FIFA called out to offer equal prize money for men/women World Cup tournaments

[KevFu]

But this isn’t about gender. It is about revenue. The MWCS generated $7.5 billion in revenue. We won’t know the 2023 WWCS totals until the tournament is over, but the 2019 tournament had $131 million in revenue.

100% of that $131 million listed for the Women's World Cup is TICKET SALES.

The 2022 Men's WC had $686 million in TICKET SALES.

The remaining $6.8 billion is from bundled sources that include men's and women's rights together. About $3.5 billion in TV money, which is bundled for all tournaments (men, women, youth, club), about $2.3 billion in merchandise and licensing for all FIFA properties (including women!), and all the sponsorship deals to ALL FIFA TOURNAMENTS, including the women.

It's impossible (and dumb) to itemize 91% of FIFA revenue by gender.

And it's disingenuous to post $7.5 billion vs $131 million as if women's revenue is 1.7% of men's.

Per FIFA's own reports:
Women's WC tickets sold are 59% of men's WC sales, (1998-2019, match number adjusted)
Viewership for 2019 WWC was 74% of the 2022 WC viewership.

The demand is more that adequate for FIFA to make a ton more money off the WWC than they try to make.

 

[daver]

Per FIFA's own reports:
Women's WC tickets sold are 59% of men's WC sales, (1998-2019, match number adjusted)
Viewership for 2019 WWC was 74% of the 2022 WC viewership.

The demand is more that adequate for FIFA to make a ton more money off the WWC than they try to make.

Source?

Here are the numbers I found:

FIFA Women’s World Cup Breaks Viewership Records

FIFA announced that a combined 1.12 billion viewers tuned into official broadcast coverage of the 2019 Women’s World Cup. The final match between the United States and the Netherlands drew an average live audience of 82.18 million and reached a total of 263.62 million unique viewers.

www.forbes.com

"The final match between the United States and the Netherlands drew an average live audience of 82.18 million and reached a total of 263.62 million unique viewers."

One Month On: 5 billion engaged with the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™

One month to the day since Lionel Messi, Lionel Scaloni and La Albiceleste lifted the FIFA World Cup trophy, we review some facts and figures from on and off the pitch, that reflect the sheer scale of the biggest single sporting event on the planet.

www.fifa.com

"close to 1.5 billion around the world watched a pulsating Final between Argentina and France"


Your claim of 74% is seemingly way, way, way, way off the reality of 5%.

Why you keep throwing out claims that women's soccer and women's basketball are even remotely close to the Men's version is very, very strange.

Why you keep positioning women's sports to be made fun of with these unbelievable claims and then chastise anyone who does it is very, very strange.

To each their own I guess.

 

[KevFu]

Source?

Here are the numbers I found:

Better sleuthing than me. I did a quick search for specific terms and the first item back was that "1.5 billion..." sentence (talking FINAL), and I thought that was whole tournament (because that's what I searched for). Which did surprise me. My bad.

Your claim of 74% is seemingly way, way, way, way off the reality of 5%.

How on earth do you post 1.12 billion vs 5 billion and then say that's 5%? 1.12 divided by 5 is 22%. I bungled my research due to poor reading comprehension/assuming the result was what I asked for, but the math was right. With accurate numbers, we should both get accurate math.

There were 32 teams in Qatar and 24 teams in France, so total viewers is going to be higher. Per match averages: France 2019 women got 27% of the viewership of Qatar 2022. Not 5%.

 

[KevFu]

Listen to this tone deaf non-sense FROM the President of FIFA to women's soccer players:

Hegerberg hits out at Infantino's equality speech

Former Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg led the backlash against Gianni Infantino on Friday after he said women need to "pick the right battles."

www.espn.com

I think THIS sums up my points from earlier in the thread on the blunder/stupidity of FIFA with women's soccer for the last 30 years or so (or forever), quite nicely:

"Pick the right battles. Pick the right fights. You have the power to change. You have the power to convince us men what we have to do and what we don't have to do. Just do it. With men, with FIFA, you'll find open doors. Just push the doors."

