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

Why?

Title IX paved the way to give opportunities for women to play sports at a higher level in the US that up until very recently, and in some cases still don't, exist in other parts of the world. Title IX helped give access to world class facilities, training, coaching, & education that is simply mot available in other parts of the world to female athletes.

 

How much is the fed's take-home from Copa Centenario and Gold Cups, having them on US soil, factoring into revenue generation the last few yrs? They wouldn't be able to have that lure if the men's team didn't participate.

This is not even discussing the conflict of interests/use of the NT for club play by MLS/SUM, and cronyism, contributing the US exclusion from the WC and Confed Cup; so they wouldn't "earn" any payout from those comps.

The revenue streams are so dramatically different for the men and women it's like comparing apples and oranges and why arguably they shouldn't be part of the same fed for these arguments to be made.

 

its easy to debate

the womens team players rely entirely on hs/college soccer to be able to be able to play the game coming up without title ix you could argue that both would either not exist or exist on such a limited basis that many that now player professionally/international in/for the us would not be playing the sport at all.

 

I think it's more about the idea that Title IX gives women soccer players access to the world-class facilities and resources of US college athletics* as a whole. Since there are so few women playing professionally, and the pool of athletes is so small worldwide (IIRC the US has half of the registered women soccer players in the entire world, and we used to have an even larger share of the worldwide talent pool), that has proven to be enough.

So, IMO, the credit for how good the team is should be going to Title IX/US colleges as a whole.

I think the success of the WNT in terms of a brand/attendance/marketing is something that you might lay at the feet of the USSF, but I think it also has an obvious explanation: Americans love cheering for winners in international sports.

The WNT is the #1 team in the world, and they regularly beat other countries in competition. Ergo, many Americans watch and attend their games, buy merchandise, etc. If the USA were the #1 team in ping-pong, we'd suddenly have lots of people watching ping-pong, and an ever-increasing number of ping-pong fans. USSF deserves credit for getting the team in front of people, and for getting the TV/ad deals to spread awareness, but I think the main deciding factor is that the team is top-class. They don't tune in to watch US cricket lose to Nepal.

*Which are possible thanks entirely to football and men's basketball raking in TV money. If we had to divide scholarships evenly among men and women and no football/basketball revenue was coming in, we'd have a fraction of the teams we have today. Almost all collegiate sports are revenue-losing, and they all take from that football/basketball revenue pot to keep afloat, or else close down.

 

Everybody debating who had more influence Title XI or USSF should read the following article http://www.ncaa.org/static/champion/how-women-got-a-foot-in-the-game/

The answer seems to be a virtuous circle. The World Cup teams drove the popularity of WoSo, NCAA responded by having more programs for more players. Title XI allowed this to happen. This would not have happened if the USSF had not seized the early opportunity to form a WNT on similar terms to the men's team. This would also not have happened if there were no Title XI. NCAA was, for once, useful.

 

Well, let's look at the events as the unfolded:

1994 Men's World Cup hosted in the US is still the most profitable, and greatest money maker of all World Cups. That's a good chunk of change coming into the cash strapped coffers of the USSF. 1996 Summer Olympics held in Atlanta, the US women win Gold and play in packed stadiums. 1999 Women's World Cup hosted in the US, is a HUGE success.

Those three events all occurred within 5 years of one another. That's a a lot of money and air space given to the sport. Investors were starting to pay actual serious money as well at this point in the sport (compared to previous years).

We also must not forget that in those days, the money the WNT were paid was considerably less than what the team members are currently getting.

 

no obligiation...other then the fact us soccer is responsible for the sport in the country. the idea that they wouldn't be involved with the women is funny.

 

They were funding the most talented WNT in the world off the back of college athletes.

If the WNT weren't so talented, and if they lost money at the corresponding rate that I'd expect a non-successful, American fringe women's sport to lose at, USSF would have put them on the backburner a long time ago, or else there would be a different WNT governing body.

WNT + talent = potentially good investment for USSF. WNT + mediocre = they don't fund it. WNT without Title IX = mediocre at best.

 

How influential was the NCAA for the 1991 squad? Sure, all the players came originally from the NCAA but the truth is that in the first foray of the USWNT, the Women's mundialito of 1985, an all star NCAA squad was 0-3-1 and came in fourth out of four. The good thing is that they weren't outclassed but they clearly weren't destined to be WWC champions without work. Their key problem? They weren't physical enough!!!! FYI, WoSo wasn't the titan of NCAA back then. In 1981 there were only 80 women's soccer programs.

The fed did the right thing by keeping the program going and giving the best players games after graduating from college. By the time the 1991 WWC rolled around they had a core group of players with 40 or more caps. That team largely was kept together and dominated WoSo for the rest of the 90's. In my view, it also made WoSo the dominant women's sport in the NCAA.

