Shame on US soccer. The ugly face of discrimination.

Despite making $20+ million more for the federation than the men, the woman are actually paid 4 time less. All of the attention and success is from the woman but apparently all of the money, training and development are going to the men. Finally they have stopped just accepting it and filed a lawsuit. And no not equal pay, they woman generate more so they should earn more.

I agree with all points listed by Go99. This story caught me completely off guard when I saw it on the Today Show this morning. The thought of lower pay for these ladies compared to the men had never even crossed my mind. I support the WNT in this endeavor. If anyone knows of a good website for us to send a quick note in this regard, please post it.

just heard Colin Cowherd make the dumbest point ever made on radio. Revenue drives earnings and the world cup for men pays more. He even broke it down by champ for men get a lot more than womans, then second and so on all the way down to 4th. Ummm okay sounds fair but the men aren't champs or 4th. I am pretty sure the winner of the womans world cup gets more than a team that is lucky if they get out of bracket. He was looking at POTENTIAL revenue as opposed to ACTUAL revenue. The woman produce more revenue and should be paid more

Hate to burst anyone's bubble but the women were paid $2M for winning the World Cup. For the men, each participating team is paid $1.5M just for showing up. Teams that don't make it out of the group earn $8M and those that get knocked out in the round of 16 earn $9M. Quarterfinalist $14M, 4th place $18M, 3rd place $20M, runners-up $25M and winners $35M.

The numbers are out there for everyone to see. Women's World Cup (2015) had $17M in sponsorship revenue and Men's World Cup (2014) had $529M. In all actuality the women's prize fund is a bigger percent of revenue than the men's prize fund.

However, we aren't necessarily talking about prize funds which are absolutely predicated off revenue. We are talking about specific contracts between the federation and WNT players.

If the WNT truly generated $20M more in net profit than the MNT than I think a change should occur. GO99, can you provide the source of that info, I am curious to understand it.

the source was the 4 womans national team members in their press conference. So there you go. Either they are a bunch of filthy liars completely misleading the public OR you are conveniently focusing on potential numbers and not what they actually produce. Here is a simple solution: Change the payout into a simple percentage of revenue earned

I don't disagree with the women side on this, but not surprising given club funding.

-Girls club soccer= partially funds boys club soccer
-Women US soccer= partially fund men's US soccer

But then again there is another side:
-Boys college football/basketball= largely fund girls college soccer (and largely kill many boys college soccer programs)

But then again I think this is all just noise since Age Pure is going to fix men's US soccer and they will fully fund themselves  

Am I the only one who saw the ECNL heads hiding over behind the grassy knoll during the press conference???

Pay the WNT members and there goes all of the extra funding for the GDA...

http://www.businessinsider.com/womens-small-soccer-salaries-are-fair-2015-7

"However, you, dear reader, can do only one thing and it's not complaining about prize money on social media. If you want to fix the income disparity in women's sports, go buy a jersey or tickets for a game."

Simple question... how many here go watch local college games, or would routinely attend a local women's pro game?

Interesting breakdown by the numbers geeks at ESPN's FiveThirtyEight...

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/women-earn-the-glory-while-men-earn-the-money-in-u-s-soccer/

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I'm no labor law expert, but if the compensation terms were negotiated under a CBA, that would seem to work against the players for whatever the duration of that CBA is.  Unless they could prove somehow that US Soccer didn't negotiate in good faith.

It seems to me that what this whole process will do for the players, is shine a whole bunch of light on this subject, which will hopefully lead to greater transparency from US Soccer regarding the revenue streams for the men vs. women, and then the women can negotiate a better CBA, especially if they are truly bringing in more revenue than the men are.

They won't be able to address the disparity in the World Cup payouts that FIFA makes for the men vs. women through this action against US Soccer, but they should be able to address inequalities in compensation from US Soccer for sponsor appearances, friendlies, tournaments, qualifiers, ticket revenue share, per diem, travel accommodations, etc., especially if they are generating more revenue on a per player basis than the men are.

I read the transcript of four of the five representatives who filed the complaint. I personally disagree with them and think they are being short sighted. They have a CBA that binds them. They negotiated it in good faith and ratified it. So they need to work within that framework until it expires. But the biggest thing is they keep claiming they want equal pay, why be willing to settle? They should be arguing for merit based pay which reflects results. They should be arguing that they should be paid more then the U.S. men based on their results. Get rid of the equality argument and negotiate the best deal they can based on results regardless of the men's team.

