Equal pay for men and women in sports.

Great Debates
121

To pick-up on a few selected points made by Damuri Ajashi:

The cash incentives offered to CR7 and Messi to play in friendlies are negligible compared to their earning power. Most of the big European international team players donate all the money they receive from international football to charity.

The USMNT though are a little different, whilst none of them need the money from the USSF, for many it is a nice little bonus. There are real economic reasons for paying the USMNT players what they do, in particular the current deal came about after the core of the USMNT went on strike and this is not the first time they have been on strike either. In short the USSF has to pay the USMNT players a reasonable chunk of the money they generate in order that the USMNT players do not feel exploited by the USSF and go on strike.

Players cannot change their national team at will, to play for an international team you have to meet the FIFA requirements and any requirements of the particular association. Players who are eligible for more than one country are pretty much locked into that nationality once they have played for that team, except in very limited circumstances.

That said, the USMNT has notably fielded quite a few players who have been original eligible for other national teams and also has notably ‘lost’ to other national teams a few players who were originally eligible for for the USMNT. This means they are probably more sensitive than most to attracting players who might otherwise play for someone else, but at best this will only be a very minor consideration in player compensation.

For the USWNT the economic reasons for pay are quite different. There isn’t a huge amount of money in women’s soccer, however the reason why the USSF is still fairly generous with its compensation is that a lot of its players have career options outside soccer.

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Neither is any other sport.

Because it’s related to viewership.

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Because the two are inextricably linked through FIFA. I’m struggling to find an analogy that will make sense, but FIFA is kind of like the Mafia. They have a say in soccer played at just about any level anywhere, not just the World Cup. Everything from on field rules, off field player transfers, and even schedules for professional soccer leagues at times.

But it’s a weird mafia that’s actually a reverse pyramid scheme, where only the people at the bottom profit. These are the professional sports leagues. More precisely, the professional clubs report to the national governing body (US Soccer here), which is part of a FIFA conference, (CONCACAF for the US), which reports to FIFA. A few examples just to make this clear, the UEFA Cup is run by the Eurpean FIFA conference as a tournament for the best professional teams in Europe. Here in the US, the only reason why the MLS exists in its current state is because FIFA required that US Soccer develop a top tier professional soccer league in return for the rights to host the 1994 World Cup.

The purpose of international play is to increase the global brand of soccer. At bare minimum, the World Cup is a spectacle that draws in viewers who might watch no other soccer. Kids see it, they start playing, which increases the talent pool, which leads to more competitive leagues around the world, which ultimately, in theory, increases profit for the professional leagues. Just to give some numbers, FIFA generated ~$5.7 billion in revenue for the last 4 year World Cup Cycle; the English Premier League generates ~$4.7 billion dollars per year.] I hope by now you’re realizing that this is not an Olympic style peace and harmony through athletic competition (for which US Soccer pays men and women equally); its about money. Plain and simple.

How does that relate to pay? Well, since FIFA is the Don, and the Don wants his World Cup filled with the best players, the Don mandates that if a player is chosen by the national team he has to play. If the player refuses, he/she is suspended from his/her professional team. This situation played out recently with a player from the French team who claimed to have retired from the national team. Because this restricts the players’ rights as professionals, and because they are required to risk career ending injury in international play, they are paid. The amount they are paid is a function of how much revenue they generate for their national governing body and how much they can command on the free market.

I’m all in favor of people looking to make more money, and if the USWNT can get a raise out of this, good for them. But the idea that the USWNT should, at present, be paid the same as the USMNT appears to have no basis in the economics of the situation and the public’s condemnation appears to be based on a conflation of “national team” with a charitable Olympic style endeavor. It is not.

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If FIFA can basically force people to play on their national team under threat of losing their paying gigs, why does economics have to come into play at all?

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Why would it not? :dubious: It’s a labor dispute.

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I think I have become more supportive of the women’s case in this issue. Suppose for a moment that we weren’t talking about gender, but about race:

Let’s say that Team USA’s table tennis team has players of different races. And the white players consistently draw a larger crowd and higher TV ratings than the black, Arab or Hispanic players - solely on the basis of their race. And then the white players hence were given a bigger paycheck because they brought in more revenue.

I think there would be more outcry in that situation. It’s not the fault of the non-white players that their race means that they draw a smaller crowd.

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While I understand where your analogy is coming from, consider this:

Assume that white players were, for whatever reason, simply more proficient at any chosen sport than blacks, Hispanic, or Arab players - i.e, that the reason “white sports” consistently drew a larger viewership total was not because of racism or some other sort of bigotry, but because white players were simply inherently, measurably, objectively better at sports in both physical and technical terms, and thus more enjoyable to watch.