That said, the current USWNT is fed by a huge plethora of college players and provides us with selection opportunities that no other country has. This is only possible because of Title XI.

So, again. Virtuous circle.

 

I'm actually somewhat doubtful that there were only 80 women's soccer programs, simply because there are over 1,500 programs today across all divisions, and it seems unlikely that all of these schools with football would've been Title IX compliant without expanding their women's soccer programs. But even if that were true, don't you think that the fact that we've seen a ~20-fold increase in college programs over 40 years was a much bigger reason why the team was better?

I definitely forgot about the fact that, if you run your NT like a club team, you can build up significantly better chemistry than other teams. A team that's played for years together will have a huge advantage over a team that gets thrown together with 1-2 weeks to practice. You can't teach talent however, you can only maximize it. Having over half the world's registered women soccer players playing at those 1,500 schools also helps.

True. Without the USSF, we not only don't have multiple iterations of women's professional soccer, nor a professional WNT either. The team owes its salaries to USSF, not NCAA or the NWSL.

I was just saying that I don't think that the USSF would have tried to make WPSL/WPS/NWSL, nor the salaried WNT, without the historical and current talent advantage and success. I don't see money/popularity flowing into fringe sports that the US sucks at.

 

From: http://www.ncaa.org/static/champion/how-women-got-a-foot-in-the-game/

"Only 80 NCAA schools sponsored women’s soccer in 1981-82, the first year of NCAA women’s championships, making it about as widespread as women’s fencing. Last year 1,038 NCAA colleges and universities sponsored the sport — 93% of member schools. That’s a nearly 1,200% increase in 37 years."

Virtuous circle: a chain of events in which one desirable occurrence leads to another which further promotes the first occurrence and so on resulting in a continuous process of improvement.

In essence, both the USWNT and NCAA WoSo need each other.

 

Do you know how many men’s programs there were at the same time?

 

Couldn't find it. But, I did find a fascinating document showing the growth of women's college soccer vs men's.

http://web.archive.org/web/20180313032606/http://collegesportscouncil.org/soccer.pdf

 

The men's D1 championship had 23 teams and the D2 championship 12. No idea how many D3 programs there were.

The 1982 overall women's championship had 12.

 

High school participation is well documented. Soccer participation:

1971 (year before Title IX)
78,510 boys at 2,290 schools
700 girls at 28 schools

1982
161,167 boys at 4,839 schools
51,860 girls at 2,032 schools

1994
255,538 boys at 7,445 schools
166,173 girls at 4,217 schools

2001
332,850 boys at 9,846 schools
292,086 girls at 8,934 schools

2019
459,077 boys at 12,552 schools
394,105 girls at 12,107 schools

 

Edit: ok you are talking about USSF revenues, my bad.

TV money is what makes FIFA money.

Ticket sales are great for sure, but the money is on TV.

According to this Russia is the most profitable, perhaps the USA is still #1 id adjusted for inflation.

But as you can see, TV revenue and Sponsorships is the bulk of the money, ticket sales are less than 1/6th of the revenue.




https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/fifa-financial-report-2018.pdf?cloudid=xzshsoe2ayttyquuxhq0

 

USSF made $50 million from the 1994 World Cup and $4 million from the 1999 WWC.

I assume it made nothing from the 1996 World Cup as it's a USOC/IOC event.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-us-world-cup-mls-20140601-story.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_FIFA_Women's_World_Cup?wprov=sfla1

In terms of women's income, I don't think any of them had professional teams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_FIFA_Women's_World_Cup_squads?wprov=sfla1

 

Did I mention FIFA making money at all???

Let's rewind AGAIN. The 94 World Cup was a watershed moment for the sport in the US. The 1994 World Cup is still the highest attended World Cup. Again, The Olympics saw packed stadiums for US Women's Soccer matches. The 1999 Women's World Cup is still the highest attended on average.
https://www.statista.com/statistics...of-spectatators-at-the-fifa-womens-world-cup/

Again, as I mentioned before......these events lead to a lot of eyeballs, interest and MONEY rolling into the sport of soccer in the USA.

Add the above with the positive impact that Title IX has had for Women's Sports....

"Before Title IX, one in 27 girls played sports. Today [this was published in 2016] that number is two in five."https://t.co/QvgkX4Xngi

— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) May 30, 2020

 

Some more World Cup Figures:

https://sport360.com/article/footba...e-brazil-2014-the-least-according-to-uk-study

Even more impressive about the 1994 World Cup...it only had 24 teams....
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-28-sp-55729-story.html

And it's still the highest attended: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264441/number-of-spectators-at-football-world-cups-since-1930/