Battle for Equality still raging on

I have edited out pictures.  For the original article go to:
http://www.businessinsider.com/womens-small-soccer-salaries-are-fair-2015-7

Here's why it's fair that female athletes make less than men
By Shane Ferro
The Americans’ dominant Women’s World Cup win over the weekend spurred outrage after people found out just how little the women got paid compared to their male counterparts. The problem is, their pay is totally fair.
In fact, most of the people who are complaining about the prize money are actually part of the problem. How many of them have actually been to a women's professional soccer game outside of the World Cup?
The total prize pool for the women’s tournament was $15 million. Of that, the US women’s national team took home $2 million for their victory. That’s less than a quarter of the $9 million the US men’s team got last year for getting knocked out in the round of 16. The total prize pool for the men’s tournament was a whopping $576 million — 40 times the women’s haul.
This brings me to an important question: What separates men’s sports and women’s?
There's one big difference — revenue. Female soccer players are paid less because their sport makes less. According to the Wall Street Journal, there was $17 million in sponsor revenue for this year's women's World Cup compared to $529 million for the 2014 men's tournament. America's winning women earned a larger share, about 11%, of the money their tournament made this year from sponsors than the victorious German team, who got just 6.6% of the sponsor revenue from last year's men's World Cup as their prize.
The real question is not why female athletes are paid less. People should be asking why fans and sponsors are less interested in supporting women's sports — and this is what they should be outraged about.
I’m sure there are all sorts of technical details that could be used to explain just how the men’s game differs from the women’s, and they vary from sport to sport. The one answer that doesn’t hold up is that men’s sports are somehow inherently more interesting to watch than women’s. They are certainly not 40 times more interesting to watch.
Most of us have been socialized to accept men’s sports as dominant, and somehow automatically more interesting. The problem is that once society has internalized this falsehood — and let’s face it, it’s a falsehood that’s millennia in the making — it’s not so easy to correct it. Women have been fighting for decades, centuries, to be seen as equals to men both on the playing field and off of it.
We’ve made a lot of progress, but we’re nowhere near the end of the fight. Women may deserve to be treated equally, but they are not. And that has direct consequences for a business run on sponsorships. It’s morally outrageous that Carli Lloyd doesn’t get paid as much as Lionel Messi, but in the current economic environment, it seems pretty fair.
When the US National Women's Soccer League started up in 2013, Julie Foudy wrote for ESPN that “professional sports, for men and women, are not about who deserves them or who has earned the right to play professionally; professional sports leagues are governed by one simple principle -- what the market will bear.”
That market for women’s soccer in the US, home of many of the best players in the world, is apparently salaries of $6,000-30,000 per player.
But why is the market so small? For one thing, the entire market for professional soccer in the US is small — male players have minimum salaries of $36,500, and about a quarter of the MLS league makes less than $50,000 (though the top players make millions). For another, no one goes to games. Perhaps related, there’s very little sponsorship. In other words, if more people were actually paying to watch women's sports, the situation might be different.
The lack of attendance and sponsorships contribute to a chicken-or-the-egg problem when it comes to getting women’s sports up off the ground.
“Absent deep-pocketed investors who can commit for several years, women’s professional teams and leagues find themselves scrambling to survive almost from the moment they launch,” Shira Springer writes in the Boston Globe.
And this is the real outrage. So many professional women’s sports initiatives are set up to fail because they don’t have enough support from the beginning. Sponsors set up shop for a year or two, then bolt when they don’t see immediate returns, which sends teams and leagues into survival mode almost from the beginning.
In women’s cycling, to use another example, (where, to be fair, changing sponsors every year isn’t uncommon even on the men’s side) one of the world’s top-ranked teams, with 10 Olympians on the roaster, turned to crowd funding going into the 2015 season. It raised about $100,000, out of its stated $700,000 goal. [Disclosure: I donated.]
Yet with this year’s women's World Cup, there is perhaps some hope.
In the US, the 2015 women's World Cup had nearly 50% more viewers (in English) than the men’s version.
World Cup final viewership:
2014: 17.3m in English, 9.2m in Spanish.
2015: 25.4m in English, 1.3m in Spanish.

It’s becoming clear that there is a market there, if someone is willing to figure out how to take advantage of it. But it's still unclear how that will translate to the NWSL until the next World Cup.
However, you, dear reader, can do only one thing and it's not complaining about prize money on social media. If you want to fix the income disparity in women's sports, go buy a jersey or tickets for a game.

