US women soccer players want equal pay to US men's team.

Serious question: why is NWSL irrelevant here? The manner in which the current CBA (and any future CBA) will be structured is likely to be informed by the economic realities of the women’s professional club environment vs the men’s.

That’s the primary reason (probably the only reason, actually) the women opted for greater security via the base salary in lieu of higher payouts for NT duties, is it not?

How can the compensation issue be sustainably addressed without the NWSL comp issue being addressed?

 

Because it is clear that the NWSL is not so popular but the USWNT is very popular. And the lawsuit action is about the USWNT.

 

Well, unfortunately there's an entanglement that the players asked for, so ignoring it is very selective.

 

And it’s also about the USSF, who pays those salaries. We can’t have an informed discussion of the issue of pay equity if we declare only a subset of the economic considerations to be in bounds.

The women make less than the men per appearance. That’s also completely obvious. They also generate (roughly) the same attendance per match. But it is completely meaningless to consider those two things without also considering:

-match volume
-all forms of USSF salary and benefits provided to both
-costs to put on events for both
-the size of the respective player pool to which those payments are available (or not).
-basically all of the revenue streams, opportunity costs that create leverage points, etc.

Otherwise you can’t come to a rational (and legal) conclusion.

It would kind of be like me asking a bank to just look at my base income when making a home loan decision. Ignore any debt, expenses, bonuses, etc.

 

Beau Dure has done an excellent job consolidating all the public financial information of the USMNT & USWNT from the past 8 years here:

https://duresport.com/womens-soccer-pay-resource-page/

The USWNT have never come close to averaging the same attendance as the USMNT. They only get close to the same game day revenue as the USMNT by playing twice as many matches per year. However, this also isn't a complete picture because I don't believe(I could be wrong) that revenue earned from hosting the Copa America and Gold Cup are included in these figures. If that were included the figures would be even more lopsided.

 

Yeah. I looked at his numbers and also pulled up some attendance figures separately. You’re right that the MNT draws more per game than the women, but the difference is not appreciable. At least compared to the pay structure differences, WC payouts, etc. Simplifying it a bit, but the women tend to draw 1/2 of what the men do in “big match” friendlies and also 1/2 of what they do in “small match” friendlies. The difference seems to be that the women play a higher proportion of “big matches”. Probably because the NT field is a lot smaller globally. Brazil, Canada, Australia, Japan, the US and the top 5-6 UEFA sides tend to play one another a lot.

 

Any realistic comparison of "draws" is unavoidably skewed by the fact that US Soccer schedules the men's games to attempt to maximize income from supporters of the opponent.

Should fair compensation to the men and women be determined by how popular their opponents are?

And this is discussing, but without conceding, that comparison of revenue will be a factor that the Court will even consider.

 

2018 USMNT Friendlies (home):
Brazil - East Rutherford, NJ - 32,489
Mexico - Nashville - 40,194
Colombia - Tampa - 38,631
Peru - East Hartford - 24,959

Of those, only the Colombia match appears to remotely be an away-team money grab, and it arguably didn't work that well. If the Brazil match had been in CT instead of Peru (who has a huge immigrant population...anywhere?), you might have an argument.

 

That argument is really weak. Every sports team's value, in large part, comes from their opponents. If you take Barcelona out of La Liga and stick them in the Armenian First Division their value as a club would plummet. The value of the USMNT is greater than the USWNT precisely because the competition is greater. I see this as an argument against the USWNT case.

And I really don't see any argument other than revenue that the court will rule on.

 

US Soccer certainly skews friendly locations for the men to maximize revenue, but nonetheless, fans packing the stadium is a byproduct of the more competitive nature of the men’s game. More people care about it, globally.

The women played Mexico at Red Bull arena prior to the World Cup in an overwhelmingly pro-US crowd. That’s literally impossible for the men to achieve in a major metro, not including gaming the ticketing system like we do for Columbus qualifiers.

