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http://espn.go.com/espnw/sports/article/15102506/women-national-team-files-wage-discrimination-action-vs-us-soccer-federation

I was a little surprised not to see this up in these forums but here it is. A group of the more elite/popular US women's soccer team are suing for wage discrimination. Apparently it never occurred to them to look up how much Men's soccer draws as far as advertisements and endorsements compared to Women's soccer. Heres a hint, the Mens FIFA world cup FINAL GAME only drew more viewership then the entire Women's world Cup combined.

I cannot facepalm enough at this one. Holy cow.

I swear I saw a thread on this here...

The filing, citing figures from the USSF's 2015 financial report, says that despite the women's team generating nearly $20 million more revenue last year than the U.S. men's team, the women are paid about a quarter of what the men earn.

Aren't the players under contract? So shouldn't this be an issue that their agents are responsible for dealing with?

SemperMortis wrote:
http://espn.go.com/espnw/sports/article/15102506/women-national-team-files-wage-discrimination-action-vs-us-soccer-federation

I was a little surprised not to see this up in these forums but here it is. A group of the more elite/popular US women's soccer team are suing for wage discrimination. Apparently it never occurred to them to look up how much Men's soccer draws as far as advertisements and endorsements compared to Women's soccer. Heres a hint, the Mens FIFA world cup FINAL GAME only drew more viewership then the entire Women's world Cup combined.

Well sure, but they're not talking about the entirety of the world cup, they're talking about it in terms of US Women's team vs US Men's team.

Across the two tournaments the US Women's games had 90,000 more attendance than the US Men's games (264,127 to 172,986), so I find the argument that they get more money to be fairly spurious.

The salaries for the women's team were collectively bargained for by the women's players union. I think it's hard to claim that you aren't being compensated fairly when you collectively bargained for the exact pay structure that you're receiving. This probably has a lot more to do with the collective bargaining agreement coming up for renewal than it has to do with actually getting the same amount of money per match.


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/892dc9711bb14ac0b7f53cbf2a6687cc/5-players-accuse-us-soccer-federation-wage-discrimination

The union representing the players is currently involved in a legal dispute with U.S. Soccer over the terms of their collective bargaining agreement. The federation filed a lawsuit this year seeking to clarify that its contract with the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team Players Association runs through the Rio Olympics until Dec. 31. The union maintains the memorandum of understanding agreed to in March 2013 can be terminated at any time. That case is pending.

The top players on the women's team are paid about $72,000 a year by U.S. Soccer, along with bonuses, to play in a minimum of 20 exhibitions per year, the EEOC complaint says. Conversely, the men are paid per match, with a minimum of $5,000 a game, and additional payments based on the opponents' rankings and results.

The women have a potential to earn $99,000 if they win all 20 exhibitions, while their male counterparts would earn $100,000 minimum for appearing in the 20 games before the opponents and outcomes are figured in, and possibly as much as $263,320 a year if they win all of their games.

Citing another example of disparity, the complaint says that the women are paid $30,000 for making the World Cup team, while the men are paid $68,750 each.

U.S. maintains that the women's team set up the compensation structure, including a guaranteed salary rather than a pay-for-play model like the men, in the last collective bargaining agreement. The women earn an additional salary because the federation pays their salaries in the National Women's Soccer League.

The women's national team players also receive other benefits, including health care paid for by the U.S. Olympic Committee, that the men don't receive, the federation maintains.

You are allowed to renegotiate contracts.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You are allowed to renegotiate contracts.

And after the killer performance the US Women's team gave last year, they definitely should!

If the women are out performing and drawing larger crowds/more revenue for their team they absolutely should be compensated appropriately.

I'm very surprised the women's team has more attendance and that they generate more money than the men's team.

To get back to my initial post: the facepalming happens in regards to how this is handled. This is not how you handle it. Far from it. You don't immediately get to sueing your superiors, that's a completely terrible idea, especially in the entertainment area.

The main problem is that it looks terribe at court. If you never tried to get on a round table and show that you actively tried to improve your situation, thus demonstrating a lack of initiative, you immediately weaken your case.