11% of the $17mm sponsor revenue = $1.86mm to the US.

6.6% of the $529mm sponsor revenue = $34.9mm to zee Germans

Oh those poor Germans got a much smaller bite of the sponsor pie.  They must be outraged!

InaB wrote:Hello 10, as a female, I can understand why the women might not want the men managing them if the head of FIFA is suggesting that they wear tighter shorts and more feminine shirts. Yep, that would legitimize women's soccer all right.  If that is what you are suggesting, then I think the men should all bulk up and play shirtless in speedos.

If the "men" running FIFA could run an uncorrupted group and provide equal marketing and management for both men and women, then that would be a home run. Unfortunately, the good ole boys still run things like good ole boys.

I am quite sure if women played soccer in Dallas cheerleader uniforms and flirted outrageously to the camera, that would sell the game to all the males in the US of A.

But then, we wouldn't really be selling soccer any more - would we?




Sorry, didn't mean for this to come off as harsh as it reads now. My point is, that at the very highest level, the mentality about women hasn't changed much. Maybe with the scandal within FIFA, there might be a chance to make some changes.

No apology necessary, Ina - I agree with your points wholeheartedly. When I said to make it unique, I mentioned playing rules and such, not uniforms or objectifying the women in any way. My comment about the women not wanting to be dependent on the men stems from the idea of merging the leagues. I understand that the women want to be self-sufficient, but first they need to build a fan base...going it alone from the outset won't build the base fast enough to keep the women's league going past the original capital investment.

Merging the league allows two competing leagues to share costs and sponsors. A sponsor that pays $X to sponsor the men's team would be more than willing to pay $X + 20% to sponsor two pro teams in one check, rather than sponsor two separate teams. Tell me Advocare wouldn't pony up another 20% to be the title sponsor on the FC Dallas Women's pro team as well...it's a bargain...and it's more than Advocare is spending on women's soccer now. Plus, they already have their stadium signage, Toyota might jump in due to their marketing efforts targeting women, all sorts of sponsorship opportunities happen...and all the women would have to do is put the logo on the shirt...free money.

Have the women play their game before the men. Raise the ticket price by $5, and fans get 2 games to watch if they choose. If they choose to tailgate or show up just in time for the men's game, they still paid their $5. So...simple math takes over:
$5 x 20k tickets = $100,000.
Figure that today they sell maybe 4000 tickets at $15 for a women's pro game, and give a boatload away for free to fill seats...that's $60,000. Just with this, women's soccer revenue goes up 80%.

"People should be asking why fans and sponsors are less interested in supporting women's sports — and this is what they should be outraged about. "

That's it right there.

Tiki-taka wrote:I have edited out pictures.  For the original article go to:
http://www.businessinsider.com/womens-small-soccer-salaries-are-fair-2015-7