 

2019 friendlies (to date):
Panama - Glendale, AZ - 9040
Costa Rica - San Jose, CA - 13,656
Ecuador - Orlando - 17,422
Chile - Houston - 18,033
Jamaica - DC - 17,719
Venezuela - Cincy - 23,955

The only one you could say was a traditional money-grab based on opponent is maybe Jamaica in DC (not as much as if it were El Salvador, but still high). It was pretty "meh" probably kept down by the venue to a degree.

 

I would guess that Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are the most popular foreign national teams in the US.

So if you think the US men would've drawn anywhere near the above numbers against other national teams, I have a bridge to sell you.

Since you seem to have easy access to the numbers, what was the Gold Cup attendances?

 

There's about a dozen of these threads on this issue floating around, and in one of them I asked months ago for someone to actually cite some case law on this point.

 

Okay? But you DEFINITELY are going to get a different result if you play Brazil in Foxborough, or Mexico in NJ, Chicago, Texas, AZ or CA. Colombia may be popular, but you're not getting anything out-of-the-ordinary outside of FL, and it seems not outside of Miami (which would be the gold mine).

You need to define your parameters a bit better before I buy off on that bridge, Sparky.

Everyone in the world with the ability to use Wikipedia has access to the numbers. I'm sure you're plenty capable.

 

Harris just went at ur girl saying she was a homophobe...strange...

seems like everyone agrees with me...but you who thinks this about her just not wanting to wear a shirt because she doesn't like the colors on it lol.

 

Ibid.

 

While we weren't looking, the Men just scheduled one more repetitive, boring, and moneygrubbing friendly against Mexico for September.

 

I was looking. It is inevitable. The notion that it is common anymore is a bit...dated.

 

I'm not an attorney, so take my opinion for what it's worth. The USWNT complaint is based on a couple things:

A. They perform the same duties as the men do. Requiring the same amount of skill.
B. They generate as much, if not more, revenue/profit as the men.

The first part of this will be thrown out of court in a second. And if it's not it will send shockwaves through the sporting world in this country. The 2nd part is the only way they could prove gender discrimination. If they generate as much money as the men they should get paid as much.

I've seen many people, even so-called journalists, use the USSF is a non-profit argument. "It's a non-profit, therefore, the women should get the same pay as the men." But every employee in a non-profit does not make the same amount of money. A non-profit determines how much an employee makes based upon their goals as a non-profit. The government has no right to compel the USSF to invest as much $$$ into women's soccer as it does men's. The government(courts) can only get involved if a law is broken. In which gender discrimination would apply, if proven. The USWNT would have to prove they are just as valuable to USSF as the USMNT are to the USSF in their stated goals. It would be hard to prove this, imo.

 

That’s kind of racist. @Coyote-Trickster

This guy is so out there that I find him amusing.

For now.

 

It’s factored into expenses...we pay Mexico more to come here for a friendly than Peru.

 

Harris fires back at Hinkle.

Hinkle, our team is about inclusion. Your religion was never the problem. The problem is your intolerance and you are homophobic. You don’t belong in a sport that aims to unite and bring people together. You would never fit into our pack or what this team stands for. https://t.co/XmzKIB88UV

— Ashlyn Harris (@Ashlyn_Harris) July 15, 2019

FWIW, I think the clear meaning of her comments is that she didn’t want to support gay pride.

 

Ashlynn Harris doing her best a_new_fan impersonation!

Saying “you don’t belong” and “you would never fit into our pack” is a bit over the top and lends credence to the accusation that Hinkle may have been excluded for reasons other than soccer considerations.

 

Fires back? Some preacher dug up the Hinkle video and posted it claiming the USWNT was anti Christian or something. These comments did not come from Hinkle. For Harris to fire back, Hinkle has to fire first.

 

The MNT capitalizes on the fact that soccer, not women's soccer, is extremely popular in many immigrant communities. Too bad all that money counts the same.

The WNT strategy is to wrap itself in the Flag and female empowerment as often as possible, capitalizing on America's desire to crush other countries in sporting competition. Hence why the NWSL flounders, because people come to watch Americans beat other countries, not women play soccer.