{"id":3445,"date":"2015-07-10T12:26:53","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T17:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/?p=3445"},"modified":"2019-07-09T21:42:17","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T02:42:17","slug":"stop-moaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/2015\/07\/stop-moaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Moaning about Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with Daily Beast.<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on a story about the economics of women\u2019s sports pegged to USA winning the Women\u2019s World Cup and the kerfuffle over the pay gap. Many of the numbers that have been cited are indeed shocking. For instance, this\u00a0from the Washington Post\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But the financial rewards\u00a0for\u00a0women’s teams and their players at the end of the tourney revealed\u00a0a more subtle gulf.\u00a0The $2 million prize, though\u00a0double the purse from the 2011 Women\u2019s World Cup, is only one-quarter the $8 million that men’s teams earned from\u00a0losing\u00a0in the first round of last year’s World Cup.<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems as though some of the nuance is getting lost in these figures and that the pay gap is being heavily politicized. I\u2019d love to speak with you about the numbers and the economics of women\u2019s sports in general\u2014 why we\u2019re behind, how we\u2019re catching up, etc.<\/p>\n

Prize money aside, I do think that salaries are market-driven and the pay gap between women\u2019s and men\u2019s soccer (and in all women\u2019s sports with the exception of tennis) isn\u2019t some big, sexist conspiracy. It\u2019s basic supply and demand.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s are my questions: now that there does appear to be a growing market for U.S. women\u2019s soccer, can we expect bigger\/better remunerations for the players in the future? More advertisers and marketing deals for the next Women\u2019s World Cup? More sponsorships for the tournament\u2019s star players like Abby Wambach?<\/p>\n

You are probably correct that the gender pay gap in professional soccer is more the result of basic monopoly capitalism than overt sexism.<\/em><\/p>\n

The soccer (football) \u00a0players labor markets are unique compared to other North American Sports leagues because they are wide open worldwide.\u00a0 As a result, the future of American professional soccer for both genders is subject to the adolescent growth spurts where the demand for soccer talent explodes in the wake of World Cup success only to wane over the following four years. Women’s soccer has come a long way even if it seems to proceed in fits and starts at the rate of continental drift.<\/em><\/p>\n

The history of NA professional soccer has been the pro soccer league fantasy of capturing World Cup lightning in a bottle.\u00a0 This is true for the failures and successes of both men\u2019s and women\u2019s professional leagues over the last two decades. <\/em><\/p>\n

After several failed franchises and leagues, it now seems as though the men\u2019s MLS may have passed through the critical period since beginning in 1996 to form the critical mass of \u00a0a self-sustaining real professional soccer league. The current women\u2019s professional league is still in its formative stages in spite of the incredible adrenalin shots from the US women\u2019s WC success.<\/em><\/p>\n

The most likely catchup scenario for the third season NWSL is derived from the European model of common ownership of men\u2019s and women\u2019s football clubs, such as Olympique Lyonnais.<\/em><\/p>\n

The appealing aspect of women\u2019s soccer (besides US success on the world level) is that women seem play the beautiful game the way that it is supposed to be played. <\/em><\/p>\n

The best example of this appeal is the rapid rise toward equality of the prize money Women\u2019s Tennis Association \u00a0(WTA) compared the men\u2019s tour (ATP). <\/em><\/p>\n

The medium for the US womens\u2019 soccer message is the same as the WTA. It is made for TV on an international level. In the new age of streaming digital media, sports rights fees are exploding for all sports including soccer worldwide.<\/em><\/p>\n

The basic economics of derived demand from cable sports networks (FOX, NBC and ESPN) strongly suggests that the spreading media rights explosion will drive the American revolution toward equal pay for women footballers worldwide.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Pay Distribution in Tennis.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Was hoping to reconnect with you for a piece I’m working on right now about equal prize money in tennis, and whether men deserve to be paid more than women.<\/p>\n

The story is pegged to Djokovic responding to indelicate comments made by Indian Wells Tennis Garden CEO Raymond Moore about the WTA riding “on the coattails of men.” Djokovic then argued, more articulately, that men should be paid more than women because stats show they have more spectators and play more games.<\/p>\n

Looking at TV and digital ratings in recent years — both in U.S. and abroad — he seems to be right.\u00a0When you consider that men also spend more time on court, again his argument seems to hold up.<\/p>\n

I wanted to check these figures with a sports economist and so am reaching out to you again, since you were tremendously helpful the last time I wrote a similar story. Women are catching up (nowhere more than in tennis) but shouldn’t the prize money be relative and based on who draws a bigger audience? Is Djokovic right that men’s tennis continues still draws more spectators than women’s tennis?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The major problem with professional tennis is that the fan base is widespread but not very deep. Both men and women professional tennis players suffer an extremely unbalanced income distribution where the bottom 99 percent average less than $20,000 earnings per year.<\/em><\/p>\n

Men and women now receive equal prize money in all four Grand Slams, but the battle between the sexes for a shallow pool of prize money at the top seems somewhat petty when compared to the gross earnings disparity from top to bottom of both the WTA and ATP.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview with Daily Beast. I\u2019m working on a story about the economics of women\u2019s sports pegged to USA winning the Women\u2019s World Cup and the kerfuffle over the pay gap. Many of the numbers that have been cited are indeed shocking. For instance, this\u00a0from the Washington Post\u00a0 But the financial rewards\u00a0for\u00a0women’s teams and their players…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5558,"featured_media":2945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-major-league-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5558"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4399,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions\/4399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vrooman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}