We fully support the wage discrimination suit filed by Megan Rapinoe, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, and Becky Sauerbrunn against US Soccer with the EEOC. This has reverberations for not just them but future generations of women soccer players and the game itself.
One of the proudest moments in US soccer history, irrespective of men or women, was the US Women’s team winning the World Cup last summer. That final will be etched in the living memory of millions of Americans and beyond. Almost 23 million tuned into see Carli Lloyd and her band of stellar team mates play a blinder against the shell shocked Japanese. It was the most watched soccer match in US history. The support received during and after the World Cup was nothing short of phenomenal with every city ready to whip out a victory parade and to be part of that feel good hysteria. The women were instant goddesses and role models to be adulated by a generation of starry eyed kids and their parents who envision soccer as a source of empowerment and a career. They epitomize the pinnacle of their sport. Such visceral empowerment one would logically assume, includes financial empowerment.
Except the reality is they are basically broke. They actually earn less than minimum wage. All those celebrations were basically smoke and mirrors. Sure, some of the notables bumped up their earnings with TV appearances and endorsements. Alex Morgan, the face of US women’s soccer draws $450,000 per year from the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and about $1 million in endorsements. In comparison, Clint Dempsey, the USMNT’s top goalscorer after Landon Donovan’s retirement receives $4.9 million from the MLS’s Seattle Sounders in base salary alone and around $8 million when bonuses and endorsements factor in. As marquees of their national squads, Morgan’s 64 goals in 108 internationals compares very favorably to Dempsey’s 49 in 122 appearances. At the elite level, there is thus already a six fold discrepancy.
The reality is the MLS is growing from strength to strength as new clubs are added with Atlanta, Minneapolis, LA, and Miami next in line and salaries which have increased to an average of $283,000 per year with a median income of $110,000 that has doubled since 2007 when such figures became available. The salary cap now stands, without the DP hoopla at $3 million, a marked improvement for essentially what is billed as a retirement league.
Women’s soccer suffrage on the other hand has failed to materialize. An interesting conundrum for a league which formed itself around the world’s best in marked contrast to the men’s version. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), the first professional women’s league which began in 2001 with much fanfare saw players like Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, and the creme de la creme of US women’s soccer mesh with the overseas talents of Sun Wen, Brigit Prinz, Homare Sawa, Sissi, Pretinha, Hege Riise, and Kelly Smith. Contrast the MLS that year as Carlos Valderrama, about a decade removed from his peak, joined the Colorado Rapids reinforcing the caricature of the league as an outpost for retreads.
The WUSA folded in 2003 as it brought in virtually no revenue. Six years later, another version was resurrected as Women’s Professional Soccer before it too was suspended in 2012, a victim of legal battles and too little investment. The current league, the National Women’s Soccer League, an offshoot of the WPS is barely three years old. The league suffers from low media visibility with Fox Sports broadcasting just ten games which include the semi-finals and finals. Since its inception in 2013, the NWSL has added two more teams, a favorable indicator of robustness but by no means a guarantor of durability. For women players, the reality is living paycheck to paycheck, one season at a time.
Which makes World Cup appearances even more crucial but if the GINI coefficient was .8 at league level, its about about as distended in income inequality as one can get when comparing women and men’s tournament remuneration. Basically, what it amounts to is absolutely zero recognition of the US women’s achievement last summer. The 11th placed US men’s team took in $9 million in the 2014 World Cup. A year later, the US women World Cup winning squad took in just $2 million. Compare that to FIFA’s winning prize money for the Germans, a purse of $35 million earned for the 2014 World Cup. Other disparities cited in the lawsuit:
* Women earn a maximum of $99,000 each if they win 20 friendlies, the minimum specified. The men get $262,320 for accomplishing the same feat and also earn $100,000 if they lose every single one of them.
* Women get no compensation for playing more than 20 matches, while men are paid between $5000 and $17,000 for every additional match.
For every dollar the men earned, the US women earned less than 6 cents. You begin to comprehend the level of disparity when comparing the Industrial revolution earnings of working women and find it infinitely more equitable to what female soccer players get paid 250 years later. As for the tired canard the Women’s World Cup does not generate enough revenue, consider this, the women made US Soccer richer by $20 million than by their male counterparts.
Even 538.com’s more sophisticated analysis which takes into account the federation paying the salaries for the NWSL as well as national team appearances when compared to just bonuses for attending camps, tournaments, and friendlies for the men is not enough to narrow the gap. That is because bonuses for men are yuuge and awarded just for participating with larger amounts given out for success. For the women, there is no such low threshold, bonuses only apply when the side wins, and are significantly smaller. There are other legitimate grievances as women’s players have no say in the field surface they play on while the men’s input is taken into consideration. Women travel in economy class while men get to stretch out in the luxury of business class.
There is an interesting paradox here, women are incentivized to win as if pride in their country is not motivation enough, while the men’s team still get paid handsomely to coast on any performance of their choosing. This despite the US women’s overwhelming record of success in the World Cup and the Olympics. The impeccable logic behind this as revealed by FIFA’s former secretary general Jeroen Valcke, “The comparison between the prize money of the men’s World Cup in Brazil to the women’s World Cup in Canada, that’s not even a question I will answer because it is nonsense,” Valcke said at a news conference “We played 30th (men’s) World Cup in 2014 and we are playing the seventh women’s World Cup so things can grow step-by-step.”
“We are still another 23 World Cups before potentially women should receive the same amount as men.”
Not surprisingly, Valcke’s boss, the now banned Sepp Blatter, called for women players to wear more revealing uniforms to attract more attention to the game. Blood, sweat, tears, and tighter shorts. That is what women’s soccer really needs. Sarcasm meter firmly on.