If you're the President of FIFA, and you're on the women's soccer players side, why is ANYTHING a fight? Why is the responsibility on PLAYERS to fight for things they need to grow women's soccer when YOU RUN GLOBAL SOCCER? That's YOUR JOB! Not theirs. Their job is to just play, YOU'RE supposed to handle the global administration of women's soccer.

Why do YOU need to be "convinced" by women still? Why do "men" need to be convinced still? And why the hell aren't you LEADING? Why are you saying this ridiculous stuff out loud when there's cameras present instead of just leading?

The President of FIFA needs to act like "the fight is over" and women's soccer and men's soccer are equal products, and his job is to get the most revenue possible for a FIFA which includes to sets of equal products; and most everyone will follow that lead. Either because they believe it, or because they'll have to fake it (to get the men's product).

 

[Sol]

Kinda crazy when you look at the stands in the women’s World Cup vs the mens. Just really doesn’t make sense to get the same much when there’s such a disparity in interest. Watching both world cups it’s truly a different sport watching men / women play. There’s nothing “wrong” with it but the skill level is obviously lower which is why they probably generate lower interest.

 

[McGarnagle]

So if I'm reading right the whole legal battle over this isn't a matter of popularity and interest but that FIFA was negligent in how they structure prize money and by bundling broadcast rights but leaving distribution of prize money as arbitrary they open themselves open to attack from the women's teams.

Because obviously nobody cares half as much about the U-23s or Women's World Cup like they do for the actual World Cup, but if they bundle rights together but don't have a collectively bargained formula for distributing that money to the teams, then you're in a legal mess. but even that mess they've subcontracted to the individual federations so you have the US dividing it differently than Australia or Spain, etc. which only furthers the women's team's claims of unfair treatment.

So I guess when they complain about unfair or unequal treatment that is more a matter of the arbitrary contractual nature of FIFA broadcast rights and not pretending they actually deserve the same money as the men's teams on merit.

The other wrinkle being that Mbappe or Kane make more in two weeks at their club teams than they get in prize money at the WC or Euros, whereas for the USWNT the prize money would be much more than any domestic league could ever give them in a year.

 

[KevFu]

So if I'm reading right the whole legal battle over this isn't a matter of popularity and interest but that FIFA was negligent in how they structure prize money and by bundling broadcast rights but leaving distribution of prize money as arbitrary they open themselves open to attack from the women's teams.

Because obviously nobody cares half as much about the U-23s or Women's World Cup like they do for the actual World Cup, but if they bundle rights together but don't have a collectively bargained formula for distributing that money to the teams, then you're in a legal mess.

That's pretty much it.

It's the horrible mismanagement of women's soccer by FIFA across the board. If FIFA actually did something to try and generate revenue from women's soccer, instead of doing the exact opposite of what they should do at every conceivable turn, they could grow women's soccer into AT LEAST a "Silver Goose" if not a SECOND "golden goose."

The whole "people don't care AS MUCH about women's sports" is true, but if you actually quantify it....

When the men's WC is on, everyone pretends that countries completely shut down, England's got 60m people watching the men and so the 4m watching the England women is... cute.

The reality is that 8.1m in the UK watched England vs Iran in the 2022 World Cup because the country DOESN'T shut down, as it was a workday. It's hard to find timely comparisons because of timeslots and time zones and comparing rounds but:

- 20.4 million people in the UK watched England men in a knockout (vs France) at 7 pm on a Tuesday in 2022.
- 11 million people in the UK watched the England women in a knockout (vs Australia) at 11 AM on a Tuesday in 2023.

That shows you how close it is. The knockout stage of the women trounced a group game of the men 11-8 on a weekday during work hours. And a knockout men's game in PRIMETIME had double an 11 am women's game.

It's not 10% of the interest or 20% of the interest. At worst, it's 50% and at best it's 75% -- but those numbers get better every single cycle.

When you consider that FIFA SAYS their men's business is "$7 billion" you see how much revenue they're leaving on the table.... HALF as many people caring about a $7b product is a $3.5 billion product!

Literally no one is saying the women deserve "the same" dollar amount as the men based on a fair and consistent accounting that shows the women create less revenue.

No such fair and consistent accounting exists. It's a lot closer to falsifying the revenue created to justify their stupid actions over the last 30 years (FIFA's $7 billion is counting anything shared as men's and ONLY World Cup tickets as women's. Sponsorships are shared. Licensing is shared. Media is shared... until they screwed that up by doing the opposite of smart thing).

