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- [00:01]
Lululemon Brand Representative
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- [00:26]
Podcast Host
hell broke loose on X over the weekend after the New York Post published a totally innocent article about how the US Men's team was going to be splitting their World cup earnings with the women's soccer team. The U.S. women's soccer team that did not play in this World cup, who's not playing in their World cup until next year. The roster has not even been chosen for the 2027 Women's World Cup. Yes, you heard that correctly. They are splitting their earnings with them.
- [00:52]
Lululemon Brand Representative
So how.
- [00:52]
Podcast Host
How on earth did this happen? Is it actually about gender pay equity? Or did the women's team just sign a bad contract or a different contract and now they have buyer's remorse? Let's get into it. This is the post that went viral. Again, it was New York Post and they said that the men's World cup Payout, it is $12.8 million, will be shared with the women's team after equal pay cba, which is a collective bargaining agreement. And I mean, if that is not just the most perfect headline of all time. We're talking about, you know, equality, women saying that they're having to fight the patriarchy, all of these things. And then you have a men's team literally subsidizing the women's team. It's like the NBA and the wnba. Anyway, the comments and the reposts were obviously as you expected. One person said, once again, men have to carry women. Another person said, it's not equality, it's special treatment. And then my personal favorite was actually from Ben and he said, so you're telling me the men go out and earn while the women stay at home and it's pretty perfect. So again, like I said in the introduction, I want to know how how this happened. How and most importantly, how do these women actually see this as a win? How do they see this as equality when it is clearly the men subsidizing their own team? Is this a feminist win? Is it because you're sticking it to the men because now they are having to earn less to pay you more so that you feel good about yourself? Like I Just cannot even imagine having that mindset. Like, I genuinely often feel like I live in a totally opposite reality as so many of my peers. And this is a perfect example as to why, like, I don't see this as a win anyway. To understand how this all took place and to understand how I feel like I was lied to and misled back when I was a teenager watching all of this unfold with the women's soccer team, we need to go back to the 2015, 2019 era of women's soccer. So, like I just said, I was a teenager at this point. I remember being 14, 15, 16 years old, hearing about Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, seeing them do the press conferences about how they were making less money, and I was like, yeah, I mean, they should make as much. I know I knew nothing about the situation other than the infographics, the tweets, the occasional video. And I moved on with my life. And I went, yeah, I guess they should make the same. I did not even think about it. Deeply and honestly. I think they were betting on most of the population not actually thinking about the situation critically. Anyway, so yesterday, as I was reading over the details of this, it was just so illuminating because I had no idea how absurd the situation actually was. Because, like I said, the only thing I remember was Megan Rapido and her pink hair and her gaggle of girl bosses giving speeches about girl power and feminism and equal pay, just like this.
- [03:18]
Lululemon Brand Representative
Equal pay and equality in general is a deep and personal passion of mine. And what we've learned and what we continue to learn is that there's no level of status and there's no accomplishment or power that will protect you from the clutches of inequality. One cannot simply outperform inequality or be excellent enough to escape discrimination of any kind. And I'm here today because I know firsthand that this is true. We're so often told in this country that if you just work hard and continue to achieve, you will be rewarded and rewarded fairly. It's the promise of the American dream. But that promise has not been for everyone.
