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

I regret giving the dude a click. Should have known better.

 

The CONCACAF TV contract includes national team competitions such as the Gold Cups, US men’s and women’s Olympic Games qualifiers and the Concacaf Champions League.

 

That wasn't really in the middle. The lazy media was giving them a pass. It was the 2020 ruling that shook them up.

But I don't blame the court case, but the whole shady CBA, which I don't think anyone really liked.

I suspect under normal circumstances that Rapinoe (36) and Lloyd (39) would be dropped now but they'll probably sue.

 

Lots of people see something they disagree with ("wokism") and apply the transitive property alone to a completely different controversy they also disagree with ("equal pay") and lazily proclaim it all the same.

I am no fan of their wokism either. But that's a completely different matter to their disingenuousness regarding the pay issue. Entirely different. With different sets of relevant facts and everything.

Most people are extremely lazy thinkers.

 

Woof, yeah, that was painfully stupid to read.

 

On the other hand, I already notice at least a few comments on the US Soccer Facebook page from USWNT fans dismissing the Gold Cup because "all of Mexico's best players are at the Olympics"...

 

Seriously? I guess my assessment of the maturity of the USWNT fandom is pretty much more correct than even I actually thought.

 

To be fair, it's just a few comments to that effect. But we all know exactly what subset of the USWNT fan base it comes from, and it's a direct result of the toxic narrative that the WNTPA has pushed in recent years.

 

I miss the days when the WNT didn't generate such toxic online discussion. Even with the semifinal loss the 2007 World Cup is one of my favorite soccer memories as a fan.

 

Not for me, since I bailed in the middle of the 2nd sentence.

 

But it's not. For one thing, they're the epitome of white privilege. But they think victimhood is their golden ticket in both things.

 

And, clearly, that subset of the fan base isn't exactly the most knowledgeable about the wider game of soccer. But we knew that.

The WNTPA narrative is the reason that I'm not a fan of this team. In the future, with another set of players (and probably a different CBA), and a much smaller subset of WNTers feeling the constant need to tear down the MNT, I probably will root for them again. But not until the old guard who fought for the status quo--an anti-competitive CBA and culture war of sniping at the MNT to boost their bargaining power--are out.

 

Don’t you think a lot of it is self inflicted by them?

 

Should just call it what it is. The Sauerbrunn/Rapinoe/Lloyd/Harris/Krieger retirement tour that spans.....20 more games?

 

Like Hope Solo or not, she speaks truth.


"I think there's just a cultural shift, right now. The players are becoming more stars and less winners. We're focused a lot on our appearances on commercials, we are focused a lot on fighting for equal pay and the other side of it is we're focused more on the science aspect of being a professional athlete.

"What I'm hearing is there's more rest days, there's more recovery days and sometimes you just need your players to get on the line and run a couple 120s and remind everybody that it's about fighting no matter what. Because that's the culture of the United States Soccer Federation [and] the United States women's team - fighting for everything.

 

I have attempted to learn about this case and use the legal standards in my arguments because, well, that's my job. And I detest appeals of emotion and ad hominem attacks.

The battle of the experts on what can and can't be considered pay or how can you compare the two CBAs and revenue is the crux of the matter if the judge erred, namely, using the USSF's arguments and over the women's arguments.

The challenge in arriving at a common rate to compare pay is that some aspects of the WNT players' pay--salaries, severance, health benefits etc--are paid regardless of either games or performance (I guess for just being available) and the MNT players receive none of those. 6/

— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) July 23, 2021

Follow that man for decent analysis of all legal soccer stuff.

Also, read this review from a professor if you can get your hands on it: An Even Playing Field: The Goal of Gender Equity in World Cup Soccer, 98 Or. L. Rev. 427. Very detailed.

I think this will get remanded with some narrow clarification in the appellate opinion but no outright victory for the women. Error it will not be, but a correction is possible.

 

This is important. There's no agreement for USSF to give the men FIFA prize money if they had won the World Cup.

If US Soccer didn't have to pay any of the MWC prize $ to the MNT players if they had won, I'm not sure how the WNT players' expert could have concluded that the players would have received $64M if they had been paid under the MNT contract. I must be missing something. 13/13 pic.twitter.com/ieCKG5hlsx

— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) July 23, 2021

 

The court has the option of remanding it for further consideration, in which case there was error, or upholding Summary Judgment. As you note there are factual issues unresolved in that rate determination

 

The USMNT and USWNT are just not comparable on any level past the basics that they are both playing soccer and representing their country. Anything deeper than that is just asinine to try and compare. The women and men should be paid fairly, not necessarily equal. It is not a 1 for 1 thing here. Hardly anything is the same between women's and men's international soccer thus creating all these little nuances that people on both sides of this lawsuit can argue all day. This legal case is trying to compare something that isn't comparable and the incomparability is not because of sexism.

What would be 100% equal, but out of US Soccer's control, would be for the Women's game and Men's game to be embraced globally the same. The same amount of fans with the same level of passion towards their support of each, thus creating the same economics and global structure for both men and women, ultimately generating the same amounts of money for both sides. I am talking globally and not specifically just about the USMNT and USWNT because global soccer dictates how money eventually flows down to the USMNT and USWNT. It's a disingenuous task to try and look at/ compare the USMNT and USWNT in a vacuum (like this case is) and then plead inequality. The global soccer structure is different for men and women and that is not US Soccer's fault. I'm rambling but it is just astonishing to me that a little bit of common sense doesn't prevail here.

 

An alternative "equality" would be to vastly cut both teams' compensation to straight appearance/performance bonuses to be in line with the rest of the footballing world.

But NEITHER union would ever countenance something like that. This is one of the many reasons the MNTPA keeps putting out these carefully-worded statements and you never hear a peep from any of the players themselves.

I wonder what Alejandro Bedoya is thinking these days.

 

I believe that's exactly how the MNT gets compensated. If they don't play they don't get paid. The other stuff, charter flights, instance etc is fluff.

 

Right, but I'm proposing hacking them down to pretty minimal levels.