By David Whitley
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
If you buy into the War on Women, females absorbed a
couple of tough soccer defeats last week.
What they really amounted to were victories for common
sense.
First, the Orlando Pride signed superstar Alex Morgan.
Before the ink was dry, I got an email asking if she’d be paid as much as
Orlando Lions superstar Kaka.
Morgan will fall short by approximately $6.7 million a
year, which brings us to salary story No. 2.
Senate Republicans blocked a resolution calling on FIFA
to pay female players the same as male players in World Cup competitions. It
would have carried no weight with FIFA, but proponents said it would have sent
a message that gender pay equity should be a priority.
It should be, when it makes sense. It didn’t last week.
Before we go any further, let me go on the record as
saying I have nothing against women as long as they dress real pretty and bring
my coffee on demand.
That’s a joke, but I feel compelled to play the role of
P-I-G to humor those who believe all opposition to “pay equity” is based on
sexism. My opposition has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with
economics.
MLS has been historically been a money loser, though it
has been Google compared the women’s leagues that have come and gone. The latest
incarnation is the U.S. National Women’s Soccer League, which is averaging
about 5,000 fans a game.
Precise financials are confidential, but it’s safe to say
a team that averaged 32,847 fans last season (the Lions) generates a lot more
money than one that hopes/dreams of averaging 10,000 next season (the Pride).
From a pure soccer standpoint, Kaka is overpaid at $7.1
million a year. But the Lions are also buying his worldwide panache and
marketing pull.
The Pride are doing the same with Morgan, who reportedly
makes $450,000 a year. That makes her the second-highest paid female soccer
player in the world behind Brazil’s Marta Vieira.
The 10th player on the list makes $60,000 a year, which
shows you how bleak consumer interest is when women aren’t riding the patriotic
tidal wave of a World Cup. Though according to Congressional logic, millions of
fans are actively engaged in a War on Women.
Which brings us back to FIFA. I have no doubt Sepp
Blatter and his cronies are as sexist as they are corrupt. But that’s not why
the total prize pool for the 2014 men’s tournament was $576 million – 39 times
the $15 million pool for the 2015 women’s tournament.
This explains it:
Figures for the 2015 women’s event are not in, but the
2011 tournament generated $72 million. The 2014 men’s event generated $4.8
billion.
In the U.S., Fox made $17 million in ad revenue for the
2015 Women’s World Cup. ESPN pulled in $529 million from the 2014 men’s
tournament.
Such inconvenient facts get lost on the War on Women
crowd. When the U.S. women won in Canada this summer, FIFA paid them $2
million. When the German men won in Brazil in 2014, they received $35 million.
Based on the reaction on Capitol Hill, Blatter and the
boys might as well have told Abby Wambach to make them a sandwich.
“America’s victorious women are being robbed of $33
million,” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) wrote in a USA Today editorial.
It must be nice to be in Congress, where you can spend
trillions of dollars you don’t have. Fiscal sense has no chance when an issue
is so ripe for cheap political posturing. I’m just surprised Maloney & Co.
didn’t also demand WNBA make as much their NBA counterparts.
I wish women’s sports generated as much of it as the
men’s version. There are a million explanations why it doesn’t, but I can’t get
into them here because the average reader can take only so much soccer
economics
Just trust me, my dream isn’t for my daughters grow up,
become soccer superstars and make 1/50th what a male superstar makes.
But in the real world, the free market speaks. And when
the question is why women soccer players don’t make as much as men, the answer
is sad but simple.
They’re not worth it.
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