Its interesting that there's a separate women's division for chess. I did not know that. What's the reasoning?
Here's a more level headed take on things: https://sports.yahoo.com/uswnt-should-focus-equal-pay-fight-on-fifa-not-us-soccer-002314466.html I know...I'm shocked as well that this is from Yahoo Sports of all places.
Good piece, and finally something approaching the truth in the media. Curious - why shocked? what is the general sense of Yahoo Sports? I don't read it at all, but I've been linked to Wetzel columns a few times, and he seems pretty logical and intelligent.
Read the comments to that piece to get a sense of the Yahoo community. I can't say if it is Yahoo's fault their readers are so ignorant, or if they just attract people with low reading comprehension. Probably both. But the nuance of Wetzel's argument is lost on all of them, and it isn't that subtle. It is interesting that if the US Men won the WC, they would get 60% of the bonus, but the US Women get 100%. Seems like a lawsuit by the men in the future...j/k kind of.
Have the women actually said they want US Soccer to match the FIFA prize money? I know that's been implied, but I also read something where the men just get way bigger bonuses from US Soccer (something like 68k per game). The women's argument would still be faulty, because again, the men agreed to fewer guarantees for the larger bonuses, but would at least look slightly better than trying to get the enormous FIFA men's WC bonus for a tournament that makes many times more money than the WWC.
Just based off of the other articles they have had on this subject and other subjects. I have a sub to The Athletic, so I'm bit spoiled when it comes to sports stories and quality of writing. A lot of Yahoo's articles are free of substance, and full of clickbait sensationalistic headlines.
The Yahoo article implies that US Soccer has been willing to compromise on that for months now to ensure that the women are compensated equally for all matches controlled by U.S. Soccer, but that the World Cup bonuses have been the sticking point.
I generally disagree with her analysis in the rest of this article on the court case, but Caitlin Murray reported the following for Yahoo Sports yesterday: In settlement talks, U.S. Soccer hasn’t offered anything near that [$67 million], with sources pegging the federation’s highest offer at around $9 million. https://sports.yahoo.com/after-equa...-of-successful-appeal-and-more-182345314.html Also, the US Men are continuing to stay generally supportive but otherwise out of this dispute, which is the right call: The United States Men's National Team Players Association releases the following statement concerning the ruling for summary judgement in Alex Morgan v. United States Soccer Federation. The USMNT players continue to stand with the WNT players in their efforts to secure equal pay. For a year and a half the USMNT players have made proposals to the Federation that would achieve equal pay for the USMNT and USWNT players. We understand the WNT players plan to appeal last week’s decision and we support them. https://ussoccerplayers.com/2020/05/statement-on-us-wnt-players-court-decision.html
. I keep seeing that repeated. I don't get it, though. That hypothetical money would have been FIFA money from the men's World Cup. What would that have had to do with the women? Or with USSF? Does the judge's decision essentially agree with the line of thinking the FIFA money from the men's tournament isn't relevant?
It isn't relevant because it doesn't exist. Many of the USWNT talking points didn't exist. Unfortunately for them, the fact they prioritized job security, salaries and a small union did exist.
It is a little muddled. The Men's deal has a large bonus if they win the WC. As Gulati said, the chances are long and if they won USSF would get $38 million. So, the Men have a large bonus but it would not be the whole amount from FIFA. The women want that bonus essentially. They want it, even though their CBA doesn't include it and the bonus from FIFA was $4 million, not $38 million.
I think there is a bonus in the Men's CBA for making the WC. Probably for any wins there, making it out of the group, getting to the quarters, etc. Those bonuses are from USSF, not from FIFA. But USSF negotiated that CBA knowing the prize money from FIFA would be higher if they got to those milestones. What is lost is that Copa is in the time period and is never happening again as far as we know. Also, the judge is pretty nice to the women's case by dividing total compensation by game. Whereas, because of their CBA, the same 18-23 women play almost all the games, that is not true on the men's side. Just last year, only a few men even were in more than 10 games, many less than 5.