- [04:04]
Podcast Host
Okay, so I just wanted to play that for you so that you see the angle that they were coming at this argument from. Again, this was the 2015-2019 era into 2021. Honestly, when they were suing the US Soccer Federation, everything was about gender. They had been discriminated against. They were not paid as much as the male players. This was inequality. They were winning all of these games. They weren't making enough money. They had to fight because they were women. Everything was about women's rights and the women's team being paid significantly less, even though they were an elite team and they were actually winning all of these World Cups, which is true, they are a great team. I think on paper, they are actually, I shouldn't even say actually, they are better than the men's team. So in my mind, again, growing up in this era, I assumed that, yeah, they had been discriminated against in some way. I mean, they filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against their league. And this, again, was not something that I really wasted breath on. But that is how it was positioned to the public. And guess what? That is exactly what they wanted people to think. Because the real story is a very simple one about contract negotiations. It is literally just that. So I'm gonna break all of this down, hopefully in layman's terms for those of us who are not soccer aficionados, who do not spend time thinking about this, who are not Freddie, who are not our German friend Freddie. The FIFA World cup winnings, which is what is right now and being discussed right now on X, and the US Team's yearly salary from the US Soccer Federation are two different issues. But there is a common solution that happened in 2022, which we will talk about. But back in 2019, when the women were suing and Megan Rapinoe was doing all those speeches, they were fighting over their U.S. soccer Federation salaries. And so they argued that across the board, the US Men's team was making significantly more per game and that they deserved the same. But here's what's funny. The U.S. soccer Federation is did not waive some patriarchal want. They were not gathering in some misogynistic male only boardroom when they decided to make the women make less because they liked men better, obviously. No, that is not how it happened. Actually. What happened is that the women themselves and their union negotiated and fought for the contract that they had. So the full picture here is that men's soccer, just across the board, globally, is bigger. And so the US Men's players who play in the World cup, they do not just play for the ussf. They also have other leagues and teams that they play in. And those clubs and leagues pay them well. So when they negotiated for their contract with the U.S. soccer Federation, which is only one league, and it's just for the World cup, they chose a contract that was more like a bonus structure. They would get no salary, no benefits, no anything, but they would get a flat rate per game. So every game they qualified for, if they were, you know, Picked for a game, whatever it was, they would get a base pay. Now, the women, and you're going to see why this is understandable, but they opted for something different. Women's soccer globally is smaller. A lot of them were not on other club teams that paid well. They didn't have other options that were, you know, giving them an income. So they chose to take a contract with that same league, ussf, that had a salary. They chose benefits. They wanted maternity leave, they wanted severance, all of the things, instead of just a cut and dry flat rate per game. And you can see this here. The men's team would make 5,000 per game. The women's team had a $72,000 a year salary that bumped up to $100,000 in 2017. And then when you do the math, I think on average that would come out for the women to be about $3,600 per game. So that's how they did this math, to say the men are making more, they're getting $5,000 a game, we are getting around 4,000. And so they started complaining about this, saying this is pay inequality. We are not getting paid the same as the men because we're women. No, actually you're actually getting benefits. You're not making as much per game because they are removing things from your salary to pay for your benefits and your severance and your maternity leave and all of the things. How is this even a debate? That is just common sense. I feel like yesterday I emerged from the fog of U.S. women's soccer. I'm not kidding. Growing up under this environment, seeing again, all of these players actually feeling like it was some kind of equality. I mean, I assumed that they were making things up. I assumed that this was them being dramatic and screeching because they wanted to benefit from being activists and being oppressed, all of the things. But this is even more ridiculous than I assumed also, and this shocked me, you guys might already know this, but guess what? During the years when Megan Rapinoe and her pink hair would not shut up about this inequality in the patriarchy, the women were actually making more. They were actually bringing in more