You still don't understand. Yes, the big pool media contract has nothing to do with the contracts with the teams. If you divided the media contracts, then there would be total transparency regarding the revenue each team generates. Women's contract would be based on wayyyyyy more revenue than the men, so they'd get paid wayyyyyy more.
Nope. In the last couple of years, the women have finally inched ahead of the men (failure to qualify for a World Cup will do that), but over the last 10-15 years, the men have basically subsidized the women.
Great. That's my point. If the women think they bring in more money, separate media agreements put it all on the table. I'm saying what you're saying, but you don't get it.
Show your work here, please. The numbers that I find have MLS viewership (on cable outlets, so not comparing apples to oranges) at about 10% higher level than the WNBA. Am I missing something?
Also, don't forget to add all viewership (English and Spanish language) together. Many times Spanish language viewership is higher than English language something that basically the other American sports leagues don't have. I'm pretty comfortable predicting that if anyone looks into it there is little to no Spanish language WNBA viewership. I would be interested to see which (if either) has foreign country viewership.
With the way US Soccer runs the men's program, the Women's program may as well be the de facto national team at this point. The men have been perennial losers and failures, while the women win world cups seemingly at will.
sure. Here’s WNBA at 450k https://sportsarefromvenus.com/2019/07/12/tv-ratings-wnba-fan-attendance-still-lacking/ and MLS is under 300k. I’m not sure it’s correct to add Spanish language as that a separate channel so the buyer has to use up two distribution resources. Probably better to divide the combined rating by the number of channels as that’s how ESPN will look at it. as I said, the Spanish speaking numbers are more important that the English one; however that demographic doesn’t have the media buying power (as of yet) as the English speaking channels. make sense?
To further muddy the TV ratings discussion: the links above all relate to national network deals, not the regional networks. I don't know about you guys, but I mainly watch the MLS team in my market carried by the regional sports network, not ESPN or whoever. If the WNBA is having attendance problems (as that above article states) I find it unlikely they have a lot of team-market-based TV viewership. Anyway, back to USSF board of governors discussion....
I sincerely hope so. I'm a pretty faithful reader of The Athletic, and I also try to keep current with ESPN and SI. Their writers - Tenorio, Stejskal, Carlisle, Marcotti, Wahl, etc. - haven't been covering this like I had hoped they would. I'm not always the biggest fan of the media in general, but it does have a critical role to play in holding people and organizations accountable. I get that there are other issues and concerns in society right now, but this is a big hire (and now even more important with the change in the Chairman's position). If MLB or the NFL were hiring a new commissioner, we'd be seeing non-stop reporting from the top "insiders". I'm not seeing that from the people I would hope to see that type of reporting from. The only thing I've really seen is that Cordeiro didn't like the first slate of candidates from the search firm, so he either asked for a new slate or changed search firms (not sure which it was - I don't remember that).
This is repeated a lot without adding that who you play is a big part of this. Yes, the men have trouble playing against the rest of the world's teams that have been the mostly the number one sport in their country for over 100 years. The women beat up on countries that added teams later than the US and give very little support to their women's teams. I've seen comments from people who literally think the women are better and mean they could beat the men's team. The truth is the women's team has trouble beating 15 year old boys teams. yes, obviously the women do better against their peers than the men. That there are reasons for this that a lot of people don't seem to know is bizarre. The Dallas Cowboys haven't won a Super Bowl in decades but I'd bet my life savings they could beat the high school champions in the biggest age class in Texas.
Passionte fans of both the men's and women's teams understand this. The USWNT never insinuate that they'd beat the USMNT. They get it. The men are bigger/faster/stronger. Its the casual soccer fan that might not understand. If you watch soccer once a year, you may not visually see the difference between the USMNT and USWNT on the field. I only watch the marathon at the Olympics. If there wasn't a clock being shown, would I know how different the race is between the men and the women marathon runners? Not really. As a non-running fan, it all looks like running to me. [Its a touchy subject these days. Remember when John McEnroe said Serena Williams would be ranked "700th in the world" if she was playing on the men's circuit? He knows a hell of a lot more about tennis than me, so he's probably right. He said he was surprised by the backlash because its self-evident. What was the benefit of saying it, though? I don't know.] Its also irrelevant in terms of this pay dispute. You could never in a million years use it as a reason to pay the women differently. There are arguments that can be made, but that certainly isn't one of them. It was utterly ridiculous and exposed the USSF as a complete and total clown show.
