Abby Wambach - “Wolfpack” and Demanding Gender Equality On and Off the Field | The Daily Show

Disingenuous for at least the following reasons:

• Abby points to revenue for 2015 as proof that the women's team earns more money than the men's. This cherry-picks the single year of the women's world cup, and ignores that them men's team out earns the women's throughout the entire cycle. It also ignores that world cup revenue (for example) is controlled by FIFA.
• Abby says that the women's games are scheduled at random times, which makes the women's games harder to follow. Poppycock. The men's team are also all over the map in regard to timing. Moreover, USSF is incentivized to schedule games to maximize revenue for both teams, and the women's team likely has little insight into the analysis going into these decisions.
• Abby never mentions that the women have asked for completely different comp structures, including guaranteed salaries and health insurance.
• Microagressions! I won't even address it.

 

does she think people watch men play sports b/c men are favored by society?

i think more people watch male sports b/c the level of ability and achievement is the highest in those sports and thus more engaging and "interesting"....the money that all athletes get is generall tied to how much interest there is in the sport they play. male athletes generate more interest than women, in general...so that is why they get more money.

They should be arguing for fair pay not equal pay....talking about what men get makes no sense to me. are they saying that athletic compensation should not be related to interest level in that sport? if so, i dont see how that can be justified.

they should go for a % of revenue or profits.......if they think that they aren't being compensated enough based on what they offer that is fair and they (either team) should be allowed to have a say in that process - from marketing to management to profit-sharing, etc.

since both teams are not often (ever?) in the same venue/location....it is very easy to determine how much each individual team generates.

I guess it is fair to say that the men get more $ and exposure so that is why they generate more money...and if only the women got the same investment, they would generate as much/more than the men.

but to me the idea of equal pay is a bad idea. it locks in what people are paid in a weird way, imo....why should pay be tied to gender in any way...even if it means the same for men and women? gender shouldnt factor in at all.

what if the men all of a sudden begin to generate much more money than they have historically? should women also get a huge bump even if they are not generating more money just to keep it equal?

In tennis, it makes sense b/c both women and men are at the same venues for the grandslams....they are both there for the same event. if the world cup was mens and womens at the same time in the same country (not a bad idea for the women to advocate for) - equal pay would make sense - but even then men get a huge % of their salary from CLUB SOCCER not national team play.....(yeah being on the national team helps individual players get more money from clubs)....

how much money did women's soccer clubs generate in 2018?

how much money did men's club soccer generate in 2018?

it feels like the argument is ...well....the numbers don't add up but we should just do this b/c its right!

this isn't about soccer this is about the feminist agenda.

but if thats the case we should also give the native Americans their land back and give blacks reparations etc....are we ready to go down that road????

i mean i'm down with free college free health care no military etc....are we ready for that?

are we ready to start making economic decision from an ethical perspective and the "feels"?

I'm not sure how much Abby and her pals have thought this through other than they know they want more $...pretty transparent if you ask me.

 

I think it's completely understandable for USSF to subsidize* the women's national team. Sadly, the leagues for women in the U.S. have never really been successful, and top women players understandably rely more on the national team for their income.

The one thing I strongly advocate, however, is equitable distribution of subsidized salaries within the WNT program. The US Women have definitely had trouble with cliques forming in the squad, to a far greater extent than the men. USSF should not let subsidies get captured by only a few players.

*And if the WNT actually bring in more than the MNT, then let them keep it unless it's a sizeable difference. This forum consistently argues that USSF ineptly directs the MNT, so if you believe that then any extra money would be wasted for the men anyways.

 

Shrug. They're negotiating in public using data that fits their argument.
Whatever. Good luck to 'em. The courts will decide, if it gets that far.

 

Isn't the USWNT a closed shop? The players in the pool get paid a salary and it's hard to break into the pool IIRC. I also think they were offered a similar pay structure to the MNT and turned it down in negotiations.

 

Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but there is no MENS team. Any woman good enough could play for the US National Team (and get compensated accordingly). That is not the case for the women's team.

 

God she is so disingenuous. Maybe don't go on a "comedy" show that will never question your woke point of view and try to just defend your position honestly. I would love to see other players come out and just be honest....maybe former players who don't have as much to risk? The lies will overshadow any legit point they are trying to make.

Here is what is going to happen. They will settle for like 80% of what they want, claim victory even though they are in the wrong because the Federation does not want the PR battle in these "get woke, go broke" times. Everyone loses.

 

Did Trevor Noah ask her to clarify her unamerican statements about the dual nationals who play or played for the USMNT? The USWNT needs a spokesperson who isn't a divisive drunkard.

 

Sure, all is fine, if you don’t mind a disingenuous argument about a wage gap.

 

Press junket to promote her book. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

I'm normally apathetic about the USWNT and I won't ever root against any athletes representing the US...but I also won't shed a tear if they get bounced early in the WWC.

 

I find myself perpetually annoyed at the fact that media figures never bring up the most salient of points. Men have always chosen to support, or not support, particular sports and particular leagues, w/ebbs and flows in terms of popularity and sustainability. League's have survived when they could consistently capture the eyeballs/attention of men and their wallets/time and died when they couldn't.

Women have never come close to supporting any particular female sports or leagues, and indeed said leagues that have persisted have tended to do so out of the largesse of a given league and its owners (see WNBA) rather than an actual demand for the product. No such largesse ever existed for the USFL, XFL, NASL etc. If you're league couldn't hack it, it folded, period. People like Abby Wambach need to direct their attention to their sisters who in theory support Title IX, and in theory support equal pay, access to sports, all of that, but never actually spend a single thin dime, or a single minute of attention on any of their leagues, ever. I watched more WUSA than any woman I know. I'm the only one I know who actually saw, and remembers who scored the winning goal in the WUSA final back in '03. I never met a single woman who saw it live, or knew the result (2-1 Washington over Atlanta, Wambach with a brace). This is true across the board. I don't know any women who watch the WNBA, or ask for it to be put on in sports bars, at my house etc. Granted this is all anecdotal, but we already know that my anecdotal evidence reflects reality, ratings were crap, attendance was crap, and the league folded. This has happened consistently across the board. The only woman's sport that seems to hold its own is Tennis and that's in no small part because it's more watchable than men's.

