While the sport is the same, I think Spartak's point is that men's soccer and women's soccer are not the same. If that's the point, I think it's obviously correct. I think about it this way: If the sports are the same, then the men are better at it. If they're better at it, they have a case for being paid more. The laws about pay discrimination have to do with different classes of people doing the same job -- the job's are "fungible," to use a legal term. (If you have a bin full of red beans, you can take one cup out and then another cup out and you'll have the same thing with each cup -- the beans are "fungible.") A pediatrician is a pediatrician, whether male or female, and if you're a patient from a medical perspective one is the same as the other. On the other hand, women playing women's soccer and men playing men's soccer aren't fungible, you can't put a male soccer player on a women's team and get the same thing as what you had before. I think what the US Women are attempting to do is to have the pay discrimination laws extended to "non-fungible" jobs. They concede male and female players aren't interchangeable, but they are arguing that doesn't matter. Essentially, they're saying that regardless of whether the men objectively are better soccer players, women's soccer is equal to men's soccer as a sport. And since the two are equal as a sport, the pay should be equal. I think that's a hard sell in terms of the law, regardless of whether it's a position I believe in. (It's the same argument women's tennis players have made, and they've been largely successful with it but not through litigation.) There are economic arguments that can be made on behalf of men's soccer, based on claims that it produces more income -- I don't know if those claims are true or not. On the other hand, if it does produce more income, it's possible that is rooted in discrimination since time immemorial against women in athletic endeavors, so it's hard if not impossible to know whether men's soccer would be producing more income if there never had been such discrimination. The US Women, at this point, have opted to go the litigation route, so we'll see whether they'll be successful. It's possible at some point we may see a settlement (litigation can be a form of negotiation "by other means") and may never get a ruling on whether the pay discrimination laws will be extended to the men's sport/women's sport situation. Another route they could go would be the route the tennis women went. This would require cooperation among women's soccer players on an international level -- perhaps among the national team players from the top 16 teams in the world, all working together. They'd split from FIFA, form their own international organization, find sponsors, and run their own international competitions. It would involve a lot of risks, and I have the feeling FIFA would go to war over it. So far, I don't see the women being willing to do what it would take to go that route.
From the time he was elected till now, not a small amount of time either, Cordeiro should have fixed this. Or at least made progress to the point of avoiding a lawsuit. Most of the compensation for the women and men is agreed upon in their CBAs. I don't know how you agree to something in a CBA and then sue about it a few months later. Everything outside the two CBAs should be equal. I think there is a complete lack of trust between the USWNT and USSF that is decades in the making. The women are dragged all over the country and play in crazy stadiums in meaningless friendlies much more than the men. I think they would be ok with doing it if it funded their salaries and helped the program. But they must think they are funding the men or other USSF programs to a greater degree than the men. Put another way, they could play 12 home friendlies instead of 18 to just cover their cost but the money is being used to fund YNTs, Paraolympic teams, office overhead, etc. at a greater rate than the Men. Not saying I have any data, but what could they really be so upset about? Playing all these games, for years on horrible turf fields, on top of a condensed NWSL schedule, and it is no wonder so many of them have been injured the past 3-5 years with wear and tear injuries. Or it could be piddly stuff like the men charter and the women only charter between games. Who knows, but they have been upset for years and USSF and Cordeiro have obviously failed to remedy the situation.
Comparing men's and women's soccer. It is the only team sport I can think of that has rules (Laws) the same for both genders, including ball size. OTOH proponents of women's soccer, like myself, often say to skeptics and/or fans of men's soccer that they shouldn't compare men's to women's soccer, because women's soccer is a different game. Often cited are the general lack of diving and embellishing; and the need to be relatvely more technical due to having less speed, strength, and size; players also have more time and space to work with than the men do, making the game less hectic.
If the contracts go away it really could have a big affect for NWSL. That's a low probability chance though
Not necessarily. I believe the NWSL subsidy is a bonus on top of the USWNT contract. If the USWNT contract goes away, the NWSL bonus could remain.
I'm hoping it gets spread around. Rather than a few players getting a large bonus everyone gets a 25K bonus. I'm not holding my breath.
So, just out of curiosity, why do you think the World Cup is a much bigger event than the WWC? In terms of fans interest, money, and media coverage?
Interesting take on this. Thanks for posting it. But I'm not sure "fungible jobs" translate well to international sports. Consider the case of the Olympics. Should a Male member of the US Judo team be paid more (or less) than a Female? Should you value a gold medal differently based on the gender? The jobs are not fungible, nevertheless, I would argue that all the members of the US Judo team do the same job. This must be the same for Olympic soccer as well. Same pay, same benefits, same treatment because they are representing the country in the SAME event. The problem with FIFA is that there isn't a single event for both male and female. The World Cup is markedly different than the Women World Cup. So, IMHO, USWNT and USMNT do not perform the same job in FIFA competitions but they do in the Olympics. I would like to see a merger of the World Cups. One event, same pay (split in half). Lots of fan interest, media coverage and the best venues for WOSO.