Tiki-taka wrote:I read the transcript of four of the five representatives who filed the complaint.  I personally disagree with them and think they are being short sighted. They have a CBA that binds them. They negotiated it in good faith and ratified it. So they need to work within that framework until it expires. But the biggest thing is they keep claiming they want equal pay, why be willing to settle? They should be arguing for merit based pay which reflects results.  They should be arguing that they should be paid more then the U.S. men based on their results.  Get rid of the equality argument and negotiate the best deal they can based on results regardless of the men's team.

The players association believes the current CBA which expired in 2012 and was extended by Memorandum expired Feburary 24 of 2016.

AtThePitch wrote:http://www.businessinsider.com/womens-small-soccer-salaries-are-fair-2015-7

"However, you, dear reader, can do only one thing and it's not complaining about prize money on social media. If you want to fix the income disparity in women's sports, go buy a jersey or tickets for a game."

Simple question... how many here go watch local college games, or would routinely attend a local women's pro game?

Exactly. In a market based system, the best kinds of economic systems, pay is simply an investment made to get a return, usually monetary return. Anyone has the right to demand higher pay and refuse to work without it baring any existing agreements of course. The employer is free to hire someone else if they are willing to do the same job for less. The question for any employer is, will the value of the lower cost employee generate a diminished return, and if so, is it worth he extra investment for the higher host employee.

The fact is, women's sports no not today generate the same return on that investment. Now is there intangible value in having the US women's team dominate world wide? Of course there is! As such we would hope US soccer would see that as an investment into the largest demo in the US increasing demand for both the supply and demand side of women's soccer.

If these superstars refused to play in the Olympics, and the US team selected new players, who ended up losing or performing poorly, what would the difference in return/loss be to US Soccer?

MrRogers wrote:

AtThePitch wrote:http://www.businessinsider.com/womens-small-soccer-salaries-are-fair-2015-7

"However, you, dear reader, can do only one thing and it's not complaining about prize money on social media. If you want to fix the income disparity in women's sports, go buy a jersey or tickets for a game."

Simple question... how many here go watch local college games, or would routinely attend a local women's pro game?

Exactly. In a market based system, the best kinds of economic systems, pay is simply an investment made to get a return, usually monetary return. Anyone has the right to demand higher pay and refuse to work without it baring any existing agreements of course. The employer is free to hire someone else if they are willing to do the same job for less. The question for any employer is, will the value of the lower cost employee generate a diminished return, and if so, is it worth he extra investment for the higher host employee.

The fact is, women's sports no not today generate the same return on that investment. Now is there intangible value in having the US women's team dominate world wide? Of course there is! As such we would hope US soccer would see that as an investment into the largest demo in the US increasing demand for both the supply and demand side of women's soccer.

If these superstars refused to play in the Olympics, and the US team selected new players, who ended up losing or performing poorly, what would the difference in return/loss be to US Soccer?

Ah very nice sentiment. It's a market system and as you say that is the best system. So toss out the ideas about womans sports vs mens sports and just look at what the womans nationl team brings in vs the mens national team. According to them in this market system they bring in $20 million more in revenue. So your argument is only valid if you are willing to stick to general ideas of womans sport. So you actually agree with the woman but you simply refuse to accept that a womans sport could be more valuable. So yes the woman shouldn't ask for equal pay. They should demand a percentage compensation. That would eliminate all questions. Earn more than the men and you will make more.

I don't think the numbers are pari passu. You would have to do a full, four-year world cup cycle for both and then compare the numbers.

bwgophers wrote:Am I the only one who saw the ECNL heads hiding over behind the grassy knoll during the press conference???    

Pay the WNT members and there goes all of the extra funding for the GDA...

At the very least, one has to wonder whether the newly found cash that USSF claims will fund a girls DA is the same money they should have paid to the members of the WNT.

NorthDallasSoccer wrote:I don't think the numbers are pari passu. You would have to do a full, four-year world cup cycle for both and then compare the numbers.

Pretty sure they have those numbers already and know what they are and so do the girls lawyers

At the very least, you have to wonder who is advising this group of women. US Soccer is paying them a salary to play in a league that wouldn't be able to sustain itself without the help of the Federation.

Look, I am all for these women getting as much as they can, but their representation has been terrible. It looks like they negotiated a CBA that wasn't very good for them. When the ruling comes down, they will be able to negotiate a new one and they can try to get some of the ancillary things they are after as part of that agreement. Things like per diems, travel arrangements, hotels, etc.

What they have done is forced the Federation to open their books (which isn't a bad thing for all of us) but I don't think they will like what they see.