If women want these kinds of fights, they need to find the real enemy to the growth of the game for women which is, of course, women. They don't care, they don't spend any money on it, nor any attention to televised games either and as a result these leagues, and the opportunities for a professional soccer career are a stretch at best w/out a kind of mens league subsidy program (a la WNBA) and let's be honest, that's just flat out b.s. Men keep the sports they like afloat, or not, based on their interest and willingness to spend their time and money on such things. Most women do not, and if they do, they spend it consistently more often on male sports, than female.

The problem isn't that men want to watch sports played at the highest level or not at all (if this were true, nobody would watch MLS, nobody would care about Minor League Baseball, Junior and AHL Hockey, Summer League Basketball etc, but they do), the problem is that women don't want to watch at all, period. If they did, these leagues would survive, but they won't and so they don't (unless a league like the NBA keeps it afloat as a part of it's mission rather than profitability). I don't have a problem with the leagues (I've watched them) or women's sports (I've watched plenty of them). I want young women to have the opportunity to have club careers like their male counterparts. I think it's important, valuable and unfair when it doesn't happen. However the blame needs to be laid where it belongs, with women themselves. They have no problem protesting, but they have a HUGE problem actually spending any amount of time or money actually doing whats necessary to keep these leagues, and these careers afloat: spending time, money, and attention on the leagues to the degree that make them profitable, the end all, and be all, of professional sports, and I think all of these figures are being incredibly disingenuous to present these arguments without ever spending a single minute addressing the true source of the problem: Total and Comprehensive Adult Female Apathy when it comes to watching women's sports. All that needs to change is that: if that's changed it makes all the difference, if it isn't, none of this will ever change a <expletive> thing. Not ever.

 

She didn't have to drive. I should have been more specific.
Whether a point here needs or doesn't need to be addressed is really up to the poster.

I don't have a charge against the compensation. They should never have been asked to play on turf, nor should they have to accept lesser accomodations and lower per diem.

Really, I think they should just ask the USSF to subsidize them. They're the ones winning World Cups, and it appears that the market won't support the sort of league they need to keep that going.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

 

Cry bullies.

 

Actually, I've never heard of her voicing anything about alcoholism. People get wasted. They don't all drive wasted. My invective was intended (tho it did not succeed) to convey her bad decisionmaking.

Plus, when she says what she said about dual nats, she's pretty much open to criticism of a lot of kinds that don't have tolimit themselves to her words. But I certainly won't call her a drunkard here again.

Well, I think they're engaging in dishonest tactics, and cherry picking years to compare finances. And I think they're trying to fight this battle in the court of public opinion. But it doesn't make a lot of difference to me one way or the other, hence my statement that I didn't have a charge against them. I do think an honest, open request for subsidization is better than trying to make the Fed out to be working against them to such an extreme extent that a suit was necessary. The turf and per diem thing is not enough for them to get angry enough to concoct the other stuff, IMO.

I don't know that they have a lot of choice, given that not many people here really care about women's club ball. But facing that market reality and asking --nicely-- for a handout is a lot more mature than making shit up about the folks who are going to have to give them a handout somewhere down the line anyway.

I never gave her any thought one way or the other until she made those remarks. So she's not dead to me- she's running in the red. I came here to bash her precisely because of what she said. You didn't. That's why I think we don't see that as being equally insulting.

 

Woah, the WNT is disingenuous on public appearances in which they cry about their "lack" of subsidized pay to be professional soccer players in a sporting landscape entirely dependent on the whims of the same male athletes/organizations they are demonizing?

I'm shocked, shocked I say!

 

Brought this up in mixed company one time, will never do that again. But, that is the bottom line, $$$. Same with basketball and baseball(softball).

 

men support professional sports much more than women do. in terms of money spent, time invested, etc...any metric you wanna use....men are much higher supporters of sports than women are...support is what keeps any and every professional sport alive. not fairness. not ethics. not morality.

..ironically, in this case, what you're basically saying is that women's sports needs men to survive....

either that, or women need to change their collective behavior and start supporting women's pro sports....which i find more unlikely than men somehow doing so....both are unlikely...but men are women's best bet in terms of supporting the survival of professional female athletes.its a bigger leap for women to become sports fans all of a sudden than for men to start supporting mens and womens sports all of a sudden....instead of just men supporting male sports.

,,,,i'd love to hear abby's thoughts on that.

 

I don't disagree, but that's still the problem. I watch womens sports (some, though not all) because I think it's important to support the dreams of young girls to be professional athletes. I think there's something incredibly disingenuous and disrespectful about demanding such funding and support w/o lifting a finger to do whats necessary to sustain it. I don't think there's a clear answer to this, and I agree w/you that the one answer you have won't work. The vast majority of men aren't going to watch because they have their club sports they follow, and the teams they follow from an early age, plus yeah, there is the "want to watch the very best" angle which somewhat applies (it's incredibly noticeable in soccer, although it's gotten better over the past decade+). However I don't think there's any getting around the fact that women have to do their part to make it sustainable because men never will in enough numbers and already watch a ridiculous amount of sports to begin with.

Every time this comes up I just find it absolutely infuriating that people like Abby Wambach point the finger at literally everyone other than the people chiefly responsible for the problem.