Here's why it's fair that female athletes make less than men
By Shane Ferro
The Americans’ dominant Women’s World Cup win over the weekend spurred outrage after people found out just how little the women got paid compared to their male counterparts. The problem is, their pay is totally fair.
In fact, most of the people who are complaining about the prize money are actually part of the problem. How many of them have actually been to a women's professional soccer game outside of the World Cup?
The total prize pool for the women’s tournament was $15 million. Of that, the US women’s national team took home $2 million for their victory. That’s less than a quarter of the $9 million the US men’s team got last year for getting knocked out in the round of 16. The total prize pool for the men’s tournament was a whopping $576 million — 40 times the women’s haul.
This brings me to an important question: What separates men’s sports and women’s?
There's one big difference — revenue. Female soccer players are paid less because their sport makes less. According to the Wall Street Journal, there was $17 million in sponsor revenue for this year's women's World Cup compared to $529 million for the 2014 men's tournament. America's winning women earned a larger share, about 11%, of the money their tournament made this year from sponsors than the victorious German team, who got just 6.6% of the sponsor revenue from last year's men's World Cup as their prize.
The real question is not why female athletes are paid less. People should be asking why fans and sponsors are less interested in supporting women's sports — and this is what they should be outraged about.
I’m sure there are all sorts of technical details that could be used to explain just how the men’s game differs from the women’s, and they vary from sport to sport. The one answer that doesn’t hold up is that men’s sports are somehow inherently more interesting to watch than women’s. They are certainly not 40 times more interesting to watch.
Most of us have been socialized to accept men’s sports as dominant, and somehow automatically more interesting. The problem is that once society has internalized this falsehood — and let’s face it, it’s a falsehood that’s millennia in the making — it’s not so easy to correct it. Women have been fighting for decades, centuries, to be seen as equals to men both on the playing field and off of it.
We’ve made a lot of progress, but we’re nowhere near the end of the fight. Women may deserve to be treated equally, but they are not. And that has direct consequences for a business run on sponsorships. It’s morally outrageous that Carli Lloyd doesn’t get paid as much as Lionel Messi, but in the current economic environment, it seems pretty fair.
When the US National Women's Soccer League started up in 2013, Julie Foudy wrote for ESPN that “professional sports, for men and women, are not about who deserves them or who has earned the right to play professionally; professional sports leagues are governed by one simple principle -- what the market will bear.”
That market for women’s soccer in the US, home of many of the best players in the world, is apparently salaries of $6,000-30,000 per player.
But why is the market so small? For one thing, the entire market for professional soccer in the US is small — male players have minimum salaries of $36,500, and about a quarter of the MLS league makes less than $50,000 (though the top players make millions). For another, no one goes to games. Perhaps related, there’s very little sponsorship. In other words, if more people were actually paying to watch women's sports, the situation might be different.
The lack of attendance and sponsorships contribute to a chicken-or-the-egg problem when it comes to getting women’s sports up off the ground.
“Absent deep-pocketed investors who can commit for several years, women’s professional teams and leagues find themselves scrambling to survive almost from the moment they launch,” Shira Springer writes in the Boston Globe.
And this is the real outrage. So many professional women’s sports initiatives are set up to fail because they don’t have enough support from the beginning. Sponsors set up shop for a year or two, then bolt when they don’t see immediate returns, which sends teams and leagues into survival mode almost from the beginning.
In women’s cycling, to use another example, (where, to be fair, changing sponsors every year isn’t uncommon even on the men’s side) one of the world’s top-ranked teams, with 10 Olympians on the roaster, turned to crowd funding going into the 2015 season. It raised about $100,000, out of its stated $700,000 goal. [Disclosure: I donated.]
Yet with this year’s women's World Cup, there is perhaps some hope.
In the US, the 2015 women's World Cup had nearly 50% more viewers (in English) than the men’s version.
World Cup final viewership:
2014: 17.3m in English, 9.2m in Spanish.
2015: 25.4m in English, 1.3m in Spanish.

It’s becoming clear that there is a market there, if someone is willing to figure out how to take advantage of it. But it's still unclear how that will translate to the NWSL until the next World Cup.
However, you, dear reader, can do only one thing and it's not complaining about prize money on social media. If you want to fix the income disparity in women's sports, go buy a jersey or tickets for a game.

The Shane Ferro article is pretty much verbatim what I've been saying the past couple days, but he's going further suggesting the women's product is on par with the men's. It's not. Sorry, not even close. And I'm a woso supporter.

If we didn't have stuff going on, I'd love to go down to Houston and take the family this weekend to see the Dash give the standing ovation to Carly. But it's statements like the below that are flat ridiculous!!!

It’s morally outrageous that Carli Lloyd doesn’t get paid as much as Lionel Messi, but in the current economic environment, it seems pretty fair.

Carly Loyd had a great tourney, but she is in no way, shape, form or fashion in the same stratosphere as generational talents like Messi. Before this world cup she was known as a really, really good mid who wasted tons of opportunities blasting ridiculously low percentage shots from distance. If you made a list of the top 5 women players in the world before this tournament, I doubt Loyd would've been on the list.

Now all of a sudden it's a moral outrage she's not paid as well as Messi? Really?

This kind of fantasy land hyperbole sums up this whole argument in a nutshell.... euphoria over winning the WWC taken to levels of insanity. I would think people who do fight for gender equality in the real world would be kinda ticked this nonsense is hijacking a legimitate cause.

CBTeamworks wrote:I'm no marketing expert but wouldn't the target market be our daughters? If so I don't see it turning into the Lingerie Futbol League.

Marketing the sport only to 12-year-old girls and their moms is a mistake (just my opinion). If you're trying be a revenue generating juggernaut on the scale of men's soccer, you need to appeal to EVERYONE.

The most insatiable sports consumers are men. Men watch women's tennis. Women's tennis ratings often exceed the men's, which is why women's tennis players get paid very well. The ad revenue supports it.

Men watch women's Volleyball. I'm not sure if men watch much women's basketball (I know I don't)... maybe that explains relatively stagnant WNBA growth over the years?