Would you still feel that paying them less was problematic? Because this is the crux of the point about unequal pay in sports - it is okay because the reasons for unequal pay are not connected to gender at all. Female soccer players are not paid less because they are women, they are paid less because they are worse soccer players, completely analogous to how Lionel Messi earns orders of magnitude more than a semi-professional male player in the Vanarama National.

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Because national soccer teams are, effectively, professional teams, while national Olympic teams are, effectively, amateur teams.

FIFA pays national teams based on merit. Advance to the next round, get a big chunk of change from FIFA.

The Olympics don’t pay anybody anything. Win a gold medal and the IOC doesn’t pay you a single red cent. (Your country’s Olympic Committee probably does, but the International Olympic Committee sure doesn’t.)

That’s one key difference. There is no international Olympic governing body that pays participants and winners. But for soccer, FIFA is the international governing body and they pay participants and winners.

The second key difference is that the World Cup Finals – the tournament that everyone can watch on TV every four years – is like Harvard. Only the best of the best even get in; a true meritocracy. The Olympics are essentially Community College – everyone is welcome, participation awards all around. There was a friggin’ Jamaican bobsled team, fer cryin’ out loud.

So in two fundamental ways, the World Cup is like a professional sports league while the Olympics is the polar opposite.

In general no, but soccer is a completely different animal compared to every other sport where national teams compete.

Why would the MLS revenues go to US Soccer?

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Bump of the thread: The U.S. women’s soccer team filed suit yesterday (March-8.)

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I suspect that your surprise comes from your lack of familiarity with soccer, being an American and all.

Expecting that something related to soccer might not be driven by profit is like expecting that something related to the oil extraction industry might not be driven by profit.

Even at the lowest level of football training , there are two categories that are world apart : people who can reasonably be expected to bring in big money at some point, and people who can’t. All girls (and of course the overwhelming majority of boys) belong to the second category. They’re generally speaking of no interest whatsoever as players.

I even doubt strongly that the promotion of women soccer is intended to get more girls interested in soccer so that they’ll play the game and someday join the women teams. Rather to get more girls interested in soccer so that they’ll someday watch the men games and buy tickets for the men games.

In fact, there has been (at least over here, surely different in the USA where the sport wasn’t popular with either gender) over the last decades a massive increase of interest in soccer among women, as supporters and watchers. And that’s, IMO, pretty much the only thing any soccer institution is interested in : potentially doubling the number of people watching and attending games. Men games.

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Didn’t realize it was a zombie thread, sorry.

132

Bumping old thread with an update:

A judge just ruled against the U.S. women’s team. Ruling will likely be appealed.

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Women are looking at the wrong part of the game.

Dont think about playing.

Think about the jobs SUPPORTING the team. For example at a KU mens basketball game, yes, all the players are men BUT most of the scorekeepers and stats people on the side were women.

And it goes the same in support roles. More and more women are getting jobs as trainers and equipment managers. Theres even a few women refs.

So women should look for jobs they have the capability for.

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Wow, this just might be the most sexist post in Dope history.

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Why?
A woman can still have a career with a professional sports team - just not as a player. What is sexist about that?

Try opening your eyes to new possibilities.

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I am not greatly swayed that athletes should get paid to play the game.

If people want to do it for the fun of it, have at it. But I don’t think professional sports is a good idea overall. I don’t suppose I’m against the practice in the sense of wanting to enact laws against it, but whatever.

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I didn’t think it was sexist, but women can still play sports in women’s leagues. The US Women’s soccer team does very well. Where I have the problem is demanding equal pay to the men’s team. They aren’t in the same ballpark in terms of money raised or prestige. It has nothing to do with gender, but inferior quality of play.

This is not a gender pay issue like we outlawed where a woman doing the same job as a man gets paid less under the stereotypical belief that the man has a family to support, or that the woman will have to take more time off because of her menstrual cycle or to have babies. They are not doing the “same job” as a man; they are playing in a league which takes in far less revenue.

I disagree with the two things the judge ruled in their favor on: better travel conditions and playing on astroturf. When you are in the big leagues you stay at fine hotels, whereas in the minors you are double bunking at the Hampton Inn.

It would be like saying that if I play in single A minor league baseball I should make the same money and stay at the same type of hotels as if I was playing for the Yankees because it is all baseball.

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When come back, bring facts:

139

Then I suggest unionizing and maybe even a strike to get more money.

Think about it. It wasnt long ago that NFL players were not making much.

Their employer is their league and they should work to get more of the income. Just dont expect the mens teams to pay for them.

140

Thank you. I dont know why nellie was saying it was sexist and making a big deal out of it. Facts are facts.

Thing is you dont have to actually PLAY the sport to make a good career out of it. Yes, firsthand knowledge and skills of the game are helpful if one becomes a trainer or even a coach but some of the best coaches and trainers never played in the pros.

I hope people like Nellie dont keep a woman out of a career working in athletic training or sports management.