They can make a very valid argument as to revenue generated in 2015 from gate receipts and merchandise, but 2015 was a World Cup year and they played a ton of games compared to the men. In their next CBA they should ask for a higher percentage of gate receipts and they will probably get it.

The real money in all of this comes from TV and Sponsor revenue. This is where it will get very tricky for the ladies. In the men's World Cup year (2014) compared to the WWC year (2015) the men had more TV viewers and played in 11 fewer games. The men drew an average of 1.5M more viewers per game than the women did. The attendance for friendly games played on US soil was double for the men compared to the women. I am afraid that there will be unintended consequences by opening up all this information.

Again, get what you can ladies, we are all behind you. Use all the information you can get your hands on and negotiate the best deal possible...but you have not been discriminated against.

I think USSF has done more for these ladies than any other Federation in the world has done for other women's teams. USSF has recognized the value that this special group of women bring to the table and has compensated them commensurate to that value and in accordance to the current CBA (still up for debate).

In the end, this is a business and businesses are run by return on investments not winning or losing. The fact that they win is just icing on the cake and a way for them to make additional bonuses on top of their current earnings.

Their complaint looks quite specific to me. They argue that the USWNT & the USMNT is the same job, with the same employer, namely USSF. They further argue that the USMNT is being payed far more (that's irrefutable) while achieving far less (also irrefutable). Read the complaint, the USWNT is being paid less for exactly the same thing as the USMNT.

And so it begins...some interesting information.

http://www.espnfc.us/united-states/story/2840897/sunil-gulati-and-us-soccer-refute-claims-by-womens-team

It's offensive the way the 5 players and their lawyer contort the revenue numbers in this world cup year to make their argument appear legit. We're talking about women who are the best paid female soccer players on the planet. Women who ply their trade competing against mostly women from other countries who work real jobs and play for scraps. They are ant eaters wanting the same props as lions catching buffalo. They get paid out the wazoo to eat ants. Suing an org that props up a professional league so you have a place to play while guaranteeing your salaries whether you play or not? Contracts so nice you get to hang around until your forties despite the fact 17 year old high school players can get added and immediately are better players than 90% of these same vets with guaranteed sweetheart deals?

Let them strike and send a whole new team to Olympics...then we can all see whether these vets are truly better than other talent in the womens pool.  Let them then do a new CBA and get the same % of revenue as the men, same fields, same travel arrangements, same lack of guarantees for anything, same willingness to face real comp in the player pool...do all of that pronto and fund the DA with the money you'd save since the women's earnings would go down. Maybe then 35 year old moms hanging around starting on the national team will be a thing of the past, and the age of coddling gives way to an era when uswnt can put the best players on the field year in and year out.

I hardly think the mens team are lions. And no they are propping up the league here so they can keep those players here in the US. They were already being paid decent salaries overseas. They may not be making messi money but they weren't starving either. I love it. Look at the anger here of men completely upset by the idea of a woman being paid the same as a man. Again a percentage deal solves the problem or hell just pay the worthless mens team less

OLJW wrote:Their complaint looks quite specific to me. They argue that the USWNT & the USMNT is the same job, with the same employer, namely USSF. They further argue that the USMNT is being payed far more (that's irrefutable) while achieving far less (also irrefutable). Read the complaint, the USWNT is being paid less for exactly the same thing as the USMNT.

This is not the same as say making trucks... Their product simply doesn't have the same value despite doing the same job. This is why actors are not all paid the same... or all sports professionals for that matter.

Now if their product generated the same revenue numbers then yes, you would have a case of discrimination. As it stands this is simply not the case.

Yes yes.. we are all angry men!

Ok but seriously, no one here is angry about people wanting to be treated fairly... It is an issue of understanding what that actually means and how their complaint is simply not valid in the way they have scoped it.

go99 wrote:I hardly think the mens team are lions.  And no they are propping up the league here so they can keep those players here in the US.  They were already being paid decent salaries overseas.  They may not be making messi money but they weren't starving either.  I love it.  Look at the anger here of men completely upset by the idea of a woman being paid the same as a man.  Again a percentage deal solves the problem or hell just pay the worthless mens team less

Not saying usmnt are lions...saying the women's competitive landscape is not remotely comparable...neither is the revenue, nor the global interest.  And pretty sure I read somewhere our women already get a bigger % of their fifa revenue than our men. IMO it's a payday for the lawyers, and a slap in the face to the real cases of gender discrimination the EEOC should consider. They're willing to set the whole thing on fire using lawyers and public opinion to get a better CBA...I hope it ends up worth it.