In any event, men will watch women's soccer if you put out a consistently good product. And to be clear, good product means athletic ability and skill of the players.

Men know Serena would beat the tar out of 99% of men on the tennis court. Men know when they watch a olympic or pro track meet, the female athletes would run circles around them.

Men know they would have no better chance at besting Messi than the pro defenders who can't stop him.

I don't think most men under 30 think your average pro women's soccer player can beat them in a 1v1 game of pickup soccer. Convince them otherwise, and you'd likely see the women's game take off.

Good food for thought 4

Bill O'Reilly, after reading OP, has decided to "redistribute" his wealth. He has agreed to grant Rachel Maddow 5 million viewers nightly. Rachel works just as hard as Bill and even though she makes me vomit occasionally, its the fair thing to do. I hope this sheds the right amount light on this matter. If only God had made us asexual as he did the Komodo Dragon.

In all seriousness, it's Economics 101, as several people have already pointed out.

I think this is coming down to which comes first the chicken or the egg

InaB wrote:I think this is coming down to which comes first the chicken or the egg

??????????????????????

Convincing men in general that women's soccer is equal to men's or convincing 4 that the women's team winning the world cup three times vs the men's team zip should prove a quality product.

InaB wrote:Convincing men in general that women's soccer is equal to men's or convincing 4 that the women's team winning the world cup three times vs the men's team zip should prove a quality product.

England's men's team has won the Cup once. Most teams around the world have never won it. Why do their men players make so much more than MLS players?

4-3-3 wrote:
A strong u17 boys team would run circles aorund the WNT, and based on scrimmage rumors, I'd bet most academy level u15 teams give them far more than they can handle.

Very, very wrong.

maggiemae wrote:

4-3-3 wrote:
A strong u17 boys team would run circles aorund the WNT, and based on scrimmage rumors, I'd bet most academy level u15 teams give them far more than they can handle.

Very, very wrong.

It doesn't matter. Perhaps the women can kick some butt over the boys..maybe they can even beat the men's national team....it doesn't matter. Perception is reality when it comes to marketing...so therefore, 4-3-3 is spot on until proven incorrect on the field, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Couple of interesting tid-bits:

"Viewers made the Sunday match by far the most-watched soccer game in American TV history"

"An updated 25-year study in the journal Communication & Sport last month, titled "It’s Dude Time!," found that women's sports were featured in about 2 to 5 percent of all sports coverage last year, less than even in 1989."

"But with the exception of women’s tennis, broadcasters have not valued women’s sports equally, thus resulting in less money filtering down to players. The thinking among entertainment executives is often that ratings will be lackluster, interest will be low, advertisers won’t clamor to buy commercial time between the plays, even though the U.S. women’s team is delivering wins consistently. It leads to a fascinating chicken-egg problem: If networks did a better job of promoting women’s soccer, would more people watch it? Or, if more people watch women’s soccer, will the networks begin to pay more for the rights? Currently, it feels like a chicken-chicken problem, with the women’s team doing their job (winning games) and everyone else lagging badly in valuing their work. If the crowd in Chicago Sunday or chatter online was any indicator, people want to watch good athletic competition – male or female."
"As BuzzFeed's Lindsey Adler writes, "When the disparity in pay for women athletes versus men is raised, the argument often veers toward television ratings, with claims that women's sports are watched by significantly fewer people." Although that argument may not hold up for American audiences, it's worth noting that early viewership figures for this year's World Cup suggest that women's matches, though steadily attracting a global audience, are still far below that of the men's World Cup (188 million on average)."

InaB wrote:This is a great article on women's sports and sports figures versus men's. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/06/living/feat-womens-soccer-victory-uphill-struggle-equal-recognition/index.html

FiFA officials would never suggest that men should wear tighter shorts.

Sorry, going to tell on my age here, but I was part of the 70s and the struggle that there has been to be paid equally for equal responsibilities. I thought things would be better by now, but nope - same ol, same ol.

$2M in prize money for the USA team for their win (the third time for a US women's team) and $8M for the USA men's team who lost in the first round. Yep, that is equal all right.

Even you dads should be angry about the lack of equality for your daughters.

I remember years ago when I started out at a newspaper. I won numerous awards while on the job. Then I married (a fellow reporter). The Executive Editor called me and my spouse in and told me that in the future I wouldn't receive any raises because more than likely I would get pregnant and quit and it would have been a waste of the money. Then he told me that if my spouse hadn't gotten a raise within six months of when mine would be available he would get my raise. His reason was that my spouse would be the bread winner and would continue to work.

