The United States women’s national team continues to make headlines but at least it wasn’t as consistently rampant when they were annihilating the competition in the World Cup.
Remember when liberals rallied around the USWNT about equal pay to their male counterparts?
Well, now the USWNT’s equal pay lawsuit will go to trial on this date.
Things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Women have been fighting for equal pay in the workplace for decades. While that’s not the entirety of the whole picture, there’s nothing wrong with striving to attain that in a competitive marketplace. That’s capitalism in a nutshell.
But the thing is, men’s soccer is literally the biggest sport in the world and, unfortunately, gender distinction is a big part of that popularity. To be fair too, in women’s professional sports around the world, there’s no question that tennis dwarfs all others. Serena Williams is probably the richest female athlete in the world.
The women’s purse for the World Cup doubled since the 2015 tournament. It went from a total of $15 million to $30 million; with the winning team splitting $4 million amongst the team.
However, when it comes to revenue in the World Cup; for instance, in 2010 the Women’s WC brought in $73 million in revenue and that same year the Men’s brought in $4 billion.
In 2018, the Men’s World Cup garnered 3.6 billion total viewers across the world. That viewership brought $6 billion in profits to FIFA, the international soccer league. However, the last Women’s World Cup in 2015 only saw 764 million viewers.
That’s the argument against women earning equal pay to their male counterparts.
But that didn’t stop Sen. Kamala Harris from tweeting post-World Cup, “The USWNT scored more goals in their first World Cup match against Thailand than the U.S. men’s team scored in the 2010 and 2014 World Cups combined. We’re beyond past time to pay these championship athletes what they deserve.”
It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, the USWNT is dominant, but on the other, they just don’t pull down the same revenue. That’s the reality of the situation.
This will be the two main points when the lawsuit goes to trial May 5, 2020.
The gender discrimination lawsuit regarding unequal pay and working conditions was filed on March 8 by 28 players, and Monday’s trial date, set by US District Judge R. Gary Klausner in Los Angeles, comes a week after the players and the federation reached an impasse in mediation.
A spokesperson for the US women players said in a statement, “We are pleased with the expeditious schedule that has been set by the Court and we are eager to move forward with this case. We very much look forward to the trial in May 2020 when the players will have their day in court. We have every confidence that these world champion athletes will get what they legally deserve -— nothing less than equal pay and working conditions.”
The date is interesting too because it’ll be just in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, although it’s possible they reach a settlement before then.
A US Soccer spokesman said the federation was “continuing to work to find a resolution” to the dispute.