Here are a table and chart of the USSF's line items showing its WNT and MNT expenses from 2005 through 2018. I'm assuming that these essentially are the teams' total compensation packages including both salary and benefits. As pointed out by some, the numbers of players participating in the distribution of these amounts may have been different for the men and the women. In the chart, I've included trend lines, using computer generated straight trend lines.
I was literally about to post that you (yeah, you personally- you seem to know more about it than most here, certainly more than I do) should go find his work and post it here. It would present an impartial view of things, and it would provide cover against those on either side who want to omit this or that fact to suit their argument. It's pretty clear from what's been said about him that he has no dog in the fight.
I mean, every time I want to look at what he's collected, I do a search. He's storing some of the data at scribd. I think at one point he even had stuff at Gitlab. His Twitter feed should do it. I'm on my phone now because I'm watching Akron play an exhibition. Can't link and watch.
Some of Beau's stuff is linked in this thread (the calculator he made): https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/equal-pay-calculator.2104864/ And a summary of what he found from the calculator on his blog here: https://rantingsoccerdad.com/2019/07/08/equal-pay-play-no-friendly-gap-narrowed-cup-bonuses/ There's other posts on his blog about the topic as well.
Caitlin Murray just posted this link about the mess. https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-the-womens-world-cup-worth-not-even-fifa-knows.
It seems to me that the comparison isn’t equal unless you can separate out the NWSL salaries of uswnt players. The ussf doesn’t pay the men for their club play. The alternative is to include the club salaries for the men in determining total compensation.
Or for USSF to stop paying the WNT stipends, though apparently that was a sticking point in the negotiations for the current CBA.
The women's salary was negotiated by the women, it includes everything that is negotiated including NWSL money. That is part of their agreement. It may not fit the argument they want to make right now, but it is valid.
To hear them talk, they'd be successful if only USSF would stop holding them back. They probably mean more the NT than NWSL, though.
http://www.espnfc.com/united-states-usaw/story/3960725/uswnt-disputes-ussf-filing-in-equal-pay-suit Great new filling from the Players. Shows USSF are a bunch of obfuscating bastards.
Well the WNTPA did turn down a contract that omitted salaries - roughly the same as the MNTPA. It's hard to take some of the claims too credulously when the pay they do receive was collectively bargained. I'm a former union organizer. The whole point of being in a union is for the greater good. To collectively bargain for the needs of the whole and not the desires of a few. The WNTPA bargained for things that were more important to the WNT players like guaranteed salaries, maternity leave, and so on. This lawsuit seems to be about enriching the 23 (or maybe 28) players currently under "federation player" status at the expense of the greater good. They want their cake (salaries and guarantees) and to eat it (MNT style appearance fees) too.
Not sure this detail has been posted in this thread: the trial date is set for May 5, 2020, which is obviously before the Olympics. Both sides had hoped for a date after the Olympics, in either November or December.
If both sides want a date in November or December, the lawyers probably will figure out a way to get postponements to fit into that window.
Reviewing the complaint actually filed by the players (being an attorney, I can get access to court filings relatively easily), a few points are worthy of consideration. The players allege (par. 44) that the USSF requires them "to perform the same job duties that require equal skill, effort and responsibilities performed under similar working conditions as MNT players." That allegation is simply not true. The USWNT players don't have to play against men. Now, one might argue that the USMNT cannot beat many of the best men's teams and that is why the USWNT is more successful. But the USWNT could not beat, for example, the Curacao men's team, while most times the USMNT will. The most important working condition is different. The opponents the USMNT faces are superior soccer players. Put differently, does anyone doubt that the USMNT, if it could compete in the WWC, would win it? Of course, it would be as hollow and meaningless a victory as that of Alexander the Great over an all-female island's army (that by legend he refused to attack, since one of their spokeswomen convinced him that there was a possibility however remote that he could lose, which he would never live down, and that by winning all he would do is earn the accolade of "you killed women."). This is why I think this prong of the USWNT players' argument is fundamentally flawed. By contrast, for example, women who serve as fighter pilots in the USAF have to fight against other countries' men who are pilots. They don't get to say "I am only going up against other women."
Another interesting allegation in the complaint is contained in paragraph 42: "In fact, during the period relevant to this case, the WNT earned more in profit and/or revenue than the MNT." That is an allegation that could prove to be true. Given high TV ratings and other benefits of publicity redounding from on-field success and connection with fans, maybe it is true. If so, it is a powerful argument for being paid more than players on the USMNT. That might mean that being paid less is a civil rights violation and perhaps an equal pay act violation (though possibly the latter does not apply when the jobs are different, and given who the opponents are, maybe the jobs are different). Failing to pay the USWNT members more if they are in fact more profitable might well be a civil rights violation because it is based on a premise that women as athletes should not earn more than men even when generating higher revenues or profits, which would likely amount to discrimination based on gender. But that will turn on whether they can prove greater profitability. I make no assessment of whether they will other than to acknowledge that their popularity and TV ratings are a basis to conclude that such proof is possible.
One other issue that will receive some scrutiny is a reality for which the USSF is probably not responsible. Many players on the USMNT make a decent living from their club teams. By comparison, most USWNT players probably do not. So, it may take more money to induce a male player to play for the USMNT because he has other non-USSF options that are more lucrative that it takes to induce a female player to play for the USWNT because the pay for USWNT service, even if lower than that for USMNT service, still beats what the women's club teams pay. That may or may not be discrimination based on gender; that requires a review of applicable law. But in the first instance it is discrimination based on alternatives that the sought employees can earn, alternatives whose disparities are not caused by the USSF. Whether that also becomes illegal gender-motivated discrimination is something perhaps the case law addresses. But that is likely a key issue that will emerge in the case. If the USSF starts to argue that "I have to pay the men more because otherwise they won't play at all, because they have more lucrative alternatives; women who have more lucrative alternatives can also make those decisions, but it is not my fault that none of the women who play for the USWNT have no more lucrative club alternatives." The question is, and I don't claim to know the answer to that question, is such a rationale impermissible gender-based discrimination under applicable law? Maybe it is. A company that sought to hire, say, engineers or software designers, probably cannot justify paying women with the same level of experience and education less than men of the same level and experience on the grounds that other companies pay men more and thus they have to be paid more by the offending company in order to lure talent. But, in that instance, those other companies also should rightly be the targets of actions by women for discriminatory pay practices. By contrast, the MLS can justify paying its male players more than the NWSL can pay its players because, well, they draw better, their fans pay higher ticket prices and their games do better ratings. And, they don't hire women to play on their teams because no woman is good enough to play on an MLS team. Even Michelle Akers, the greatest women's soccer player ever, would tell anyone who would ask that at her prime should could not have played for an MLS team. So the players have an uphill battle, the best front which, in my initial analysis, is the argument that they should be paid more than the men because they generate more money for the USSF and the USSF's refusal to do so is rooted in an impermissible notion that it would be "demeaning" to the USSF if it paid its women more than its men based on revenue generation. And, to win on that front, they have to show the higher profitability reality is on their side.
Well, as a fellow attorney, I'd say you may be mistaking an interpretation of a law for a finding of fact. A court could decide that "similar working conditions" doesn't include playing against men, in the context of sports, rather it means playing against opponents of the same sex as you just as the men play against the same sex as them.