Male and female soccer national teams should not get equal pay.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/11/football/women-world-cup-cup-equal-pay-treatment-spt-intl/index.html

Because equal pay at this level equals taking money from the immeasurably more popular male soccer and putting in to female soccer, even though the audience is ten thousand times smaller.

Soccer is an spectacle, it makes money based on views, merchandise and marketing. The actor of an unpopular movie will not make as much money as the actor of a popular movie.

So comparing male and female soccer is not taking two equivalent situations in which the only difference is sex.

It's taking two radically different situations, in which income is radically different and transfering money from one to the other.

This is not equality, it's false equivalence.

I agree overall, but there needs to be some sort of way to increase viewership of female sports.

Are male athletes/teams more popular because they're better? Or are they simply advertised more because of a larger budget?

Additionally, would female athletes/teams be more popular if there was more money spent on them?

As it stands now though, I am inclined to agree. I remember in high school the water polo players made a big stink because they didn't get the same acknowledgement the football players did, but the fact is maybe a few dozen people would go watch a water polo game (for free) while thousands of people would come to watch football games (and pay).

Well, most sports viewers are male and they tend to watch more male sports because they are aspirational (specially kids dream about become sports stars)

Women don't watch so much sports.

But i don't think women watching more sports is more egalitarian, people Have their own interests.

Not sure where you're from but in the States, women watch sports.

Women's lingerie soccer. Problem solved.

@LJS9502_basic: women watch sports is an absolute statement, so it's really meaningless...

I might as well tell you people of Jamaica snowboard and that also would be true.

But do they watch sports as much as men do, do they spend as much money on sports as men do ?

It's easy to fall back on exceptions and make blacket statements but they only misrepresent the situation.

This is viewership by gender in the USA as of this year.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1018814/sports-fans-usa-gender/#:~:text=Share%20of%20sports%20fans%20in%20the%20U.S.%202023%2C%20by%20gender&text=During%20a%20January%202023%20survey,19%20percent%20among%20female%20respondents.

Boom. Sold.

After all, it worked for women's arena football, right!?

@nirgal: That doesn't show what you think it shows.

@LJS9502_basic: If you think you have an argument for equal pay, you should say so. insinuating a mistake of mine without saying which one it is does nothing to further your view.

Ah so you're up to straw man arguments now.

@LJS9502_basic: at this point, it looks like you are just trolling me ..

How is asking you to clearly state an argument distorting your words?

@br0kenrabbit: as much as i like the bodies of females athletes, that is super cringe...

i agree there should not be equal salaries for women if their particular sport takes in significantly less revenue vs. the male version. the business would cease to function. they're different leagues with different size audiences and different structures, so that's fine. why should a pro surfer make the same as a pro football player when the audience for the latter is 3000 larger?

however, for something like a large tournament like the world cup or whatever and the same organization is paying both the male and female athletes for their performance, then the pay ought to be equal. for example if the women's teams wins the whole fucking tournament and the shitty mens teams gets knocked out in the group stage, why should the men earn 10x the pay for their performance?

@comp_atkins: that is because revenue comes mostly from the male world cup.

Viewership, shirt sales, star status of the players is simply much higher.

The funny thing is that this could be resolved by simply selling the viewership rights for each word cup separately and then simply distributing revenue.

Originally this was not done, since it was understood that male football had to subsidize female football for it to remain operational.

If they consider that female football is similarly popular to it's male counter part and females players are treated unfairly, they could simply separate revenue sources.

Male sports teams should subsidise female ones as it is clear that once they do viewership and participation increase. Equal pay I don't agree with, since we're talking about a huge disparity of generated income.

Women should try out for the male leagues. If they're good enough to play, then they should absolutely get payed the same. And from my experience with women here in the states, they don't watch sports. If they happened to be watching a game, it's strictly for the commercials lol.

@mrbojangles25:

I think a lot of it comes down to marketing. Look how popular PC accessories and PC gaming have become amongst females in the last 5 years. I live in San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley, and there are a lot of females who make mechanical keyboards and PC accessories now.