FIFA's job is to PRETEND there's equal interest in both, because that would lead to the actual interest would MOVE TOWARD being equal, and they'd grow their business from $7b to $10-12b, and their goal should be $14b.

 

[KevFu]

Kinda crazy when you look at the stands in the women’s World Cup vs the mens.

It is?

1,900,000 people in the stands over 63 matches. 31,000 average; 87% total capacity. 17 sellouts matches and 21 matches of 40,000+

 

[Sol]

It is?

1,900,000 people in the stands over 63 matches. 31,000 average; 87% total capacity. 17 sellouts matches and 21 matches of 40,000+

Yeah it is. A simple google search would show you the massive disparity in attendance, and engagement. For example 5 billion people had engagements with the Qatar World Cup.

Don’t know why you’d pretend that they’re both the same when one is completely not like the other. There was nearly 90,000 attendance in the final while the average attendance was around 27000 attendance for the women’s. Average attendance for the men’s was 65k.

They’re completely different.

 

[Reaser]

The whole "people don't care AS MUCH about women's sports" is true, but if you actually quantify it....

When the men's WC is on, everyone pretends that countries completely shut down, England's got 60m people watching the men and so the 4m watching the England women is... cute.

The reality is that 8.1m in the UK watched England vs Iran in the 2022 World Cup because the country DOESN'T shut down, as it was a workday. It's hard to find timely comparisons because of timeslots and time zones and comparing rounds but:

- 20.4 million people in the UK watched England men in a knockout (vs France) at 7 pm on a Tuesday in 2022.
- 11 million people in the UK watched the England women in a knockout (vs Australia) at 11 AM on a Tuesday in 2023.
That shows you how close it is. The knockout stage of the women trounced a group game of the men 11-8 on a weekday during work hours. And a knockout men's game in PRIMETIME had double an 11 am women's game.

It's not 10% of the interest or 20% of the interest. At worst, it's 50% and at best it's 75% -- but those numbers get better every single cycle.

When you consider that FIFA SAYS their men's business is "$7 billion" you see how much revenue they're leaving on the table.... HALF as many people caring about a $7b product is a $3.5 billion product!

But that's not actually quantifying it. That's some non like-for-like examples from a single country to try and spin interest to being between 50-75% worldwide to say at least half as many people care compared to the $7.5b product.

How many people worldwide watched the England-France QF in 2022? How many people worldwide watched the England-Colombia QF in 2023? 50-75% of the actual same round from 2022? No. Obviously.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

It is?

1,900,000 people in the stands over 63 matches. 31,000 average; 87% total capacity. 17 sellouts matches and 21 matches of 40,000+

Yes, it is.

Its the World Cup, not having every game a sell out is a bad look

 

[KevFu]

Yes, it is.

Its the World Cup, not having every game a sell out is a bad look

Got news for you.... Men's World Cup in Brazil wasn't sold out.

 

[KevFu]

Yeah it is. A simple google search would show you the massive disparity in attendance, and engagement. For example 5 billion people had engagements with the Qatar World Cup.

Don’t know why you’d pretend that they’re both the same when one is completely not like the other. There was nearly 90,000 attendance in the final while the average attendance was around 27000 attendance for the women’s. Average attendance for the men’s was 65k.

They’re completely different.

No one is pretending they are the same. 3 million vs 2 million is not the same.

But someone who clearly didn't actually WATCH the thing is claiming it's a ghost town in the stands because no one cares... is just wrong when there were 21 sellouts and 87% capacity.

You're not making apples-to-apples comparisons (and doing it disingenuously) by bringing up a 90,000 Mens Finals crowd vs AVERAGE of 27,000 women's crowd.

The WOMEN'S FINAL was a sold-out 75,874. (That stadium hosted 5 games and sold out all five). And the average crowd was 30,905 per game, not 27,000.

And that's to say nothing of the fact that the Men's World Cups in Qatar, Brazil and South Africa spent TENS OF BILLIONS building stadiums, and not using existing ones. (See, FIFA doesn't care about the HOST expense, they like to point how how much money the men's world cup makes compared to the women's with their BS accounting, but don't say that the host country is on the hook for stadium costs. There's probably going to be more fierce competition to host WWCs than MWCs for that reason).


