With the US Women’s soccer team doing well at their World Cup bid (and a fracas involving
whether or not they want to meet Donald Trump,
yick), comes now the accusation that because the women's team has
better TV ratings than the lackluster men's team, they should (at least)
get paid as much as the men.
Eric Boehm has a good explainer on Reason
about why this is as it is. For some things (such as per diem and other
related travel expenses), there's little justification for gender
imbalance:
The Wall Street Journal reports
that the U.S. men's and women's teams have generated about the same
amount of revenue from games played since 2015, although those totals
account for only about half of U.S. Soccer's annual income. Yet, as
Rosen again points out, the women's team continues to get shortchanged
when it comes to the percentage of the federation's budget spent on
"advertising and P.R., travel and training budgets, and…per diems for
food."
Okay, but those aren't the big ticket item of salary (something
Bill DeBlasio recently demanded be leveled):
Major League Soccer teams drew an average of 21,000 fans last year,
while NWSL games drew about 6,000. The TV contract MLS has with ESPN and
other broadcasters generates $90 million a year. While neither league
discloses revenue figures, it's a safe bet MLS earns considerably more—and, thus, its players do too.
Sensibly, Megan Rapinoe has some advice for how to close that gap:
"Fans can come to games," Rapinoe said. "Obviously, the national team
games will be a hot ticket, but we have nine teams in the NWSL. You can
go to your league games, you can support that way. You can buy players'
jerseys, you can lend support in that way, you can tell your friends
about it, you can become season ticket-holders."
Given the
terrible, bitter fans (at least that one!), and
greater male interest in sports generally, this seems a tall order.
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