I don't think it would have helped them win this case, but it may have helped them survive the summary judgment motion and proceed to trial. But even that, I think, would have been a long shot. (Warning: I've never dealt with the Equal Pay Act and most of my knowledge of this case comes from the court decision and the subsequent write-ups I've seen, so take all of this with a grain of salt.) According to that decision, if the USWNT could show that 1) they performed substantially equal work to the USMNT, (2) under similar working conditions, and that (3) the men were paid more (i.e., if the plaintiffs could make out a prima facie case of discrimination), the burden would then shift to U.S. soccer to show that (4) this wage differential was justified by some permissible reason. But to even get to trial, they first had to show that there was some genuine issue of material fact as to all of those prima facie elements (which doesn't mean they have to show their arguments are correct; it just means that they have to show there's enough of a dispute here that it's worth sending this to trial to sort through the facts). And under that more forgiving summary judgment standard, the USWNT still couldn't make out a prima facie case and shift the burden to U.S. Soccer, because they couldn't even show that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to (3) whether the men were paid more (one of the three prima facie elements). Instead the court found that the women were in fact paid more pretty much any way you look at this. So the court didn't even get to whether the pay was (1) for substantially equal work or (2) under similar working conditions, or (4) if the wage differential was nonetheless justified. If the USMNT had made it to the World Cup, the USWNT may have been able to create a genuine issue of material fact as to (3) whether the men were paid more (which again doesn't mean they'd win on that issue at trial, it just means it would allow that issue to proceed to trial), because technically U.S. soccer would be paying the men more for World Cup games, even if it's just passing on the money from FIFA. But at that point, U.S. Soccer could have still prevented this from going to trial if the judge decided (per the same summary judgment standard) that 1) it wasn't for substantially equal work 2) under similar working conditions.
Any prize money from FIFA should irrelevant in this case (especially as the women get 100% per that Yahoo article, vs. 30 or 40% for the men). Plus, of course any prize money from FIFA will be based on FIFA WC revenues, so they can't argue with a straight face they should earn that. The only argument I would half understand (again, not really bc of the dual signed CBAs) is any bonus specifically from US Soccer coffers.
I didn't think the Yahoo article was good. Constantly talking about how inept the men are. They made the WC like 6 times in a row and they miss it once along with powers Italy and Nederlands and are labeled inept. Not one time pointing out that the men are playing catch up to teams with years of head start while the women are the one everyone else is chasing. I really try and pull for both teams but the women sure don't seem to pull for the men at all so it is hard.
Without a doubt. I don’t recall having a hard time liking Mia Hamm. Was she all girl power? Sure. But it didn’t seem like she was this obnoxious brand of feminazism that has plagued this country.
That was also during a time before social media. In those days if you didn't read it in a magazine or newspaper, or watched an interview on an ESPN segment or from a cable news outlet......it might as well have not existed. The WNT was only a thing for a few weeks every four years at that time. The Women's fGold Medal Game at the 96 Olympics wasn't even shown live in the US, and it took place here!!!
It's not a bad article, but there are issues. I particularly think that Wetzel is mischaracterizing when he says the US Men are "a square-wheeled caboose dragged by other countries into piles of cash". The team actually has fans and makes money on its own, even if revenue and interest understandably declined after 2014. I've like Wetzel's writing for Yahoo. I'd say the weakness in this article is that he approaches soccer from the perspective of an American sports generalist, who expects the team who wins to have more fans and make more money. Unfortunately, it's more complicated than that.
I believe that USSF dropped the MSJ argument that the women did not perform substantially equal work under similar working conditions after the Seyfarth Shaw brief fiasco, although they preserved them for trial. But for the MSJ it was just the accounting issue on the pay.
Ah, well in that case there's a much better chance the plaintiffs would have survived summary judgment if the men had qualified for the 2018 World Cup. Although, in that case, U.S. Soccer also might not have been as willing to drop the rest of their MSJ argument, regardless of the bad P.R.