Clay Travis: “I don’t know why there’s not more time spent on analysis of the market factors here. Nobody out there who is a fan of the NBA is arguing that WNBA players should be receiving the same pay as men because there are a lot more people who care about men’s basketball than women’s basketball. Worldwide, most of the money that teams receive to play in the World Cup comes as a part of a breakdown, and the FIFA dollars that are brought to bear are distributed between all the different teams. The reason the men make more money than the women is because the men’s World Cup produces orders of magnitude more. We are talking about a global sport and the way the globe values men’s soccer as opposed to women’s soccer is completely different.”
Enveloped in a classic case of sports meeting politics, the United States soccer federation finds themselves at an uncomfortable crossroads of controversy as an ‘Equal Pay’ storyline is diverting a lot of attention away the pitch.
The United States Women’s National Team recently won the 2019 Women’s World Cup, once again stamping their supremacy on the sport they’ve completely dominated the last three decades.
The United States Men’s National Team recently lost in the championship leg of the 2019 Gold Cup to Mexico, once again underwhelming on a national stage less than a year removed from being left out of the grandest stage in all of athletics at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Most would be surprised to hear that despite the shortcomings off the U.S. men, they still operate in a much more lucrative pay scale.
Women's soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan have been very vocal in their disgust for the pay disparity in the sport considering how much more successful the women have been compared to the men, and have even gone so far to sue the governing bodies of U.S. soccer for gender discrimination.
Clay Travis says the success of both teams is irrelevant here, however, and to make such a comparison is an exercise in futility. Clay says the salaries aren't based on sex, but rather revenue.
Clay points out that the FIFA World Cup took in more than $6 billion from the 2018 tournament last summer, while the women’s World Cup was projected to bring in $130 million.
For such a disparity in earnings, Clay says there shouldn’t be much shock when it would be revealed that the U.S. Women received a $4 million bonus for winning their World Cup, whereas the men’s champions took in a $38 million bonus for there’s.
The women’s World Cup reportedly saw around a billion viewers tune into every round of the tournament combined, however the men’s World Cup had over a billion viewers for just the final game alone.
Quite possibly the biggest gripe the United States Women have is the fact from 2016-2018, they reportedly earned more money their U.S. male counterparts by a total of $50.8 million to $49.9 million comparatively.
But despite the head-to-head comparisons, Clay says it comes down to the popularity of the men’s game around the globe, not just nationally, and says the rest of the world has not thrown money at the women’s game like they do in the United States, where the women’s players are much bigger celebrities than the men.
Check out the full audio below to hear Clay’s full take.
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