Secondly, in the eyes of a public, this is all about "womenz complaining" and not about the issue at hand. The US is a very special case because football is very unpopular over there and the general skill level is lower than in Europe. Women soccer thus is far different in the US as in Europe, women's football is far worse than men's soccer. Cry all you want, that's how it is, and that's mostly because of the far shorter history, i.e less experience, less talent scouting less training etc. and less about the inherent biological disadvantage(s).

The best way to handle this would have been to make the issue public, i.e. raise media awareness to the actual numbers. A marketing campaign. It's so goddamn easy to get people on that bandwagon nowadays and...nothing was done. Raise awareness, make people ask questions and most of all...

...REGONIATE. Holy cow. If I was a judge, I'd immediately reject the case seeing that there seemingly has not been any attempt at regonotiation. That's just stupid and amateur-ish. They tried to fast-track the issue and now caused more damage than they tried to avoid. Genius.

tl;dr: /facepalm.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Secondly, in the eyes of a public, this is all about "womenz complaining" and not about the issue at hand. The US is a very special case because football is very unpopular over there and the general skill level is lower than in Europe. Women soccer thus is far different in the US as in Europe, women's football is far worse than men's soccer. Cry all you want, that's how it is, and that's mostly because of the far shorter history, i.e less experience, less talent scouting less training etc. and less about the inherent biological disadvantage(s).

Women's soccer may be worse than men's globally, but not in the US.... Societally, it has been the accepted game of choice for parents with daughters. Within the women's game, the US national team has had decent success, especially compared to the men's team.

Yes, there are physical differences and I doubt the US national teams would have an even match if they played each other, but there is still something to be said for the level of international play: the women simply compete better globally than our men do. I'm sure that in time we'll see a separation of skill in the women's game as you do note that Women's World Cup does have the much shorter history, and they often do this with almost no "professional experience".


I do agree with you that jumping straight to "Sue them!!!!" doesn't look good, but to sit there and say that US women's soccer is worse than men's is simply not true because you have to view them within their own spheres.

EDIT:

I'd direct you to the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_national_soccer_team

The US women's national soccer team has won the women's world cup 3 times, with 1 silver and 3 bronze medals to with. They have won CONCACAF 7 times, and won Olympic gold 4 times, with 1 silver medal.

The best the men have ever done in the world cup was a Bronze medal....... back in 19-fething-30.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You are allowed to renegotiate contracts.

Yes you are. However, if you choose to collectively bargain for contracts that have lower pay per match but include benefits it seems odd to then sue because your pay per match is lower than the men who collectively bargained for higher paychecks per match and no benefits. If the women wanted the same contract and pay scale as the men they could have negotiated for that in the collective bargaining agreement yet they deliberately chose not to do so. It's difficult to make a case that US soccer is descriminating against the women when the women were able to negotiate for their contracts and chose contracts that had lower match checks and better benefits than the men. If they want bigger match checks because they think the value of their matches has increased they should absolutely exercise their right to renegotiate their CBA but to claimthat they deserve more money based on desriminatory contracts when their union sat at the table and negotiated those contracts with US Soccer is spurious.

 Goliath wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
http://espn.go.com/espnw/sports/article/15102506/women-national-team-files-wage-discrimination-action-vs-us-soccer-federation

I was a little surprised not to see this up in these forums but here it is. A group of the more elite/popular US women's soccer team are suing for wage discrimination. Apparently it never occurred to them to look up how much Men's soccer draws as far as advertisements and endorsements compared to Women's soccer. Heres a hint, the Mens FIFA world cup FINAL GAME only drew more viewership then the entire Women's world Cup combined.

Well sure, but they're not talking about the entirety of the world cup, they're talking about it in terms of US Women's team vs US Men's team.

Across the two tournaments the US Women's games had 90,000 more attendance than the US Men's games (264,127 to 172,986), so I find the argument that they get more money to be fairly spurious.

The problem with your analysis is that it is flawed because your not taking the averages.

MENS 2014: US Mens national team played in 15 games averaging around 32,500 fans in attendance a game.
WOMENS 2015: US Womens national team played in 23 games averaging around 26,000 fans in attendance a game.

