It's not just a matter of paying more or less.
The women all get guaranteed salaries, health insurance, their pro teams are reimbursed for their salaries which helps keep the women's pro league viable, they keep getting paid when they are injured and more. The men only get paid for games that they actually get picked for and show up for. If they are injured or unavailable for a particular game, they don't get paid.
The woman's concacaf world cup qualifying involves 5 games with only 1 or 2 being competitive, all played over one week in one location. The men's concacaf world cup qualifying involves 16 games, half of which involve international travel and is played over the course of several months and every game is against top competition.
The Olympics are even more of a difference as the women are automatic qualifiers where the men's team have to go through a similar concacaf qualifying procedure, only using the U-23 teams which means that the men's program has to fund both the regular squad and the U-23 squad at higher levels.
The woman's friendlies, she-believes tour, etc take place mostly in the US. The men's friendlies involve a large amount of international travel. And again, if the men get injured they are on their own where the women are taken care of.
When playing in the US the women do draw a decent crowd, usually less than the men but close. But when playing outside the US the stadiums for women's games are empty while the mens are still drawing healthy crowds. International sponsors as a result spend far more money supporting the mens game than the womens game.
And the elephant in the room is the world cup. The money in the men's world cup is 10x the amount of money than the women's world cup because no other country in the world really cares much about the women's game outside the US, being especially bad outside of western Europe, China and Japan.
Now, as for the money being quoted between 2016 and 2018. That was a fluke. The US Women came off a high of winning the World Cup in 2015 and even though they didn't medal in the 2016 Olympics, they at least made it to the elimination rounds. And in 2018 they were cruising towards another World Cup entry. The US Men on the other hand had disastrous qualifiers and missed out both the 2016 Olympics and 2018 World cup. This is a situation unlikely to repeat itself as the men's team should normally be in both so the fact that the women's revenue matched the men's for a couple of years is not the norm. You shouldn't be able to retroactively sue for back pay over a fluke.
To summarize, the mens game normally earns far more, involves far more games, far more of those games being played internationally, has far more international fan support and doesn't provide the safety nets that are in place for the women's games so of course it is entirely reasonable that the men get paid more. It's not the same work.
The women all get guaranteed salaries, health insurance, their pro teams are reimbursed for their salaries which helps keep the women's pro league viable, they keep getting paid when they are injured and more. The men only get paid for games that they actually get picked for and show up for. If they are injured or unavailable for a particular game, they don't get paid.
The woman's concacaf world cup qualifying involves 5 games with only 1 or 2 being competitive, all played over one week in one location. The men's concacaf world cup qualifying involves 16 games, half of which involve international travel and is played over the course of several months and every game is against top competition.
The Olympics are even more of a difference as the women are automatic qualifiers where the men's team have to go through a similar concacaf qualifying procedure, only using the U-23 teams which means that the men's program has to fund both the regular squad and the U-23 squad at higher levels.
The woman's friendlies, she-believes tour, etc take place mostly in the US. The men's friendlies involve a large amount of international travel. And again, if the men get injured they are on their own where the women are taken care of.
When playing in the US the women do draw a decent crowd, usually less than the men but close. But when playing outside the US the stadiums for women's games are empty while the mens are still drawing healthy crowds. International sponsors as a result spend far more money supporting the mens game than the womens game.
And the elephant in the room is the world cup. The money in the men's world cup is 10x the amount of money than the women's world cup because no other country in the world really cares much about the women's game outside the US, being especially bad outside of western Europe, China and Japan.
Now, as for the money being quoted between 2016 and 2018. That was a fluke. The US Women came off a high of winning the World Cup in 2015 and even though they didn't medal in the 2016 Olympics, they at least made it to the elimination rounds. And in 2018 they were cruising towards another World Cup entry. The US Men on the other hand had disastrous qualifiers and missed out both the 2016 Olympics and 2018 World cup. This is a situation unlikely to repeat itself as the men's team should normally be in both so the fact that the women's revenue matched the men's for a couple of years is not the norm. You shouldn't be able to retroactively sue for back pay over a fluke.
To summarize, the mens game normally earns far more, involves far more games, far more of those games being played internationally, has far more international fan support and doesn't provide the safety nets that are in place for the women's games so of course it is entirely reasonable that the men get paid more. It's not the same work.
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