All those players are on the national team. Of course the level of competition for the men is considerably higher with almost every nation on the planet sporting a National Team. Competition for the womans team is getting tougher but there is only a handful of National Teams that can challenge them today.
Compensation should be based on revenue generated with built in performance bonuses.
You seriously think no-one outside the USA knows who Megan Rapinoe is? Or, previously, Hope Solo? And I say this as someone who doesn’t follow sports at all.
I would argue the knowledge of those individuals is probably fairly small. And Rapinoe is probably only really known in context of opposing Trump. Solo probably not much at all.
OTOH, a player like Christian Pulisic is fairly well known in Europe. Weston McKennie is getting there, but he’s never won a UEFA Champions League.
Just on attendance numbers, the MLS is 4x as popular as the NWSL. And the players salaries are going to reflect that. The average salary in the MLS is about $400k, while the maximum player salary in the NWSL is $52,500. And really, it’s this salary difference that is the main factor in the amount paid to players on the national teams. To get top talent to play in the national teams, the national team will need to pay relative to what the players are already making. It’s going to cost more to get a $400k player to be on the team than a $52k player.
Just on popularity, the women’s national team is more popular than the men’s. That gives them leverage to ask for higher salaries. But the women’s national team is already getting the very best talent at the price they are currently paying, so they don’t really have to pay more unless the women start refusing to join the team.
And I’m disputing that. And I’m disputing it specifically as someone who is in “any country except the USA” and knows both and has for years, and has never heard of the male jobbing players being contrasted with them.
Rapinoe is also a big LGBT icon, and was before Trump.
Hope Solo is well-known for … several other things. None of those men have ever been on Dancing with the Stars, have they?
But why they’re known is irrelevant, because most people who know one or both of the women also know they are or have been on Team USA.
You may have transposed some numbers… MLS’s average attendance in 2019 was 21,304 and there were 24 teams that year (there are 27 now). Makes the point a little more clearly I guess.
This seems like I know these players for other US centric reasons. Why would someone in France care about who has been on Dancing with the Stars?
And why, you may ask, do you know them more than say, Abby Wambach or Kristine Lilly or Carly Lloyd? Players that most American women soccer fans would say were better than Rapinoe or Solo? What about Christine Sinclair who recently broke Wambach’s record for most international goals in women’s soccer?
GB? Great Britain?
~Max
I’m not in the USA.
And I don’t care if there are better players (although - a better goalie than Solo? Rare, that.), the fact remains, the original statement by madsircool was pants.
I guess the relevant question for ATMB is whether debate on the merits of either proposition are appropriate for the game room.
ETA: You may remember this topic,
was originally posted in some forum other than the game room. Having read through it I don’t see any sexism.
~Max
I’m assuming it was deliberate hyperbole because it was responding to the following post:
That was supposed to say GD aka Great Debates.
In the world of football fans yes. Most ignore womans footie.
If you werent a poster on these boards it would be amazingly unlikely you would have heard of those players. Marta is a bigger name than Rapinoe and also a gay icon. I wonder how many people know who she is.
Unless they are competing against each other in a particular sport, no she isn’t.
If in fact a grown man is playing basketball against a nine year old girl I guess he is in that context, but I don’t think that says a great deal about his athleticism. Comparing people in totally different athletic contexts means nothing. Andre de Grasse would absolutely destroy Lebron James in a 100m race, but he would embarrass himself against Lebron in one on one hoops. Who’s more athletic? There’s no clear answer to that out of context.
Does not appear to be reflecting that. If that were what’s going on, then a 4x difference in popularity would produce an average NWSL salary of 100K, not a maximum of 52,5.
It’s odd to compare the maximum to the average in any case. Why not give both figures for both?
For the third time: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about your definition of the word “athletic”.
Then you didn’t pay enough attention to my definition, I guess. Oh well. We’re getting off topic, and it’s time to get back on track.
Attendance isn’t the only metric. The MLS has other revenue streams such as TV and merch. The men’s teams have a lot more variation in salaries. Some players are making millions while others are making $100k. The popularity of the men’s teams are able to bring in a lot more revenue than the women’s, and the salaries reflect that.
As for why not the average for women, I thought it was striking that the max women’s salary was so much less than the average men’s salary. A max salary of $52k is a relatively low salary for a world-class ability. Compared to regular jobs, $52k would be like a generic social worker or something. Even though the women’s national soccer team is popular, that doesn’t seem to translate into team revenue or a high salary.
Well one of the issues is that a lot of the ‘bigger name’ players get paid a salary by US Soccer (in the men’s side no player gets a salary for playing for the national team, they get an appearance fee), and I believe part of that salary says they also play for an NWSL team. So someone like Carly Lloyd makes $518,000, but only $52k or so is from her NWSL team (NY/NJ Gotham)
To clarify:
What I’m trying to figure out is whether you really think the term “athletic” is only used when describing people competing directly against each other, assume that sense to be the only one in use by others, and are insisting it’s the only reasonable way for it to be read including in ATMB; or whether you’re using two different definitions for the term and expecting others to always guess accurately which one you mean, including in ATMB.
I thought so also. It would be even more striking compared to the max men’s salary, no?
Ah. That’s interesting, and adds to how complicated comparisons can be.
Here’s an article with a batch of other interesting figures; though direct comparisons still often aren’t clear.