This content was created by Collin Hardwick.
Soccer Graph 1
1 2020-05-05T21:55:38-07:00 Collin Hardwick ee755078ed93ca4c9a609e3d8b04a1c93d4547a4 33 1 Source: Stephanie Yang/Stars and Stripes FC - https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2016/6/1/11827482/understanding-us-soccer-response-uswnt-eeoc-wage-complaint plain 2020-05-05T21:55:38-07:00 Collin Hardwick ee755078ed93ca4c9a609e3d8b04a1c93d4547a4This page is referenced by:
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The USWNT Pre-2016
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The first US Women’s National Soccer Team was formed in 1985, a full century after the establishment of the first US Men’s National Soccer Team (Women's Soccer History in the USA: An Overview).
This gap was due to the late, but much needed, implementation of Title IX which stated:
"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance (Women's Soccer History in the USA: An Overview)."
First came the varsity college teams in the 1980s, then came the establishment and first game of the USWNT in 1985. Despite this late start and a relatively unimpressive first six years, the women’s team earned a major victory at the 1991 Women’s World Cup, showing that they had a promising future and would work to leave the shadow of the men’s team (Women's Soccer History in the USA: An Overview).
From here on, the USWNT has earned medals in every single World Cup, in addition to earning several gold medals in the Olympic Games and even more in minor events and cups over the years (Campbell). They were well on their way to earning the popularity and bargaining power to challenge the pay gap when they finally caught up to the men.
But until that tipping point in 2016, the US Men’s National Soccer Team was decisively bringing in more revenue than the women’s team (Das). Here we can begin to analyze the proportionality between the compensations of both teams.
With these figures provided by the USSF starting in 2008, it is easy to see that women were not being paid proportionally compared to the men (Stephanie Y). But in this instance, it was in the direction of the women’s team. Over the 8 years that these figures were taken, women pulled in 37% percent of the men’s revenue, yet they received over half their revenue as compensation (Stephanie Y). This was due to a negotiated agreement model, where the women elected to receive a base salary for lower bonuses from winning and showing up taken from revenue, unlike the bonus based men’s salary model (Chappell). Given that they would not be seeing the same revenue as the men’s team, this was a sound option at the time (Fowler).
With this second figure, we can see that the top 5 earners from both the men’s and women’s US National Soccer Teams were compensated greatly, with the women coming out on top from 2012 to 2015 (Stephanie Y). However, this figure, while true, is very misleading as well. When we begin moving into the 25th top earners on each team, men are making $580,000 to the women’s $342,000. This becomes even worse as we move to the 50th top earners, where men are making $246,000 to the women’s $25,000. Almost 10 times the female player’s compensation (Stephanie Y).
This is where most talks of pay disparity are centered, as the top earners are far more disproportionate to the bottom earners on the women’s team. Nearing the spike in women’s revenue after the 2015 World Cup, this disparity should not exist for players of equal skill on teams of similar revenue.Top image source: Alison MacAdam/NPR, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/05/420346946/u-s-women-lead-world-cup-final-5-2
