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

That's Morgan's problem, not the USSF's.

 

While I agree, the argument does go a bit deeper. Women's club soccer is a nothing in terms of revenue, ratings etc. however USWNT does move the needle and it can be argued that they are being underpaid their worth to US Soccer. I don't think it moves it to where the women think they should be with equal footing, but it is considerably higher than what they get now. Their stars are far more marketable that MNT stars.

Now, the women need to work on finishing up the lousy contract they have and negotiating a much better agreement.

 

One thing at play here? FIFA payouts. They pay about 75% in payouts for WC success for the Men than they do the Woman.

I think USSF would use that. There's also a question of Collective Bargaining.

 

Where USSF is going to get in trouble is that they treat players like employees in terms of wages. The women and men do the exact same thing, and the men get a much higher compensation for that work.

 

You would be hard pressed to find a breathing person who doesn't agree the women are underpaid here. My assumption the USSF is not basing pay on revenue, and want to avoid going down that road because there's no turning back and costs only go up from there.....both the men and the women.

 

If the issue is taken up with FIFA wouldn't the US women get even more screwed? I mean, the men's WC obviously makes numerous times more money than the women's. U.S. WNT is kind of the exception in that they're more popular than the men's (or at least comparable). It would seem the USWNT players should get paid more than the men, never mind equal. The men won't go hungry as they all have healthy contracts with clubs.

 

Absolutely it is, just laying out the situation. Once its cast as a pay equity issue, even though its far more nuanced than that, its really difficult to look at this logically and that's a shame. You can add that Morgan has far more commercial value and appeal than Dempsey and command far more from endorsements too but that also will not play well.

 

In the case of the WNT, the players in the pool are employees who negotiated a CBA. They don't have actual club teams. The equal pay thing would be more compelling if the USSF just set the pay. I suppose the alternative would be for one union to represent the entire program and set compensation based on on combined CBA.

 

Why did the women not get this resolved during CBA negotiations? They also do play for clubs BTW.

 

The men underperformed in 2015. But when you look beyond that then it's not a very accurate summary of them.

 

They play for clubs in a league where the maximum salary is 38k per year.

The only leverage they have right now is to go on strike. And of course, they have no interest in doing that with the Olympics coming up.

There have been work stopages in the men's game before as well. There were labor disputes in 2005. What were the men asking for in 2005? Almost the same thing the women are asking for now. More money for national team appearances, etc. It resulted in a scab team being assembled...........................the most famous member being Clyde Simms.

http://www.insidemnsoccer.com/2011/03/29/the-u-s-mens-national-team-that-almost-was/

 

It also happened in 1996 and we had a scab team play a friendly against Peru (when Eddie Lewis earned his first cap).

 

Then they have no leverage...same as during the CBA negotiations. Today's events are designed to gain popular support and force a change through public opinion. We will see if it works.

What the women need to do is get sponsors to threaten the USSF.

 

Well.....................its now front page news on CNN.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/31/news/companies/womens-soccer-equal-pay/index.html

Even though folks on this board can make reasonable arguments for why the men are paid more than the women, the optics of it look really bad for the USSF.

 

Well they really don't, but the USSF did create a league for them and committed to paying the players a full time salary for playing in the new league and being allocated to a team. That was part of the current, in dispute, CBA

 

The Women should be paid as much as the men. There shouldn't be any question as to why.

 

They should be paid based on the revenue that they bring in. Just like basically every other job. If you don't provide a lot of value, you don't get paid a lot of money.

I think the numbers seem to suggest greater parity in salaries, so we'll see if that happens.

 

Where did those 4 year numbers come from? The MNT, going to a WC, got more money the following year, when we did terribly? Huh? Which months make up USSF's FY, and how do they calculate "revenue"?

 

If all things were equal, then yes they should.

 

I do think the USWNT is getting hosed, but don't get what the "they're more popular with the men" argument is based on, when you compare viewership of two World Cups taking place in roughly the same timezone. HUGE discrepancy between ratings for the WC final and their other matches.

USMNT 2014 World Cup TV viewers:
Group Stage | Ghana: 19.4m
Group Stage | Portugal: 25.2m
Group Stage | Germany: 16.5m
Round of 16 | Belgium: 24.9m
Total: 86m for four matches; 21.5m average per match

USWNT 2015 World Cup TV viewers:
Group Stage | Australia: 3.3m
Group Stage | Sweden: 4.2m
Group Stage | Nigeria: 5.0m
Round of 16 | Colombia: 4.7m
Quarterfinal | China: 5.7m
Semifinal | Germany: 8.4m
Final | Japan: 26.7m
Total: 58m for seven matches; 8.3m average per match

 

I don't know that there's a reasonable arguement. Not when the woman are responsible for 45% of USSF revenues, yet are paid $1 to every $4 that the men get paid.

 

Fine, give the WNT Jurgen and Andy, I think we all can support that.

 

I can't find anh sources on those revenue numbers. They seem rather wonky to me. I don't think there's a 4-1 discrepancy between revenue, but I have a hard time believing that it's 55-45. Above, we see that many more people watched the Men's WC compared to the Women's WC, which would be, I assume the most-lucrative event for either team, which makes the gap in revenue seem weirdly small.