-The US women's soccer team
is good.
Like, really good.
They've won championships,
awards, fans' hearts.
-Equal pay!
Equal pay!
-Players on the US women's
national soccer team -- -Filed
a federal complaint against
the US Soccer Federation.
Players say their treatment
doesn't match
their achievements,
and it's time to even
the playing field.
-And since this year's
Women's World Cup overlaps
with the presidential primary,
politicians have weighed in.
In their legal response,
the US Soccer Federation said
that these allegations
are inaccurate and misleading.
So what's going on here?
The vast majority of revenue
for the US Soccer Federation
comes from two places --
games played by both national
teams and sponsorships.
Since fiscal 2016, ticket sales
for the women's games
have not only matched,
but have brought in more overall
revenue than the men's games.
And even though the games
can be expensive to put on,
the women generated more net
revenue for games in 2016
and 2017.
Sponsor have also been giving
more since the US won
the 2015
Women's World Cup,
but we can't directly attribute
that increase to either team
since the Federation
doesn't distinguish
which team brings
in more sponsorship
or how sponsorship dollars
are allocated.
The players' earnings are
determined by a mix of factors
that differ between the men's
team and women's team,
making a direct comparison
almost impossible.
The women's team makes a base
salary and has bonuses.
The men's team
only earns bonuses.
The teams play different numbers
of games
and earn different bonuses
depending on the outcome
of a game
and the rank of their opponent.
The lawsuit alleges that if both
teams play 20 friendly games,
that a top-tier women's
national player
would earn 38%
of the compensation
of a similarly situated player
on the men's team.
But that was under the previous
collective
bargaining agreement
that ended in December of 2016.
We obtained the new agreement,
which took effect
in April of 2017,
and in the same scenario,
we calculated that a player
on the women's team
would earn about 89%
of the compensation
of a similarly
situated men's player.
If both teams lost all 20 games,
the players would make
the same amount,
because men earn a $5,000
bonus when they lose.
The women don't earn bonuses
for losses,
but they have a $100,000
base salary.
But it's not just salaries
and bonuses.
Players can also earn money
a bunch of other ways.
In other words, how much money
a player
makes depends
on a lot of different factors.
-I think pay equity,
a lot of times,
it just goes to compensation
or salaries or bonuses.
But it's really hard to have
that conversation
without really having
the conversation about,
are the staffs funded equally?
Are the youth teams
funded equally?
Branding, promotion,
sponsorships.
-Until 2018, the men's team
consistently had more expenses,
which included salaries,
than the women's team.
But in 2018, the women earned
more than the men on average.
But they also won more, and
played almost double the games.
And that's all before we get
to the World Cup pay structure,
which is set up
entirely differently.
Total prize money for the
Women's World Cup in 2019
is $30 million.
The champions will walk
with about $4 million.
In 2018, the Men's World Cup
champions won $38 million.
So there's no question
that there's a huge gap
in earning potential here.
But it's important to understand
how it works.
FIFA sets up the amount,
and awards any prize money
to the winning country's
Federation.
The Federation passes
that onto the players.
The huge disparity in World Cup
prize money
shows there's much less money
in the women's game overall.
And even though, when it comes
to revenue from ticket sales,
the women's team holds its own
against the men,
US women's ability
to make as much money
or more than the men's team
has traditionally required
better consistent performance.
The new collective
bargaining agreement
does a lot to shrink the gap
in payment for friendly games,
but there is without question
still a gap
when the World Cup is included.
-All of these things seem to be
much better for men.
But that isn't necessarily
the legal test.
The legal test will be,
do all of those things reflect
gender discrimination?
And the argument will be that
it's not gender
discrimination intentionally,
that it turns out
to be discrimination
because of the marketplace.
So, you know, it's a case
that could cause US Soccer
to have to raise
some awkward arguments.
