Soccer's Pay Gap???

The U.S.Women's World Cup Soccer Team 

.
.
.
I didn't see a minute of the U.S. Women's World Cup matches, because I don't watch soccer. Of course I don't watch a lot of sports period, but when I do, I generally watch traditional American sports, like Football, Baseball and Basketball, just as I'm sure British viewers tend to watch more traditional English sports, like Soccer and Cricket.

I do occasionally watch basketball, NBA...NOT WNBA and that's because the WNBA is, in my view, an inferior product. It's about on par with high school basketball.

I never got Women's track either. WHY watch a 10.2 second 100 meters, when you can see a 9.1?! Ditto for swimming.

The disparity in ratings in those sports is clear. Just as the disparity between Men's and Women's gymnastics is clear in that Women's gymnastics seems to draw MORE viewers, at least here in the U.S., then their male counterparts.

That said, an equal pay argument has come up over Women's soccer, that may not be so simple to understand.

Two recent articles bore this out. In the first, CNBC noted, "Sunday’s FIFA Women's World Cup final, in which the U.S. beat the Netherlands 2-0, pulled in significantly better television ratings IN THE U.S. than the 2018 men’s final between France and Croatia, according to statistics released Monday by Fox Sports, which aired the match.

"The women’s final scored a 10.0/27 from television ratings firm Nielsen — meaning that 10% of all U.S. households with televisions watched the game and 27% of all households with televisions in the U.S. that were watching television at the time of the game watched the game. Last year’s men’s final scored an 8.3/21." (https://www.cnbc.com/…/womens-world-cup-draws-better-us-rat…)

The 2nd, by BigThink looks at the situation similarly; "So, what explains the gender pay gap? How is it fair that the more-successful women's team earns less than the men's team? Does women's soccer simply generate less revenue? Is institutionalized sexism to blame?

"There's no immediately clear answer, but you can get some insight by looking at the differences between the men's and women's teams in terms of revenue generation, collective-bargaining agreements and awards from FIFA.

"​Revenue

"U.S. men's teams have historically generated more revenue than women's teams. But that's beginning to change — at least in terms of gate revenues, which consist mainly of ticket sales. As The Wall Street Journal notes in a recent article:

"From 2016 to 2018, women's games generated about $50.8 million in revenue compared with $49.9 million for the men, according to U.S. soccer's audited financial statements. In 2016, the year after the World Cup, the women generated $1.9 million more than the men."

"But only about one-quarter of U.S. Soccer's total operating revenue can be attributed to gate revenues, according to the federation's financial documents. The other revenues come mainly from broadcasting and sponsorships, and it's difficult to parse out which teams contribute more to these revenues because U.S. Soccer sells sponsorships and broadcasting rights as a bundled package." (https://bigthink.com/politics-cu…/womens-soccer-pay.amp.html)

All of that is proof that here in the U.S. the revenue gap is closing, but worldwide, it's not. In fact, last year, the men's World Cup generated $6 billion, and gave about 7 percent to the Men's teams. The 2019 Women's World Cup made just $131 million, and gave out more than 20 percent to the teams!

That revenue discrepancy explains the relative worth/value of Men's and Women's soccer globally.

If the men were given 20% of the revenue that they brought in (apps $1.2 BILLION), or both men and women were given 14% of what they each brought in (the average of the two distributions - $840 MILLION to the men and $18.2 MILLION to the women), then the disparity between the Men's & Women's shares would be much larger!

The fault...seems to lie with sports viewers, especially with those who are more frequent viewers then myself, who also seem to favor Men's sports over Women's.

THAT inherent "perceived quality bias" is why there's such a huge disparity in revenues and from that stems all the other disparities.
.