Thread by @AG_Conservative

It's really annoying that people, including reporters, can't even do basic research about the topics they write about. It's really not that hard to gather accurate information in 2019.

Apparently I have to do everything for people. Fine. On the Soccer pay gap:

I address the World Cup pay here: nationalreview.com/corner/about-t…

It's clear that if anything, the women's teams are paid more relative to the men's teams based on the revenue each side generates.

The topic of the USSF pay is much more complicated, but people are also getting a lot of things wrong there.

There is a slight pay disparity based on the collective bargaining agreements, but it is not as significant as people pretend and has a lot of factors.

Revenue for USSF: Media keeps citing that women produced slightly more game revenue over a 2 year period (50.8M) vs. 49.9M) because they played way more games, but game revenue only makes up 50% of total USSF revenue.

25% is sponsorships, but those are bundled.

Pay: Press keeps citing pay from the old agreement, but new agreement significantly cut the gap.

Under current agreement, female players get guaranteed base of 100K + bonuses.

Men get no guarantees, but have higher potential bonuses based on performance.

Using EX from the lawsuit updated for the new agreement:

If both teams played and lost 20 friendly matches, they would be paid the same.

If both teams win all 20 games, women would get paid 89% of what the men would get.

washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/…

IOW the women's team agreement essentially trades a guaranteed salary for less potential performance-based earnings.

That's something that even similarly situated employees do all the time. That's part of the negotiating process.

There are a lot of other factors to consider:

- The teams do not play in the same league or same competition.

- Men's soccer leagues, even in the U.S. are more popular. The game attendance is significantly higher and ticket costs are greater.

- National teams likely need more incentives to draw top men's players to participate because of previous point.

- With that said, top women's players are probably comparable in terms of marketability to men's players. But depends on the year. Ex: Men's team gained fans in 2015.

Anyways, it's a complicated subject. The pay gap exists on U.S. side, but based on contracts and vastly exaggerated. There are other elements in the suit (practice time, investment etc.) that are stronger arguments.

P.S. Just so we are clear: The U.S. Women's Team will make significantly more than the U.S. Men's team this year. And deservedly so.