So yes the women's team had more in attendance total because they went further in the tournament by 8 games. The biggest difference though isn't in attendance which doesn't make that much of the money. The real money is in advertisements and such, and in that regard the Mens tournament takes the cake, 3.2 Billion to Women's 750 Million. Now don't get me wrong I am well aware a lot of that viewership is based on the teams the US is playing against but unfortunately that is part of the business. When the US Woman play Canada or whomever for a world cup game they get good viewership, when the US men play against Brazil, Mexico, or basically any European team the viewership is significantly higher.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You are allowed to renegotiate contracts.

Yes you are. However, if you choose to collectively bargain for contracts that have lower pay per match but include benefits it seems odd to then sue because your pay per match is lower than the men who collectively bargained for higher paychecks per match and no benefits. If the women wanted the same contract and pay scale as the men they could have negotiated for that in the collective bargaining agreement yet they deliberately chose not to do so. It's difficult to make a case that US soccer is descriminating against the women when the women were able to negotiate for their contracts and chose contracts that had lower match checks and better benefits than the men. If they want bigger match checks because they think the value of their matches has increased they should absolutely exercise their right to renegotiate their CBA but to claimthat they deserve more money based on desriminatory contracts when their union sat at the table and negotiated those contracts with US Soccer is spurious.

Agree 100%.


You have a union, use it. You want higher pay, contract renewal time is when you try to get it. Not take the asshat route and slap a lawsuit against the people with the gravy in between that time. That would be akin to cutting your own throat.


I smell greed and the influence of dorsal-finned litigation lawyers here.

 godardc wrote:
I'm very surprised the women's team has more attendance and that they generate more money than the men's team.

That's what the article says.

This may shed some light on the issue.

Key points:

The men’s shared bonus for qualifying for Brazil totaled $2 million. The women’s total qualifying bonus for Canada was $300,000. The men played 16 qualifying games, whereas the women played only five, but that is still a difference of $125,000 per game vs. $60,000 per game.

The men’s bonus for being named to the final 23-player World Cup roster was $55,000 each; the women earned $15,000 each.

In addition to the share of ticket revenues for home friendlies, the men earned $1,500 per game in the three-match send-off series leading up to the World Cup. The women earned $1,350 per game, and only if they won them.

For each friendly, including the send-off series, the men earned between $7,500 and $14,100 per win, based on the FIFA ranking of the opponent. They earned between $5,000 and $6,500 for draws and $4,000 for a loss. The women earned $1,350 for wins, receiving no bonus for draws or losses.

The men earned bonus money for every point earned in the World Cup group stage, as well as $5,500 for each group-stage match for which they were rostered. The women earned no such bonuses.

Oh, and this:

Another footnote in the memo of understanding concerns travel arrangements. The women’s national team is booked to fly economy for the majority of its travel, while the men exclusively fly business class.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Secondly, in the eyes of a public, this is all about "womenz complaining" and not about the issue at hand. The US is a very special case because football is very unpopular over there and the general skill level is lower than in Europe. Women soccer thus is far different in the US as in Europe, women's football is far worse than men's soccer. Cry all you want, that's how it is, and that's mostly because of the far shorter history, i.e less experience, less talent scouting less training etc. and less about the inherent biological disadvantage(s).

Women's soccer may be worse than men's globally, but not in the US.... Societally, it has been the accepted game of choice for parents with daughters. Within the women's game, the US national team has had decent success, especially compared to the men's team.

Yes, there are physical differences and I doubt the US national teams would have an even match if they played each other, but there is still something to be said for the level of international play: the women simply compete better globally than our men do. I'm sure that in time we'll see a separation of skill in the women's game as you do note that Women's World Cup does have the much shorter history, and they often do this with almost no "professional experience".


I do agree with you that jumping straight to "Sue them!!!!" doesn't look good, but to sit there and say that US women's soccer is worse than men's is simply not true because you have to view them within their own spheres.

EDIT:

I'd direct you to the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_national_soccer_team

The US women's national soccer team has won the women's world cup 3 times, with 1 silver and 3 bronze medals to with. They have won CONCACAF 7 times, and won Olympic gold 4 times, with 1 silver medal.

The best the men have ever done in the world cup was a Bronze medal....... back in 19-fething-30.