I don't really have an opinion on whether the contract should be done away with. I feel that the 90's generation did well to fight for that, as the annual contract corresponds well with a league-less environment and provided necessary support and income for the women to remain professional soccer players in the absence of a professional league. However, I do feel it is disingenuous to negotiate for a number of benefits that are so specific to the needs of the USWNT and then foist a lawsuit full of accusations of unfair treatment toward the USSF (and some snarky asides directed at the USMNT). Their cherry-picking of numbers and statistics also paints them in a poor light. This isn't about the growth of women's soccer. If it were that, some of these women would actually care about their NWSL team (and their severely underpaid teammates on those teams). The USSF isn't a professional soccer organization. It administers all soccer in this country. There is a lot more going on than just the men's pot and the women's pot. Lastly, why don't they sue the broadcast networks for not offering to pay as much for the women's game as they do for the men's? Should USSF have to make up the difference out of it's own pocket?
Except that would not be the case. The women bring in more revenue than the men by a pretty good margin so it is the women that, for years, have been subsidizing the men's program. If the revenue were distributed base on source then the women should be paid substantially more than the men. As far as all the brouhaha about contracts goes I am pretty sure that the women would be very pleased to not have the current contract structure if the were compensated equitably. The one place where the men do outpace the women in revenue is in the club soccer (MLS vs NWSL) and that is part of the problem. US Soccer fails to promote and support the women at the same level as they do the men. I do not know if the women will win or even if this goes to trial but I do think that they have a strong case for gender discrimination. Edit to add: https://sports.yahoo.com/here-are-t..._DC_onYqmKXu_0kjqNDJ0-FKSbgu0oeAeyIkUag_xTCx0 "The lawsuit cites a very specific example in showing the profitability of the women's team. It states that in 2016, U.S. Soccer had initially budgeted a loss of $430,000 for the two senior national team programs but later revised that to a $17.7 million profit due to the USWNT's 2015 World Cup win and a surge in the team's popularity. What the lawsuit doesn't get into is the fact that the trend of the women bringing in more revenue than the men continued after the 2015 World Cup. The financials from U.S. Soccer's own annual reports show more revenue from the USWNT than the USMNT in 2017 and 2018 as well."
Is this ACTUALLY the case? I re-read this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/sports/soccer/usmnt-uswnt-soccer-equal-pay.html?module=inline Do you have another source that can show the contrary? I don't have a link to USSF's financials.
This needs a lot of asterisks to be put in context. The women probably outpaced the men in revenue in FY 2016 due to the pre-WWC games and victory tour after the WWC, several of which were sold out. (This is also a time period when more money was spent on the WNT than the MNT as well.) In 2017 and 2018, the men failed to qualify and played few home friendlies and fans were disillusioned by the team. That's still happening to a large extent. Plus, the men play many more away games than the women. Even from the financial statements, its difficult to tease out which is outpacing which, simply because revenue is just listed as "national teams" and not broken down by gender. Plus, is revenue from sponsorships solely based on the WNT, and not the MNT? No, of course not. I'd bet that if you go back to previous cycles, the women did not outpace the men in revenue, and I'm not even sure it happened in every fiscal year of this cycle either. I personally don't like tying it to performance or revenue. Economically on revenue, that's big risk and reward. On performance, what if years down the road the men are outperforming the women? (I know, it seems a stretch, but it doesn't mean it couldn't happen). I'd rather it stay just on the basis of gender discrimination.
One of the things the anti-discrimination laws do is to require, when there's a protected class, that the protesting members of the class prove there's disparate treatment. Once they've done that, the burden is on the other side to prove that there's a valid justification for the disparate treatment. In that context, the reason who's producing net revenue is important is that one of the frequent justifications given for the women's pay being poorer is that the men bring in a lot more revenue. If that is not true factually, then the USSF has the burden of proving there's another valid reason. What could that be? Other than that traditionally men get paid more?
One group is employees with benefits, bonus for league play and pensions the other can be seen as independent contractors with no guaranteed income. There is a higher risk financially for a USMNT player to perform with the national team. Pulisic has more to lose playing for the Nats than Morgan as his recent $74 million transfer shows. Another difference is competition. MLS and foreign based USMNT eligible players are not legally shut out of the team. That is not true for the USWNT.
Sorry, I was speaking specifically about the revenue-sharing model that apparently the women suggested that I don't like, not the fact that revenue was used as a supporting fact in the lawsuit. I know I didn't make that clear though. But thanks for your insight on the laws. I know you have more experience in this realm than most of us posters.
So because a man can make a whole lot more for his club team, he should be paid more for playing for the national team?
I have heard this argument and it may stand up in court. An independent contractor has higher potential loss factor than an employee with benefits. Personally, I think both teams should be paid the same but the contracts need to go. I am not convinced these are the best American players on the USWNT.
you keep posting this idea. it clearly depends on who is making the argument, and which cycle they cherry pick. depending on the cycle, sometimes the men bring in twice as much as the women. as others have pointed out, this is a two-edged sword of an argument for the women to use, condemning them to second class treatment whenever the men bring in more $$ than they do. huh? where have any of these women made this argument?
I was speaking to a friend last night who works in labor law. The parallel she used was line workers. If power lines are knocked down in Tampa, Florida and there is not enough labor to get them fixed quickly outside labor is brought in from other places. Someone from Ohio generally makes more than someone on the Tampa power company's payroll. One of these reasons is the Ohio worker is risking their livelihood elsewhere while the Tampa employee is simply doing their job. This is just one lawyer's opinion and she knows little about soccer. I just thought I would post it as an angle that could be used because I haven't heard it before and I don't know a damn thing about Tampa labor laws, I was picking a random place. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion either.