{"id":4242,"date":"2016-04-02T13:04:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T19:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=4242"},"modified":"2016-04-02T13:04:24","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T19:04:24","slug":"should-female-soccer-players-have-equal-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/04\/should-female-soccer-players-have-equal-pay.html","title":{"rendered":"Should female soccer players have “equal pay”?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

That\u2019s the claim in a complaint filed by 5 members of the US women\u2019s national soccer team against the U.S. Soccer organization, protesting wage discrimination because the women\u2019s team was paid nearly four times less than the men\u2019s team, despite the women\u2019s greater success internationally, based on rates for appearances in international competitions, among other factors. \u00a0Sports Illustrated<\/a> has a full table of the pay discrepancies. \u00a0What\u2019s more, according to NPR<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Citing U.S. Soccer\u2019s annual financial reports, the complaint says that the group\u2019s initial budget had projected a financial loss for both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams \u2014 but that the women\u2019s national team\u2019s success \u201calmost exclusively\u201d brought a projected $17.7 million profit. For the 2017 financial year, the players say, the federation now \u201cprojects a net profit from the WNT of approximately $5 million, while projecting a net loss of nearly $1 million for the MNT.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, the entire compensation structure for the women\u2019s team is different: \u00a0NPR says,<\/p>\n

The EEOC complaint acknowledges that U.S. Soccer pays top-tier female players $72,000 a year to play in those 20 games. But it notes that if a male player is paid only the base amount of $5,000 for 20 games \u2014 and loses them all \u2014 he would still make $1,000 more than a woman who wins all 20 of her games.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, according to a Sports Illustrated commenter,\u00a0DavidHoward1,<\/p>\n

[A]ll of the USWNT pool players are salaried employees of the USSF. They get paid 64k per year plus benefits regardless of whether they are selected for the team or not. This is up front money. No such arrangement exists for the men\u2019s team or anywhere else in men\u2019s soccer as far as I know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which seems to suggest that, for national team \u201cpool players\u201d, not in the top-tier, the women are in fact better off than the men, who only get paid if they\u2019re on a team.<\/p>\n

And presumably this difference is because the men are playing on professional soccer teams, and the women are not, or are perhaps playing in the established-in-2012 National Women\u2019s Soccer League, where, according to a google hit from Esquire<\/a>, the pay ranges from $6,000 to $30,000. \u00a0Hence, a salaried roster keeps women playing soccer professionally in a way that\u2019s not needed in men\u2019s soccer. \u00a0And, since according to the US Soccer annual reports<\/a>, they provide a $1.5 million annual subsidy to women\u2019s soccer, these low pay rates are not due to some corporate big-wigs keeping all the women\u2019s soccer revenues, but simply a result of low revenues. \u00a0(Though, I have to say, the pricing is higher than I thought it\u2019d be \u2013 tickets start at $25 per game for the Chicago Red Stars<\/a>, compared to $17.75 for the Chicago Wolves minor league hockey<\/a>, or starting at $16 for the WNBA<\/a>. \u00a0Perhaps the Women\u2019s Soccer management has\u00a0an expectation that spectators should be willing to pay higher prices as a good deed, like buying fair trade coffee, where the Wolves and the Sky both market themselves as an affordable, family-friendly alternative to high-priced men\u2019s major league teams.<\/p>\n

Another wrinkle is the fact that both the men and the women have collectively bargained, separately, and the women agreed to the lower wages in their bargaining, though there\u2019s now a dispute over that contract. \u00a0As ESPN describes<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u00a0The union representing the players is currently involved in a legal dispute with U.S. Soccer over the terms of their collective bargaining agreement. The federation filed a lawsuit this year seeking to clarify that its contract with the U.S. Women\u2019s National Soccer Team Players Association runs through the Rio Olympics until Dec. 31. The union maintains the memorandum of understanding agreed to in March 2013 can be terminated at any time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given this, why doesn\u2019t the union follow collective bargaining procedures to resolve this?<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I tried to hunt around to find articles on women\u2019s vs. men\u2019s pay in basketball, wondering if there are similar salaried vs. per-game arrangements in the national team. \u00a0I came up empty \u2013 mostly because the search keywords triggered endless results for soccer \u2013 except for an article on the professional basketball leagues at Vice Sports, which reported that<\/a> the in the women\u2019s professional basketball league, the players\u00a0are being paid about 1\/3 of total revenues, compared to 1\/2 of revenues going to men\u2019s league players. \u00a0Is this fair? \u00a0The author ignores the fact that the teams have overhead costs which could reasonably mean that the \u201cexcess\u201d revenue isn\u2019t lining owners\u2019 pockets but simply funding all the other expenses associated with running the team, and simply shrugs off questions of profitability with the assumption that all professional sports enterprises are highly profitable and any claims to the contrary are a matter of accounting trickery. \u00a0But it does suggest that one key difference between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams are that the men have been more willing to go on strike. \u00a0The author seems to suggest that\u00a0the women are making a mistake in not doing so \u2014 but I would be surprised if such a tactic would be particularly successful.<\/p>\n

That being said: it\u2019s common sense that there should be pay differences, but if you think about the complaint purely in terms of equal pay laws, where do you end up? \u00a0An employer may not pay employees in a differentiated way purely due to the employees\u2019 sex. \u00a0That much is clear. \u00a0And an employer may not justify differences with claims that \u201cthat\u2019s what the market will bear\u201d \u2014 for instance, a school wishing to increase the number of male elementary school teachers might want to target pay increases to male teachers, because female teachers are clearly more accepting of lower pay than men (yes, I know that\u2019s not necessarily the cause for the discrepancy \u2014 it\u2019s an example), but that\u2019d be against the law.<\/p>\n

So what, then, would be the reasoning that US Soccer, or, say, an individual who owned both a NBA and a WNBA team, give for the differentiated pay? \u00a0Could one say, \u201cit\u2019s common sense that the men\u2019s team plays to a higher skill level\u201d? \u00a0The law, however, doesn\u2019t allow for evaluating skill levels by sex, and then setting pay levels. \u00a0Could one say that the men\u2019s team and the women\u2019s team are different entities, and thus pays don\u2019t need to be the equal between those two entities? \u00a0Or does the same fine print that allows for sex-distinct women\u2019s teams, apply here?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the claim in a complaint filed by 5 members of the US women\u2019s national soccer team against the U.S. Soccer organization, protesting wage discrimination because the women\u2019s team was paid nearly four times less than the men\u2019s team, despite the women\u2019s greater success internationally, based on rates for appearances in international competitions, among other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[334,365],"class_list":["post-4242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pay-equity","tag-soccer"],"yoast_head":"\nShould female soccer players have "equal pay"?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the claim in a complaint filed by 5 members of the US women's national soccer team against the U.S. Soccer organization, 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