First, I want to congratulate the U.S. Women’s Soccer team on an amazing victory last night. I didn’t realize how much I missed playing soccer until watching you. More importantly, every lady on every team, showed that hard work pays off and playing like a girl is no longer an insult. You make me smile when I look down at my soccer thighs.
As an American female entrepreneur born in the 80’s, I rarely am stunned by the earning discrepancies between men and women. I know they exist but did you know that the U.s. women’s soccer team will earn $2M for winning the World Cup where as the winner of the men’s world cup, Germany last year, earned $35M!!! Men’s teams eliminated in group play alone receive $8M. [Source]
On top of that, the game last night drew the highest viewing numbers for ANY SOCCER GAME aired in the US – nearly 23 million – 7 million MORE than game 6 of the NBA finals featuring BronBron last month.
How is FIFA still living in the 1920’s where corruption and gender discrimination are easy to get away with????
In 30% of sports, men are paid higher than women. In soccer however, the disparity is significantly the largest. [Source]
In 2007, it was Venus Williams who helped women earn equal prize money at Wimbledon. They had been earning the same amount at the US Open since just 1973 but it took another 34 long years to get the Brits to agree. [Source]
The Boston Marathon didn’t even welcome women to run until 1972 but gave the winning women equal prize money by 1984.
Why does FIFA hate women? Seriously. That is how it comes across. It makes no sense. None. Well, maybe they don’t hate us entirely since they did say Alex Morgan was, “Easy on the eyes.” And, what was up with the robot models who brought out the medals at the ceremony last night?!
I think the sponsors of the 2015 World Cup should show some class since FIFA has none and award the winning women’s teams with equal prize money (or at least half!) out of their own pockets. Yes, Adidas is one of them. So is Budweiser, Visa, Coca Cola, and Hyundai.
That or pull out of supporting such a disingenuous organization and remove yourself from the list of 2018 World Cup Russia sponsor list. This equal pay thing should have been resolved at least a decade ago and it’s embarrassing that these brands have yet to speak up.
On a happy note, hope you all had as much fun as I did this past 4th of July holiday weekend!
*I used to work exclusively with Adidas off and on from 2012-2014 and I still love their running shoes but no longer am contractually attached to them. If I was, I wouldn’t be able to say what I said above.
As someone who is into fitness but not necessarily into sports, I’m so glad you shared this information to educate me a little more. Equal pay should be practiced across the board! These women works their asses off and need to be paid accordingly. Thanks for sharing, Sarah.
AMEN. As a former D1 soccer player and huge supporter of the US women’s national team, this boils my blood. Thank you for bringing attention to this matter- those girls worked just as hard as any male team and FIFA should be embarrassed.
Also- those models…what a joke!!!!! Why not have a youth soccer team hand out the medals rather than a bunch of models who have never ran or kicked a soccer ball in their lives?! That was weird.
This equal pay controversy is absurd! Really, corporations need to be more progressive in gender equality. And come to think of it the robot models were odd!
Really just crazy! It is amazing that there would be any question about equal pay now a days.
love this post!!
$2M vs $25M is shameful!!!
I read about this yesterday and it made me SO angry. The fact that the men get paid more to lose than the women did to win the whole thing is ridiculous.
I completely agree! At least this ordeal shows that women still are not paid equally, even though society insists that we are!
Amen. Cue the applause.
Bravo! Sad to see such a disparity, especially when the Women’s World Cup was so much more fun to watch!
Ha you should have just added in the bit about them spending 27 million dollars to make a movie about FIFA that only made 200K in revenue. I mean obviously the difference between men and women’s soccer is huge, but ummm they clearly have the overhead to pay out more to the girls teams if they wanted, but as far as I can tell they really enjoy stroking their own egos more.
What!? Seriously. That’s ridiculous/hilarious/sad
Sarah, I’m sure you read about this lovely bit of news as well:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/england-twitter-account-celebrates-historic-world-cup-campaign-tweets-that-players-can-go-back-to-being-mothers-partners-and-daughters-10369041.html
Just, ugh! I wanna scream! I will admit I am not a sports person whatsoever. But in the world arena where football (soccer) is concerned, our Women’s team are LIGHTYEARS ahead of our Men’s team. Not only have we won the World Cup multiple times, we have also been gold medal Olympians multiple times. If you compare both teams, it’s no question. The argument made is that the sponsors just aren’t there for women’s sports in general, because people won’t watch. I’m hoping that this victory (and record making broadcast) will change things.