Right or Wrong: The Inequality of Soccer

So this week it seems like a good time to look at a domestic soccer story rather than the league across the pond. If you haven't heard, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn from the U.S. women's national soccer team filed a wage-discrimination action against the United States Soccer Federation. This was filed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, highlighting the drastic difference between the men's national team vs. the women's.

This is the highlight snippet that everyone seems to be talking about. Well, on first instinct, that sucks and it shouldn't take place. Equal pay is something that has been a huge issue that has been addressed but still has a lot of room to grow. With that, though, I struggle to understand the problem here. Now I'm not going to argue and at the end say I'm right. I by no means am trying to drive this as the right answer, but rather just my opinion on the topic. I am a fan of the women's team. I watched all their games during the World Cup and I definitely appreciate what they have done for the popularity of the sport as a whole in this country. With that though, there are facts that are tough to argue with, so let's get into those facts and why I feel the way I do about this topic.

Jerome Valcke

So in our country it is justifiably unacceptable to pay a man more than a woman for the same work. With that, this was filed by some women athletes due to the huge difference in pay. The women in this country have been elite players in the global women's soccer game since it began in the 1990's. They are for all intents and purposes a global powerhouse in women's soccer. On the other hand, the men's team is a very average team globally. The men have never won a World Cup and have never been close. So, it makes sense. Pay the women more, they are better at their job. But there is a problem at the core of all this that makes that hard to do. Revenues. The men just played their 20th World Cup, while the women just played their 7th. Due to the nature of the World Cup being every 4 years, that is a 60+ year head start. The men's game is way more developed on all levels. There are 32 teams in the men's World Cup. In comparison, this past women's World Cup had 24 teams, and the ones before only had 16. With less teams, the game is viewed dramatically less. The women's final generated an overall viewer audience of about 60.7 million according to FIFA's reports. The men's final in 2014, on the other hand, was watched by 1.013 BILLION people world wide. The Women's national team was awarded $2m cash prize for winning the World Cup to be split among the team. In comparison to the German men's national team who won and was awarded $35m. But again, looking at the sheer viewership difference, and money generated between the two genders, it makes no sense to distribute the wealth as though the two tournaments are a single entity. Okay, so now I am going to use a quote from a FIFA official. This is something that no one wants to usually say in an argument, due to the fact that FIFA has been deemed one of the most corrupt corporation in the world. That said, I think that this quote does make sense. Jerome Valcke, the secretary general, stated that the men's prize money pool is so much largely because of what I mentioned earlier, revenues. The men's World Cup "brings in $4.5 billion directly to FIFA, and it funds World Cups for youth national teams of both genders."

So now I looked at some statistics between the men's and women's team here in the U.S. Like I mentioned earlier, the women's team has had a lot more success. But I wanted to see the sheer numbers of crowds that the two draw to their games. Since February, 2014, the men's team has had 39 games. The average attendance of those games is about 32,000 fans. With selling out a game in Texas with a crowd of 93,723 in attendance. Meanwhile, the women's team has played 59 games in the same time period. The average attendance at their games about 16,000 fans. With the largest game drawing 53,341 fans. Not even a sold out crowd. Does that mean I am trying to knock on the sport? No, not at all. But the numbers are the numbers. They need to have an influence on the amount of money that the teams get compensated. This is my opinion no the topic. Is it correct? I don't know. There are a lot of things that can be fixed in the soccer world to make the men's and women's game more equal in funding, but I don't think this is the way to go about fixing it. At the end of the day, though, I do hope to see the women's game develop to the popularity of the men's one day. Let's just end it with the coolest moment in USA men's soccer with this goal back in 2010 with Landon Donovan scoring a goal to get us to the next round.