United States women’s soccer team member Megan Rapinoe holds the Women’s World Cup trophy as she celebrates after arriving in New Jersey, USA, on Monday. Photo: AP
Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3017935/women-soccer-players-have-earned-their-due Comment
Women soccer players have earned their due
- The recent World Cup in France has proved that women deserve higher pay, judging by entertainment value and audience numbers
United States women’s soccer team member Megan Rapinoe holds the Women’s World Cup trophy as she celebrates after arriving in New Jersey on Monday. Photo: AP
What most sets women’s professional soccer apart from men’s, gender excepted, is money.
The fabulous sums earned by top male players at the English and European club level may reflect television audiences, match crowds and star worship that have created a stratospheric transfer market.
But at international level, the inequality of pay and corporate support arguably does not reflect the ability and entertainment value of the best women players, or generate the funding needed to develop the women’s game.
The gap could be about to narrow a bit as a result of the ratings triumph of the recent Fifa Women’s World Cup in France.
The television audience for the entire tournament approached 1 billion across all platforms, including up to 150 million for the final between the United States and the Netherlands.
The US v England semi-final drew 11.7 million viewers in Britain, dwarfing the average of 6.9 million who watched the FA Cup over the past three seasons. With the Olympics and European championships next year, the women’s game has reached a tipping point in terms of payments.
The US women’s team is reported to have earned about US$250,000 each for winning the World Cup, while the US men’s team would have earned about US$1.1 million if they had won last year.
The massive disparity has led to American co-captain and Fifa Player of the Final Megan Rapinoe becoming the icon of the “equal pay” cause chanted by the crowd at the Stade de Lyon.
Critics are asking whether American striker and superstar Alex Morgan is about to radically reset the women’s earnings ceiling – apart from her partnership deals with Nike, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
Meanwhile, corporations are becoming aware of the brand value of women’s soccer, with Alipay, the online payments arm of Alibaba, owner of this newspaper, and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and executive vice-chairman Joe Tsai having just donated 1 billion yuan (US$145 million) to China’s national women’s soccer team over the next 10 years.
Women’s soccer may also be poised to close some of the earnings gap between team sports and individual sports such as tennis and golf.
Indeed, tennis legend and equal pay campaigner Billie Jean King tweeted that it was long past time to pay women footballers their due.