It's hard to compare their results directly. There is little international competition in the women's game, only a handful of nations have a professional league. The men's game on the other hand is the most competitive team sport in the world. Making it past the group stages in the world cup is a huge achievement by itself.

If the women's competitions were televised like the men's are, how many people would pay to watch them (assuming the men's are pay-for, too)?

This is happening in more sports than just this, and the matches are reportedly better, too.

Forbes wrote:The U.S. women’s national team has been hugely successful in recent years, winning three World Cups and an Olympic championship. Its triumph in the 2015 World Cup final against Japan drew in a whopping 26 million viewers and it remains the most-watched U.S. soccer game of all time.

Forbes

 Skinnereal wrote:
If the women's competitions were televised like the men's are, how many people would pay to watch them (assuming the men's are pay-for, too)?

This is happening in more sports than just this, and the matches are reportedly better, too.

I am not really sure which side you are arguing for because my blood to caffeine ratio is off at the moment. But on the off chance you are arguing that the women's sports (not just soccer) are "reportedly better" then I have big news for you, they aren't. NHL games are both faster, harder hitting and in my opinion more fun to watch then WHL games, I watch both though because I am a huge fan of the sport. I hate Basketball so I don't watch NBA games often, but I tried watching a WNBA game the other week and ....wow, I couldn't handle more then 10 minutes before I was so thoroughly bored that I changed to the golf channel to bring some excitement back into it.

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

I was ready to facepalm over this as I assumed the female team wasn´t anywhere near in skill level and advertiser/public "pull" (which how it is here in Europe), but it seems that the US female team actually aint that far away from the male team. So yeah go for it I guess

SemperMortis wrote:

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

What popular, American sports involve endurance or speed? Certainly not football, that's a game of downs. Certainly not baseball, that's a game of At-Bats.

 dogma wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

What popular, American sports involve endurance or speed? Certainly not football, that's a game of downs. Certainly not baseball, that's a game of At-Bats.

Ice hockey (speed and endurance), NASCAR (speed) and Beer Pong (endurance).

 godardc wrote:
I'm very surprised the women's team has more attendance and that they generate more money than the men's team.

Why?

In the US, women's soccer is very popular while men's soccer is something of a joke.

 ulgurstasta wrote:
I was ready to facepalm over this as I assumed the female team wasn´t anywhere near in skill level and advertiser/public "pull" (which how it is here in Europe), but it seems that the US female team actually aint that far away from the male team. So yeah go for it I guess

They're actually vastly inferior to the male team in sheer skill, unfortunately. I recall reading an article last year about how the US women's team trains by playing against various high school boy's teams, and they lose to the boys fairly often.

Not to take anything away from them, though. Skill aside, if they're pulling in the viewers then they deserve the compensation for that. I feel the same way about college football honestly. If these kids are pulling in millions of dollars in viewership, ticketsales and ads then they deserve to be paid for it.

 dogma wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

What popular, American sports involve endurance or speed? Certainly not football, that's a game of downs. Certainly not baseball, that's a game of At-Bats.

Basketball?

 dogma wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

What popular, American sports involve endurance or speed? Certainly not football, that's a game of downs. Certainly not baseball, that's a game of At-Bats.

Ice hockey? Running?

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 dogma wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

What popular, American sports involve endurance or speed? Certainly not football, that's a game of downs. Certainly not baseball, that's a game of At-Bats.

Basketball?

Basketball definitely.

Or lacrosse.




Oh, but we are talking popular sports. So, yeah, basketball.

 dogma wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Ironically in my opinion golf is probably a bit more of a level playing field, but golf is based almost exclusively on skill and not as much on physical strength, endurance or speed.

What popular, American sports involve endurance or speed? Certainly not football, that's a game of downs. Certainly not baseball, that's a game of At-Bats.

You're a fan of hockey, and you had to ask that?

 djones520 wrote:

You're a fan of hockey, and you had to ask that?

Hockey isn't generally popular, and I could go on at length as to why, but that's another thread.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Oh, but we are talking popular sports. So, yeah, basketball.

I imagine several of the better players in the WNBA could take down NBA players in a game of 1-on-1.