I am a working woman. I am a single mother. I am an empowerment coach. I believe in equality of opportunity. I don’t understand what women are calling “fair” anymore. The US Women’s team won the world cup again. That is fabulous. I admit I am not a sports fan, but I can appreciate that they clearly worked really hard and did their job to win. I can give them credit where credit is due.
I believe that everyone should be acknowledged for their good works. I believe that everyone should be admired for stepping up and continuing to excel at whatever it is that they choose to do. I give all of the players on all of the teams recognition for fighting hard whether they win or lose.. they did their best and kept at it. I believe that more people should do that.
But as I said. I am a single working mom. I have a little boy, and of course he is the most amazing little boy to ever walk the Earth. No one could tell me otherwise. My little boy wants many things. My little boy deserves many things.. but, I’m a single working mom. My bills get tight. My expenses pile up. I only have so much, in the matter of money, that I can give to him. No matter how wonderful he is. No matter how much he helps around the house. No matter how good his grades are. No matter how much he tries I can’t buy him everything that he wants. I just can’t afford it.
Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t take his hard work into consideration. I know lots of people who pay their children for grades. I know kids that are making $10 or even $100 or more per A. I can’t afford that. He could get like 20 As in a term. I told my son that if he tries really hard and the effort is shown in his report card he can get $2 per A and $1 per B. Now that’s not a lot of money. That’s not going to get him the new Nintendo Switch that he so desperately NEEDS TO HAVE.. but $40 at this stage is a lot to me.
Now.. you’re probably asking what this has to do with professional sport.. well, everything. According to Mike Oznian, a writer for Forbes, the 2015 Women’s World Cup “brought in almost $73 million, of which the players got 13%. The 2010 men’s World Cup in South Africa made almost $4 billion, of which 9% went to the players.” And last year, the men’s World Cup in Russia generated more than $6 billion in revenue; the participating teams shared about $400 million. That is less than 7 percent of overall revenue. Meanwhile, the 2019 Women’s World Cup made somewhere in the region of $131 million, doling out $30 million, well more than 20 percent of collected revenue, to the participating teams. So here’s the thing.. The women are making more than the men… percentage wise.. and the women can’t possibly be paid $400 million when they only brought in $131 million.. it’s just math.
Now I hope things change. I really do. I hope now that the women are winning that more people will start watching. That more merch will be sold. That advertising sales will skyrocket.. and I hope that winning will help, but sometimes it doesn’t. Daniel Day Lewis has won 3 Oscars… and at last check Ryan Reynolds has won 0.. now.. don’t get me wrong, I love Deadpool as much as the next girl, but he doesn’t get paid the big bucks for winning awards. He makes his money by selling out theaters. The more money one brings in the more they receive.. and until Women’s Soccer generates more than $400 million they’re never going to make that much. And then .. will they choose to take the lesser percentage?