Some of that has to do with the the rest of the world not taking women’s soccer seriously. As that changes it will be interesting to see where we remain in the world sphere. I imagine consistently top 5 but it won’t be as much of a cake walk as it has in years past.
The ignorance to this issue is not just related to soccer. The Military has been infected the worst with all these social changes. For another reference, James Hasson’s Stand Down chronicles how generals, feminists, and politicians have pushed this agenda to get women into combat arms that they’ve intentionally overlooked the negative impacts on combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, discipline, and morale. As a counselor, it’s one of the number one complaints and stuck points from veterans - the degradation of the military’s standards to promote this faulty idea that women can physically do anything a man can do. From my experience as a grunt, I have never met a woman who I believed possessed the necessary mental and physical toughness, aggression, nor ability to fit in with an infantry unit, without changing what those units are all about - brutally killing people in close combat. Or without a feminist throwing a temper tantrum, that standards should be lowered (although deny the lowering of those standards) and demanding that the unit serve her needs as an individual rather than the needs of the unit. In other words, the Army Value of Selfless Sacrifice must have turned into All about the Self, because everyone knew the negative impacts on unit integrity, yet disregarded it for the sake of cheerleading this feminist cause. Likewise, NOBODY on the ground was asking for these changes. It’s one of the most universally accepted bad ideas for guys with experience in combat arms units. More so, they have LIED to the public, saying that these women have been serving on the frontlines - where these women may have served in an auxiliary capacity, but NONE of these women stayed outside the wire for prolonged periods of times during offensive combat operations. For example, there were no females with us when we went house-to-house in Fallujah and Mosul in 2004 and 2005. None of these females were the 1 or 2 man inside a house, who physically needed to overpower a male jihadist, who trained all his life to rape and murder an American. Honestly, it’s the most disgusting social policy that the government has ever pushed, and it was built on a lie... just the general American public is too ignorant to understand that the infantry and special operations units require a certain standard to perform its mission to engage and close with the enemy by fire and maneuver; or simply, to strangle an enemy combatant to death if necessary, or live outside the wire, living like a savage - with no creature comforts, for months at a time, in the most hostile places in the world. Eventually though, Americans will wake up and go, man, we were really blind. I wish someone would have told us that the sky was blue. In short, I’m not shocked that the general public is either too ignorant or too stupid to not recognize that women do not have the same physical abilities as men. They simply have not been through enough adversity to know better. And these trickle down effects are just now starting to impact soccer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an end to male sports soon enough. Honestly, not much, would surprise me anymore.
Any predictions? A certain number of females have to be on every team. Female players in every sport need to be paid the same as males in the same sport?
Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath on us waking up on the issue. Objectivity and practicality have gone out the window in modern society.
It’s hard to think what the next push will be for. Each one always seems like it’s just out of nowhere. Like I said, If anyone, would have ever said, we need women in the infantry back in 2004, they would have been considered the dumbest person alive. The thing though is they need these unchallenged victories... Regarding the Military, American society is so disconnected from the military that nobody cares what policies are pushed onto them. I guarantee if these same policy makers took away soldiers’ weapon systems and equipped them with dildos - the general public wouldn’t bat an eye. They’d probably, go, “da-oh, well, I guess that’s a good idea because I don’t see why anyone would need a gun in combat.” Perhaps, maybe that’s it, in answering your question... We’ll take guns away from soldiers. In truth, I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s how dumb things are now. It’s sort of the same with this equal pay thing in soccer. I mean, it’s pretty damn obvious why men get paid more... because they’re better athletes and people want to watch the best athletes... not athletes who are the equivalent of a middle school boy’s team. That said, if/when women produce more money, they should get paid more. Hell, if the USWNT want to make the argument that they brought in more money than the men’s in this or that year then go ahead and pay them more. In that case, they earned it. But that 2016-2018 was an aberration. The USMNT was in the dark ages of its program’s history and the USWNT was in its best years. Most fans turned off the men’s out of protest. But let the USMNT get back to being a solid, round of 16 level, possible quarter-finalist, and make that argument again! Point being - the argument is holding onto the thinnest piece of evidence and refusing to let it go. And if the level of ability is not true, then