Women's soccer will not fade into obscurity. Professional leagues yes but not the national team. The equal pay they are wanting is for the national team compensation not the professional teams they play on, and they deserve it. Probably more even. The US women's national team often draws more TV viewers than the men's team, constantly sells out matches (even international friendlies, qualifying matches, etc.). The US women do hold several TV ratings records for soccer in the US. Their merchandise is outselling the US men's national team by quite a bit, and they aren't going anywhere. They also happen to be probably one of the 3 or 4 greatest teams in sports history. Women's soccer tv ratings and attendance are booming and growing in Europe, Japan, China.
You need to actually do research & not regurgitate word for word the WNT purposeful lies, distortions, 1/2 truths, etc..
1)The WNT are salaried employees, they demanded a salary decades ago. The MNT are per diem/game players..independent contractors paid by a 1099. If you know about business that has all sorts of implications in that USSF has to contribute pay roll & other taxes for WNT(added cost) & not for MNT. The WNT salary in the old CBA was 128K/yr..its now 173K/yr. They get that whether they play 1, 5, or 20 games. MNT only get paid anything when they are selected for a game roster. The WNT chose the security of guaranteed paid b/c the economics of Womens Soccer stink in the US. They have had 3 leagues fail since 1999 and the only reason the current one survives is b/c of the "evil" USSF, they hate. Also with being salaried employees of USSF WNT get full benefits of salaried employees, health, dental, paid leave, etc... MNT gets none of that, their clubs pay them a salary & handle what benefits they do or don't receive.
2)WNT sells out matches at smaller venues, MNT attendance per game on avg is higher. WNT never has beaten MNT in attendance over a calendar year. Btw, WNT Wcup qualifying for Wcup 2019 which was only 5 games all at home has attendance of 5,404...7,532....3,886.....7,555.....6.986.. So, the notion they sell out &are drawing for qualifiers is false. WNT for all games in a year has never had higher avg attendance than MNT, that's with MNT having significantly higher priced tickets.
3)WNT viewership in games that USSF has rights to, the games that USSF makes money from selling the coverage the MNT has tv ratings 3 to 5 times higher than WNT. The WNT talking about ratings on games that USSF doesn't own the rights to shows the many ways they keep displaying they don't understand business or economics. Games USSF does not have rights to the federations pay out is what the owners of those rights give...ie...WCUP & the reason FIFA payouts for womens are tiny is b/c of revenue....Mens Wcup 6B revenue.....400M prize pool or 6.7% of revenue...Womens Wcup 131M revenue...30M prize pool...23% of revenue. FIFA is already being very generous paying the women 3X the % of revenue as men.
4)WNT gets paid a much higher percentage of revenue overall & astronomically high percentage on payouts from things like the World Cup, Example, WNT qualifying for the Wcup USSF receives 750K from FIFA, the WNT payout was 862,500...over 100%. In contrast, MNT for the 2014 Wcup USSF gets 8M from FIFA & the team received 1.58M as roster bonus...about 20%. On top of that FIFA gives USSF 1.5M in preperation costs. MNT during group play can get extra money but it's based on goals scored, wins, etc... 2014 MNT made it to Quarters and received combined with all performance bonuses 5.4M, the payout to USSF was 12M,...45%. In contrast the WNT for winning the 2019 Wcup USSF receives 4M payout, the WNT payout is 3.9M...98% There is also the fact that USSF budgets a loss of 6.1M for WCup b/c they give out all the payout in bonuses, yet have the costs of a month of expenses for the entire team,staff, support staff, etc,,
5)Looking year by year, FY 2016 was actually the only year in which the women’s team generated more revenue from games — $24.11 million, compared to $22.24 million for the men. FY 2016 was the year that included 2015 Wcup revenue, a record year for WNT in revenue , that was an off year for MNT in their cycle, ie...no major tournaments or Wcup qual games. In 2017, both teams brought in about the same revenue at $14.61 million, and in 2018, the men’s team brought in $13 million compared to the women’s $12.03 million . Heres, the thing the WNT has to play 20 more games in that period & played all their friendlies as home games. The MNT plays many away friendlies. USSF receives a fraction of the revenue on away games, which is the norm in soccer. All total. per game revenue ismuch higher for MNT. The WNT plays so many games b/c USSF by paying them a salary has already paid them, so they need games to try to get revenue to make it up. The WNT depite playing many games still has lost money every year except 1, their 1 record year FY2016. The losses annually tend to be pretty large up to 6-7M/yr. So, please dive into the facts before repeating the lines the WNT has fed the wilful igonrant media as propaganda, which does not tell the full picture.
The reason WNT are doing all this is b/c they are so entitled, fostered by years of USSF letting them get away with it, that they think playing a sport for exhibition should be their full income. That's cold war era USSR thinking. But, they know that the economics of Womens Soccer in the US is horrible, their league has a 420K team salary cap & they don't want to be paid under that. They also are too scared to go to Europe where clubs like Lyon & Barca,....etc,,pay top female players 200 to 500K/yr salary. The reason they don't go is b/c the few that tried recently didn't show well. Also, being paid by a club, like a real pro, mean club comes first, as they are paying you. Currently they get to not play in NWSL games , get pulled for NT during non FIFA windows, thus play 1/2 to 2/3rds of the games in NWSL. 2015 most of them didn't even come back to their clubs till the regular season was over after the WCup., they played in less than 1/2 the games
. The sad thing is that there are some deluded women, like Rapinoe or the WNBA players, who actually believe that it applies in their cases.