The biggest drive for this was instagram and tiktok.

I think women sports is growing and football is one of those sports that can attract viewers due to the worldwide appeal of football. But having said that I feel there needs to be more exposure at club level first. Even the English Women Super League my fav club Chelsea's women team plays in front of 5k people at their ground. Only 5k for the most succesful team in England.

You're asking me to state an argument I didn't make. I corrected a statement you made. That's all.

My mom is the most rabid 49ers fan I know. My aunt (her sister) the second.

I'm honestly kind of shocked I don't really enjoy watching sports as a result, and I'm a dude that played sports his whole adolescent life.

Anyway, I think women do watch sports. Maybe not as much as men but a significant chunk do. Would be curious to see some stats, I might be wrong, but almost all the women I know are bigger sports fan than I am lol.

If anything it seems the female team receives the airtime and publicity over the men.

People are generally much more interested in male leagues than female.

@mrbojangles25: That's cool. Most of the people I hang out with or family aren't sports fans at all. They do Superbowl but that's about it. There are a few wife's that seem to be into sports(football, hockey) but I think it's more for the atmosphere or social aspect of it. Whereas I isolate myself for most football or hockey games so I don't miss anything lol. There's definitely woman fans out there watching male sports. But how many male fans are watching woman's sports (WNBA lol). Probably not many. I'm all for equality in the workplace when a job can be done just as effectively between genders. This business is different though. If you aren't good, or someone is better, you get cut. Nothing to do with gender or color or anything other than performance. You get paid based on skill and performance. In a way, I kinda wish my job was like that 😂.

Yeah the female sports fans I know aren't watching female sports, that's for sure.

I think it's part of the agenda various outlets are trying to push.

Not saying that as any sort of criticism or promotion, just an observation. I think female sports do need exposure and promotion, I just don't know if we need it crammed down our throat.

You could say that about a lot of current issues though.

I bet many of the same people not wanting female athletes to receive equal pay are the same people who bitched that Hooters girls got to keep all the tips.

It will never happen.

I don't know what the second scenario is about, but the math just doesn't support the first unless we're talking about a fundamentally different industry structure whereby the scale between the two is pooled.

I'm not opposed to it, but it's important to be aware of. This is drastically different than the typical labor disputes involving someone in the same corporate structure fighting for a larger piece of the pie. These are different pies.

Ok. Then the mens football teams pay should be reduced to match the womens salary.

Why? Doesn't make sense. Female models also make a lot more than their male counterparts.

Personally I have zero interest in any of the mainstream sports nor any of the "newer" sports being pushed so I can only surmise the lack of interest in the female side is the difference in ability, excitement, etc.., and no matter how hard the media tries generating interest it doesn't happen. The salaries of professional athletes are, for the most part, disgusting but much more justifiable when the teams are generating exorbitant amount of revenue compared with those who can't fill an arena.

@Solaryellow: yeah I don't watch sports--too much drama, too many commercials--so I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just curious what other people think of these things

I do agree the salaries are disgusting. We focus a lot on the huge amounts many make (and they do), but if you look at the salaries for a lot of football players like linemen or something, they don't make much. Especially given the fact that by the time their oft-short career is over, their bodies are going to be broken to one degree or another.

I like sports

My dad likes sports

My mom likes sports

My sister likes sports

One thing we all have in common.

We don't watch woman's sports

It's a good business decision in the longer term.

Similarly in many male pro sports there are revenue sharing arrangements and minimum and maximum salaries (caps) that players can be paid. The reasons for these rules are related to the long term viability of these leagues and the overall maximizing of revenue.

Where exactly is the upside in men's sports from an advertiser and entertainment spending perspective? The untapped market? Maybe the premier league should add 20 more teams? Are the 191 national mens football teams going to be enriched if they finally get the Marshall Islands or Palau to field a team?

Women's sports has a far larger long term upside. Even Iranian women seem to grasp this better than most people in this thread.

Or do you watch only the men's Olympic events?