit: I obviously know that. But it is still NOT "equality of opportunity". Even if you pretend that value is created by demand (which in itself is pretty stupid), female player still don't have the opportunity of chosing to do male football. The reality is that some female players are indeed better at sport that male players, and if you believe in meritocracy, you just should say they should get more money. One obvious way to change that is to put together all the money generated by football and that each player is paid on their merit from the total money pool. My point is that some idiots just say "you want equality of outcome" when someone says people should get money based on merit.
Anyone else want to see the Women’s team compete against the Men’s?
They lost a match against the 15 and under boys national team.
the Aussie womens team lost to an under 15s boy team aswell
If you create a best women's team to compete against an average men's team, the men's team would still destroy them. It's biological. Men run more, they are faster and generally have better skills.
You'll only really know if they have that match.
Except they're not underpaid. When you look at revenue brought in, they're overpaid. So if they want equal pay and want to fight for it, they should all be taking a cut in pay, not asking for more.
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They bring in more revenue than the men's team, so where's your god now?
They have brought in more revenue at the gate, or in terms of ticket sales. Gate revenue makes up something like 2% of total revenue. Most revenue comes from broadcasting contracts, sponserships, and merchandise sales. Another thing of note is that despite having more star power than the men's team, the women only outdrew, in terms of ticket revenue, the men by $1 million. I can name way more women national team players than men's national team players. The only ones I can think of are Clint Dempsy and Jose Altidore. I only only remember Altidore because it's a unique name. So a group of nobodies who haven't been successful in competition were able to generate nearly as much in ticket revenue as the star studded multiple World Cup winning women's team. A pragmatic solution might be that each team gets to share a percentage of total revenue that they bring in (from ticket sales, broadcast contracts, merchandise sales, prize money).
Frank you are not very bright.... Both the men and women teams are part of FIFA which is a profit sharing org. Just like the NBA, NFL, NBA, NHL. So ALL the profits get shared. So its not based on 1 team. You should know what you are talking about before posting dumb comments.
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Who upvoted this nonsense??
an adult apparently, you should try it sometimne
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Broflakes
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Moron
Equality of opportunity? Yes. Equality of outcome? No.
@Nico7431 Congratulations - that´s the most stupid thing i´ve ever had to read in a while. Hey, female pornstars earn much more than male counterparts... soooo... let´s have an outrage about that, too?
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
A man has the opportunity of winning X$ even if his team loses. A woman has only the opportunity of winning Y$, Y being less than X, even when her team is the best on the competition. How is that equality of opportunity? "equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome" is usually used fallaciously by people who don't even realize they defend inequality of opportunity.
The teams get a share of the revenue that they generate. The women's team receives a bigger portion of the revenue that THEY generated compared to the men's team. But, the men's team generated more income despite scoring less, so even though its a [smaller piece of the pie] there was significantly more revenue generated by the men's team. If you really want to correct the issue, start watching women in sports. If you already do watch, and like it, invite friends over on the weekend and turn it into a little party. Your support and finances are what get teams paid, not trying to steal money from a more successful business model.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
@ Ford Summit: I obviously know that. But it is still NOT "equality of opportunity". Even if you pretend that value is created by demand (which in itself is pretty stupid), female player still don't have the opportunity of chosing to do male football. The reality is that some female players are indeed better at sport that male players, and if you believe in meritocracy, you just should say they should get more money. One obvious way to change that is to put together all the money generated by football and that each player is paid on their merit from the total money pool. My point is that some idiots just say "you want equality of outcome" when someone says people should get money based on merit.
Anyone else want to see the Women’s team compete against the Men’s?
They lost a match against the 15 and under boys national team.
the Aussie womens team lost to an under 15s boy team aswell
If you create a best women's team to compete against an average men's team, the men's team would still destroy them. It's biological. Men run more, they are faster and generally have better skills.
You'll only really know if they have that match.
Except they're not underpaid. When you look at revenue brought in, they're overpaid. So if they want equal pay and want to fight for it, they should all be taking a cut in pay, not asking for more.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
They bring in more revenue than the men's team, so where's your god now?
They have brought in more revenue at the gate, or in terms of ticket sales. Gate revenue makes up something like 2% of total revenue. Most revenue comes from broadcasting contracts, sponserships, and merchandise sales. Another thing of note is that despite having more star power than the men's team, the women only outdrew, in terms of ticket revenue, the men by $1 million. I can name way more women national team players than men's national team players. The only ones I can think of are Clint Dempsy and Jose Altidore. I only only remember Altidore because it's a unique name. So a group of nobodies who haven't been successful in competition were able to generate nearly as much in ticket revenue as the star studded multiple World Cup winning women's team. A pragmatic solution might be that each team gets to share a percentage of total revenue that they bring in (from ticket sales, broadcast contracts, merchandise sales, prize money).
Frank you are not very bright.... Both the men and women teams are part of FIFA which is a profit sharing org. Just like the NBA, NFL, NBA, NHL. So ALL the profits get shared. So its not based on 1 team. You should know what you are talking about before posting dumb comments.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Who upvoted this nonsense??
an adult apparently, you should try it sometimne
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Broflakes
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Moron