money for the federation. Now I'm sure again, some of you guys probably already know this if you like soccer. But as a non soccer fan, as a tuned out teenager from a decade ago, I had no idea. So the US women's team won their third World cup in 2015, I believe it was. And so in 2016, the next year, they were riding that high. They were traveling around the country playing Games and friendlies. All eyes were on them. They were doing tons of press, there were sponsorships, tons of ticket sales and merch sales, all of the things. And look at that. Wow. They made more money than the men that year. Which just goes to show that if you have the influence, if you have the fans and the attention, you will make more. In that year, they brought in 50 million for the league, while the men brought in 49 million. And I am sure that number inflated their ego. Like Inflate iq. Now, guys, I have to be honest with you. I love a curb. My tires know it. My husband knows it. Nashville at large knows it. So when I say that I need Inflate iq, I mean that. Inflate IQ is a smart, portable tire inflator that fits into your glove box. All you do is set the psi, you press a button and it automatically stops when it hits the right tire pressure. It works on cars, trucks, trailers, bikes, all of it. No guessing, no overfilling, no more digging through your purse recorders just to use that maybe works air pump at the sketchy gas station down the road. You're done. Inflate IQ is fixing all of that. Inflate IQ fills tires twice as fast. 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So head on over to soundtrancershop.com cooper for a better, more comfortable shooting experience. Again to get and check them out, it is silencer shop.com/cooper all right, now back to the point. I just want to briefly touch on this before we move on. I want to talk about the men's $49 million pay that year. Because honestly, even though the women did come out on top, that is honestly still really good. Like the soccer feminist Rapinoe fan girls, they always Frame the men's U.S. soccer team as being this small, lazy, untalented, like they have no fans compared to the women's team. The entire framing was this woman's team is so elite and so popular and everybody loves them, everybody hates the men, and yet the men make all of this money. But on a year when the men did not win a World cup, when they were average, they still came within a million dollars of the best year ever for the US Women's team. So obviously they're doing something right. Obviously they have fans. Obviously there are people buying tickets. Just saying. Now moving on, this is really where it was so disingenuous. Look at this headline. U.S. women's soccer games now Generate More Revenue than Men's but the Players Still Earn Less. So this article was written in 2019. This was around the time that they were suing the federation for equal pay. They're talking about how in 2016 they made more. Which by the way, I just have to say, 2016 they did make more than the men by like a million dollars. 2017, it was about equal. By 2018, the men were making more once again. So that was just a blip. It was not like, oh my gosh, they're bringing in so much more money and we're not getting a cut of it. It was because you won the World Cup. Anyway, moving on from that, going back to this article because I want to read you something from it. This is the part that is so disingenuous. The author says she's talking about the LAWSU the women filed. If the men and women's team won each of the 20 non tournament games that they are contractually required to play, women's team members would earn a maximum of $99,000 a year. So that is a little under $5,000 per game. While men's team players would earn $263,000 per year, which is about $13,000 per game. And to that I say duh. Again, it's because of the contracts. Again you have benefits, maternity leave, severance, all of the things the men just get straight bonuses. Obviously, obviously they are going to make more. And again, even though you're really great women, even though you are winning men's soccer just objectively still is more popular. But all of this is so common sense. But she doesn't say that in the article. All of the journalists were also saying it's because of the inequality. They were just like putting out all these numbers. They make so much more. Not talking about the contracts, anything like that. Anyway, thankfully in the court of law, this was so cut and dry that the judge threw out the discriminatory equal pay part of the lawsuit. The USSF responded to the women and said, yeah, the difference in pay is about anything other than sex. Try again. We are not discriminating against you. That's not what happening. But they did try again. They listened to that. The women kept pushing and screeching over the next couple of years. They appealed the case in 2021. And then in 2022, the USSF and their new president who was in favor of the women, I think she's also a woman. She agreed to settle with the US women's team for $22 million in back pay.
- [13:44]
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- [13:50]
Podcast Host
You're.