I know we have moved forward from the above scenario, but obviously we still have a long way to go.

Stepping off of the soap box.

I try and get as little info as possible from CNN Here are some dacts from a diff source....

http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2015/07/06/fifa-paying-womens-world-cup-victors-less-than-men-not-sexism-just-basic-math/

"Despite face prices sinking to $20.15 on group-match play, and FIFA reducing some tickets to $5, women’s World Cup opening-round matches drew just a few thousand people in several venues. The Los Angeles Times reported on June 9th, “Canada remains underwhelmed by the women’s World Cup, with a combined total of 21,861 fans showing up for four opening-round games in two cities Tuesday.” Just 10,175 fans watched a June 9 doubleheader in Montreal’s massive Olympic Stadium despite a two-games-for-the-price-of-one deal. The sea of seats made the late-’90s Expos look like a hot ticket in comparison.

The New York Times outlined the disparity in advertising revenues for the men’s and women’s World Cup: “The 2011 Cup brought in just $5.8 million, while the men’s cup in 2014 netted $1.4 billion.” The article notes that Fox Sports reports that it tripled advertising revenue since four years ago, indicating a growing game. But the advertisers still pay 80 times the money for the men’s game. And that’s just in the United States, where the women’s team ranks as the world’s best and the men’s team boasts… a quarterfinals appearance in 2002.

About 900 million people across the globe tuned in to Germany’s victory over Argentina in the 2014 World Cup. By way of comparison, about 63 million people across the planet, with an average audience of 59 million, watched Japan defeat the United States at the women’s World Cup in 2011. In the United States, Sunday’s 5-2 drubbing of Japan by the American women figures to break domestic viewing records—surely an indication of skyrocketing global viewership—for any soccer game.............."

the struggle that there has been to be paid equally for equal responsibilities.

I think maybe this is where you went wrong.   people aren't necessarily paid for their responsibilities, but for their work output.

I agree that the responsibilities of the women players on the USA soccer team are relatively equal, or maybe greater, than those of the men.   However, the marketplace has put a much higher value on the male competition than the female.

that's just a fact- whether the value is "wrong" in anyone's eyes or not.

If "responsibilities" was the standard, then stay at home moms and dads would be the highest paid people in the world- what's a bigger responsibility than that?

Add police, first responders, military.

Equality is right up there with apple pie; no one is going to argue against it.  However, I doubt anyone would really want to deal with the ramification of an ensured equal outcome.  Do you really want to buy a hamburger from a guy being paid equal to a doctor.  Even worse is the idea of being operated on by a doctor being paid minimum wage.  The bottom line is that not everyone or every job is valued equally.  That is true in capitalist societies but also in socialist and communist ones as well.  The old line that "some animals are more equal than others" recognizes that human nature applies to all economic systems.  Its not just human labor being valued differently.  Why is gold more valuable than copper?

The Women's soccer team are phenomenal athletes who reached the pinnacle of their sport.  They received their official reward from FIFA.  Why was it so much less than the German men received?  Because the market valued it less.  If the women's game reached the same amount of TV sets and put as many butts in seats across the globe as the men's game they could demand a higher payout as well.  The market is going to pay what they have to in order to secure the games.  Next time around the women may be able to command a higher payout.  If they do it will be because there is an increased demand for their product and only limited supply.  I am sure the soccer industry is full of agents willing to negotiate on their behalf.  I heard rumors of other countries providing huge payouts to incent their team's performance.  Somehow I think the change may be beginning.

Regardless of FIFA payouts and actual US National Team payments, do members of the USWNT have better endorsement opportunities than members of the USMNT? I haven't spent a lot of time reading the various articles (so maybe I missed it), but I didn't see any references to endorsements. I have seen Alex Morgan's face (among others) in a lot of ads, however. Endorsements seem to be a partial equalizer and, like FIFA payouts and team payments, are market driven.

Driver wrote: Do you really want to buy a hamburger from a guy being paid equal to a doctor.  

YES! Even though I have a pretty steep co-pay, I bet that would be one fantastic burger!

LOL Admin. Driver, the situation for equal pay is not paying all workers (regardless of their occupation) the same wage. It is about equal pay for women who do the same work at the same level for less money. The fact that after all this time, I still have to work harder for less pay than many of my male counterparts is still difficult to comprehend.

That being said, this situation, as you and others have said, comes down to marketing dollars. The chicken/chicken scenario is real and very difficult to overcome.