play the men’s against the women’s. So, when the men beat the women 50-0, what will be the argument then? Thing is, they don’t want that. They don’t want to embarrass themselves by proving that they’re of the same ability, because, deep down, they know they cannot do whatever a man can do. It’s the exact same reason we won’t ever see mixed gender UFC or NFL. Because the results will prove themselves. And people don’t want to watch men brutalizing these females. Nevertheless, because there will never be an opportunity to test the theory that women can do what a man can do... we still have to listen to these idiots say, “I know this mythical female and she could kick any man’s ass.” Really? I would pay to see that happen! Because I’ll take any man who isn’t some out of shape, soy boy, who has never been a fight, against any female any day of the week. That man would absolutely murder that female. It’d be like watching a gazelle fight a lion. Sadly, people are going to eventually learn how dumb they are. Next major war we get into - some female is going to enter a small room where it’s just her and some ‘roided out Spetznaz mother ********er on meth, who is going to do, what most Americans don’t want to hear, but he’s going to yank her weapon from her, and rape her to death. People can say we don’t fight like that anymore. That we don’t get into hand-to-hand combat situations anymore. Bullshit. That’s exactly how we fought in 2004-2005 when we went house-to-house, room-to-room, and physically dominated the shit out of these male jihadists who trained all their lives to kill Americans. No ********ing way could any female do that - every single day, night after night, neighborhood after neighborhood, house to house, and room to room. No ********ing way. I would love to meet this Breann of Tarth that could do such a thing... the problem though is she is made up character, just like all the fantasies of females possessing equal or superior physical abilities to men. In short, I don’t know what’s coming next... but I guarantee you that it will purposefully defy all science and all common sense.
yeah i dont understand why they dont just make a us womens soccer federation? the USSF is not a governmental organization...its not like the IRS or something. just control and govern your own affairs...like they do in other countries. im pretty sure the german mens national team doesnt have to give a rats a** about even 1 second of thought about the german womens team...and nobody cares...AND THEIR MENS NATIONAL TEAM IS BETTER FOR IT. that the USMNT is governed by an organization that only sees the USMNT as one of its MANY priorities is a HUGE reason WHY IT SUX so much. The USMNT needs a controlling entity governing it that ONLY cares about the USMNT!!! that has nothing to do with sexism, or any other ism.... if the women are so awesome...they should be totally fine with owning and governing their own team, finances, situation, rules etc.... just split them up...its the perfect solution. but then who would subsidize the women? the fans arent. im sure corporate america would love to, though...probably end up getting more in just sponsorships than they could from any other way!
It should be pointed out that no one's argument is that the women would out-perform the men in direct competition. It seems that the US women are making the argument that they have relatively out-performed the men (i.e. they have been more successful in their own competitions) and deserve to paid more. It's still a disingenuous argument in this case because we know the field of women's soccer is contested by far fewer highly motivated individuals with far fewer resources at their command. It simply takes less talent, time and effort to be the best women's player in the world than the best men's. Even taking away the purely physical aspects, is there a women's player alive that's as technical as, say, Carlos Vela, let alone somebody like Messi? But there are sports where that isn't the case (or at least, less the case). I think tennis is an example. In gymnastics it's flip-flopped; in the US the male side is less popular, contested by fewer elite athletes, less resourced and a lot less popular. The best female gymnast is a much better individual athlete than the best male, despite being physically less athletic.
The military has been a social laboratory for as long as I can remember. Don’t you remember the mandated idiotic training during the Clinton administration? For the most part, the changes have been well integrated over time and we have adjusted to them. I was in one of the first Airborne classes to allow females so I can’t brag about having got my wings “when it was hard.” The predicted degradation of unit morale from admitting gays has, for the most part, not materialized. The incremental introduction of women into combat roles has, likewise, been somewhat successful. The SOF community realized as far back as 2002 that we needed what would later become “Female Engagement Teams” to accompany our teams on raids, etc. In many areas, women have performed as well or better than men. So the push to get women to the front lines was not really surprising to me except in that it took so long to happen (I saw my first “infantry woman” in Afghanistan this past October). By all accounts, it has been an unmitigated disaster and may have to be reversed in order to maintain some shred of combat effectiveness of our combat arms units. There are many roles for females in the military. But the physical demands of the combat arms simply can’t be modified to accommodate females.