- [13:50]
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- [14:15]
Podcast Host
$2 million because of discrimination. Now, they also agreed to a series of equal pay commitments, which is what is in the news right now. So all of this was the context to bring us to what is viral, what has over 11 million impressions on X right now. So now all of this takes us back to the World cup and FIFA. Hopefully, you guys are still hanging on. Sorry, I'm, like, nerding out about all this because, again, I just. I didn't learn any of this when I was a teenager. FIFA, obviously, you guys probably know this, but it is the organizing body of the World Cup. They set one big prize pool for the tournament, and depending on how far you get in the tournament, and the teams get a cut. Now, the prize pool is different for the Men's World cup and the Women's World cup, again, obviously, because it is a totally different situation. Men's soccer has more teams. It is wildly more popular around the world. So their pool in 2022, for example, was a whopping $440 million compared to the $150 million for the women who competed next year. And again, I think that makes sense. It makes sense to us, the commonsensical people of the world, but to other people, remember, no, this is inequality. This is gender discrimination. And so as part of their settlement with the USSF to get equality, they signed a new cba Again, collective bargaining agreement with the men's team and the USSF that would make it so the men and women split all of their World cup earnings. So if the men bring home $16 million like they did this time, that's what the women. If the women win, they split it with the men. And I'm just looking at this going like, that is a lot of work to make women feel good. And they had to agree to this because the women spent years screeching about something that they actually fought for. Like, you were angry about the contract that you wanted because understandably, you wanted stability. Then you tried to sue for discrimination. That didn't work. So you kept screeching, you kept doing the speeches, you kept bullying people online. And rather than going to your union and trying to change the contract to reflect the men's, try to get actually on an equal level playing field. You're splitting earnings on games you did not play. I feel like this is the embodiment of the equality versus equity meme. Do you guys remember that? It's like the kids looking over the fence post. And then there's equality, where everybody's sitting on the same level. Some are taller, some are lower, and then they have equity where you're, you know, lifting somebody up to be at the same level of the taller person. Whatever it is, we'll put it up on screen. That is what they're doing here. They're trying to lift the women up so that they can feel this false sense of equity equality with the men whose sport objectively is bigger, has more fans, and who compete on a higher level just because of that fact. And obviously people online are over it. Somebody commented and said, men generate the value, women get the handout. Call it what it is, equal pay for unequal value. Another person said, why, though? Women's football just doesn't draw as much attention because it's less fun to watch. In part because the female athletes cannot compete with their male counterparts. The equal pay in that sense isn't earned. There is something quite patronizing to it. Again, that's what I said at the beginning, where I can't even imagine seeing this as a win. The man was like, yeah, I'll split my earnings with you just to make you feel better about the fact that your contract isn't great because you don't have enough fans. I would be like, f off now. Even though there are a lot of people who are pissed about this, a lot of people have pointed out that the situation is complicated because, again, on paper, the women's team is more successful. Like one person said, more than fair. The women's team actually wins. Like, I think the women have won the Women's World cup more times than anybody else. I think they've broken that record. They've broken their own record. Another person said, I'm cool with this. The women's team does seem to perform much better and are several times more consistent than the men's team team. I'm tired of the men's team not being able to get past round 16. In fact, the women should get more for doing better. Another person said, the oldest debate in women's sports is what to do when the men's event generates a lot more revenue than the women's, but the women are more successful. And like, obviously that sucks. It does. Like removing all of my biases about Megan Rapinoe and her intersectional pink hair. Putting all of that aside, obviously that is frustrating. If I was them, I'm sure I would be frustrated as well. But that discrepancy is not because of the patriarchy. It is also not the fault of. Of your male counterparts. It is not the fault of FIFA, who is basing their pool simply on the amount of fans and the amount of teams that are going to be playing in the World cup or the USSF's fault. It is simply that More people watch men's soccer, that the sport is objectively bigger. The male players have more options, they have more games, they have more fans. And unfortunately, or if you look at it kind of in the way that I do, fortunately, you fought for a smart contract. In my mind, that would protect you, would offer you security within that landscape where your sport is not as big as the men's, so that you could, could make this a career. That seems like a win for women everywhere. Imagine if women only got a base, flat rate, had no benefits, didn't have club teams, anything like that. Female soccer players would not be able to make this into a career. You actually fought for something that allows women to be professional soccer players with benefits, to take care of their families, to be a mom, to have maternity leave. And unfortunately, this is just common sense. That kind of security upside comes with a monetary downside. That's simply just how accounting works, considering the situation for female soccer players. To me, the contract that you guys got actually does seem like a win. But if you were really angry, if you really wanted to be on the same exact level playing field, prove yourself, make more money, then you should have fought to change the contract, to actually get on the same playing field, not turn yourself into weird, angry feminist mouthpieces with sham lawsuits that lawyers literally laugh at. Because that is what happened. And now, 10 years later, nobody cares. I can't remember the last time somebody talked about women's soccer. Megan, Rapinoe, any of those people. You have faded into oblivion. I don't even think of you as soccer players. I simply think of you as activists. That is your legacy. And the Internet is laughing, and that's unfortunate, but that was your decision.