US Soccer Equal Pay Proposal

What the WNT is saying is: yes, we know the disparate prize money comes from FIFA. But we want you to withhold part of FIFA’s payment to the men’s team and use it to boost FIFA’s payment to the women’s team. I wonder why they didn’t sue FIFA instead?

I truly try to be open minded about all matters. I just don't get how the WNT team could even think there position of wanting equal cut from World Cup as the men is good faith or reasonable. It is the opposite--utterly nonsensical. Men's game brings in billions in revenue and then pay the men a percentage of same. Woman's game doesn't even bring in $500 million in revenue. And, be mindful, the overhead for both has to be somewhat similar given stadium rentals and other normal overhead would be about the same. So, the men's world cup is way way more profitable than the woman's world cup. It just is what it is. This is not tennis where they have joint tournaments so it is hard to determine exactly whether someone is buying a ticket to see Federer or Serena.

I agree the WNT beef (albeit a bad faith beef) is with FIFA. Obviously, their counsel has told them they have no leg to stand on to sue FIFA. That said, maybe FIFA and the men's national teams across the world will agree to contribute some money from men's world cup to the woman. Still, mind boggling to me and is the inverse of equality.

If the USSF settles out of court (for a lump sum payout) the primary motivation will be reputation and rising legal fees. I think this is also the primary motivation for the women’s team and their legal counsel. I don’t see the uswnt winning if it goes to court.

It was of course meant to be hyperbole, but the real issue is that these are essentially two related organizations (USMNT and USWNT under a common umbrella, USSF) with the only commonality being the sport and the merchandising (licensing). Yes, they're both soccer, but you could just as easily look at it as men's international ice hockey vs women's international field hockey under the US Olympic banner (assuming field hockey was an Olympic sport).

The men's game gate, TV revenue, World Cup payouts and advertising monies likely aren't all that related to the women's game gate, TV revenue, World Cup payouts and advertising. If the men want to let them drink from their pool, that's for the men to decide, not for USSF to arbitrarily mandate.

Their issue is with FIFA...and society at large. But a per-game fee and hotels/flights/training fields, the USSF needs to make that right. Maybe the men don't get to fly first class anymore.

If the women were to win this would be a landmark decision. The precedent established from this case alone could be persuasive in deciding the outcome of future similar cases where there is a pay disparity between men’s and women’s sports.
[/quote]


Any decision made by a lower court and jury would never hold up if taken all the way to the Supreme Court, so this is an non-factor.  There is no way the USWNT can win this case, and the argument they are making is disingenuous unless they don't know basic economics.

This is really heating up. I don’t think anyone saw this strategy coming from USSF. Who the heck are these people? Who thinks like this? Below statement says it all:

As former USWNT star Heather O’Reilly put it: “FIFA prize money calculations can and will be debated. Commercial revenue and income can and will be debated. TV ratings and sponsorship can and will be debated. But to read that U.S. Soccer thinks this of the USWNT and female athletes in general is disgusting and disturbing to me.”

There are obvious differences between male and female athletes. Size, strength, speed, no one would dispute that. However, is that really how they want to win their case. An organization that represents thousands of young female athletes, is this how they want to portray themselves?

Yeah, I don't get all the intertwined/incestuous stuff going on. You'd think that with the $$$ stakes in this that the USSF would pull back on its advertising arm and largely distance itself from the USWNT. Then you have several plaintiffs in this case who VOTED IN the current president and the side they're fighting.

I do think they should play a WNT vs MNT game, would be interesting to watch. Both sides would have a lot to lose.

I think this lawsuit for equal pay (but not equal accommodations) is truly silly. However, this skill argument by US Soccer was stupid, and true or not, irrelevant. The pay issues are exclusively tethered to revenue and profit. Revenue/profit may be related to skill set of players, but not necessarily. Serena Williams has a UTR rating (objective/nongender specific tennis rating) which would put her comparable to a very high level college male player and she wouldn't be close to the top 200 in the world on the men's professional side. If tickets were being sold to see a match between the 100th v. 99th ranked men or Serena v. Sloane Stevens, which match would pack the stands? Clearly not the higher ranked/better men. So, US Soccer's counsel made a very stupid argument that actually goes against what they are trying to prove--its about revenue and profit not results (or skill)--and also just undermined US Soccer's PR position.

Thanks to major US Soccer sponsors like Coca-Cola for acting quickly and intervening! Hopefully, the two sides can treat each other with dignity and respect moving forward and come to a fair resolution.

Hey You are welcome and get over yourself with that stupid man-splaining crap. Please show me on the doll where I hurt you!