The 2019 Women’s World Cup and the success of the U.S. team — beating England and headed for the final, as this magazine went to press — brings the pay disparity between male and female athletes to the forefront of the sports news cycle. While the focus remains on the women’s national team, it’s become a benchmark for kicking off debates in other sports.
But attempting to use the women’s national soccer team to make the case for other female athletes does the soccer team a disservice. In the June 18 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine, I wrote about women’s sports and how revenue and television ratings drive salaries, which is largely the reason men receive more prize money and higher salaries than women.
But in the case of the U.S. women’s national team, they are the class of the sport. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say they’re the best women’s soccer team in the world. The team has won four Olympic medals and three World Cup titles. The men are noncompetitive in the Olympics, have never won a World Cup, and did not even qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
The U.S. women’s national team filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation over their lack of pay. The federation countered the two “are separate organizations with separate collective-bargaining agreements.” The officials also claimed they base the pay disparity “on differences in the aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex.”
If that’s the case, there’s a problem. On June 29, the Wall Street Journal reported the women did, in fact, bring in more money for the organization than the men: “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. Game revenues are made up mostly of ticket sales. In the last two years, at least, the men’s tally includes appearance fees that opposing teams pay the U.S. for games.”
The women’s team also has the best-selling soccer jersey of all time. During Nike’s earnings call, Nike President and CEO Mark Parker told the company, “The USA women’s home jersey is now the No. 1 soccer jersey, men’s or women’s, ever sold on Nike.com in one season.”
The Wall Street Journal pointed out that it is hard to determine revenue for each team when it comes to broadcast rights and sponsorships because the federation sells those as a bundle. Despite that, the Hollywood Reporter wrote the women’s World Cup soccer dominated when it came to ratings, with 8.24 million viewers tuning in to the quarterfinals between USA and France on June 26, and that was before the U.S.-England match.
The U.S. women’s national team’s success proves those players deserve salaries equal to what the federation pays the men. As for other women’s sports, it’s a different story.
The United States has two professional basketball leagues, the NBA and WNBA. The women in the WNBA often play overseas during the offseason to supplement their salaries. The average WNBA salary is $75,000, with a maximum of $117,500.
Fact is, the revenue from the WNBA does not justify paying the women the same as the men. The WNBA has witnessed falling league attendance by “12 percent from 2017 to 2018” while the league has “lost roughly $10 million a year over its 22-year lifespan.”
Forbes reported that the WNBA brings in “roughly $25 million annually from its TV deal with ESPN; the NBA’s TV revenue from ESPN and TNT is 100 times that.” This may change next year because the WNBA has a new deal with CBS Sports Network to go along with the ESPN deal. The deal will provide more exposure for the women, which could bring in more revenue. Maybe. As it stands, it’s only the influence of the NBA over broadcast partners that’s kept the WNBA afloat for so long.
As for tennis, the revenue and ratings favor the men. Rafael Nadal made waves when he said viewership should determine the earnings, but it is only Grand Slam finals featuring Serena Williams that draw more viewers than men. According to Yahoo, the 2017 Australian Open men’s final between “Roger Federer and Marin Cilic drew almost 25 percent more viewers that the women’s final between Caroline Wozniacki and Simona Halep.” One study found that “the [Association of Tennis Professionals] drew 973 million viewers in 2015 compared to the [Women’s Tennis Association]’s 395 million, both excluding Grand Slam events.”
The United States women’s national soccer team deserves equal (or better!) than their male counterparts. The WNBA and WTA still have some work to do.
Mary Chastain is an editor and writer at Legal Insurrection.