Now, 87% capacity isn't the 98% capacity of the men's tournament. But that's fine. You don't get everyone on the planet to switch from Not Caring to Caring overnight. You do it over a series of years, with constant progress. And this year's WWC was giant progress.

The growth of women's soccer across the planet is going to mirror the growth of soccer in the US. Because it's just a slightly different version of a highly lucrative product. "Soccer will never catch on in America" they said 30-40 years ago. And now it's "Women's soccer will never catch on everywhere."

 

[Sol]

No one is pretending they are the same. 3 million vs 2 million is not the same.

But someone who clearly didn't actually WATCH the thing is claiming it's a ghost town in the stands because no one cares... is just wrong when there were 21 sellouts and 87% capacity.

You're not making apples-to-apples comparisons (and doing it disingenuously) by bringing up a 90,000 Mens Finals crowd vs AVERAGE of 27,000 women's crowd.

The WOMEN'S FINAL was a sold-out 75,874. (That stadium hosted 5 games and sold out all five). And the average crowd was 30,905 per game, not 27,000.

And that's to say nothing of the fact that the Men's World Cups in Qatar, Brazil and South Africa spent TENS OF BILLIONS building stadiums, and not using existing ones. (See, FIFA doesn't care about the HOST expense, they like to point how how much money the men's world cup makes compared to the women's with their BS accounting, but don't say that the host country is on the hook for stadium costs. There's probably going to be more fierce competition to host WWCs than MWCs for that reason).


Now, 87% capacity isn't the 98% capacity of the men's tournament. But that's fine. You don't get everyone on the planet to switch from Not Caring to Caring overnight. You do it over a series of years, with constant progress. And this year's WWC was giant progress.

The growth of women's soccer across the planet is going to mirror the growth of soccer in the US. Because it's just a slightly different version of a highly lucrative product. "Soccer will never catch on in America" they said 30-40 years ago. And now it's "Women's soccer will never catch on everywhere."

I don’t think you realize how insignificant of a stat sell out is when you consider capacity. It’s like the Coyotes boasting about a sellout in their beer league arena that fits like 10 people. I’ve watched most of the games and yes the arenas are definitely smaller. And yes fifa will invest a lot more in whichever generates most revenue like all businesses.

 

[Kshahdoo]

So if I'm reading right the whole legal battle over this isn't a matter of popularity and interest but that FIFA was negligent in how they structure prize money and by bundling broadcast rights but leaving distribution of prize money as arbitrary they open themselves open to attack from the women's teams.

Because obviously nobody cares half as much about the U-23s or Women's World Cup like they do for the actual World Cup, but if they bundle rights together but don't have a collectively bargained formula for distributing that money to the teams, then you're in a legal mess. but even that mess they've subcontracted to the individual federations so you have the US dividing it differently than Australia or Spain, etc. which only furthers the women's team's claims of unfair treatment.

So I guess when they complain about unfair or unequal treatment that is more a matter of the arbitrary contractual nature of FIFA broadcast rights and not pretending they actually deserve the same money as the men's teams on merit.

The other wrinkle being that Mbappe or Kane make more in two weeks at their club teams than they get in prize money at the WC or Euros, whereas for the USWNT the prize money would be much more than any domestic league could ever give them in a year.

World Cup is full of teams and players who earn probably about 1% of Mbappe's money, and they are still 3 heads and shoulders above women as to skill and entertainment. So you offer to give their money to women?

You may say whatever you want about corruption in FIFA, but it's still a democratic organization, where 3/4 members are from poor countries where femail soccer is basically nonexistent. So they care about men teams and money only. If you try to strip them from money and give this money to American women, you will lose your place in the organization at the next FIFA congress. Infantino understands this very well...

 

[joelef]

Do women think they should be immune to economic realities?

 

[chaz4hockey]

One example of female pay advantage versus men....underlying economics matter (unless you are in camp that equal pay should always be in place despite different financial results):

 

[Doshell Propivo]

Shout out to @KevFu for some really thoughtful posts here.

Enjoyed them immensely.

 

[Doshell Propivo]

Do women think they should be immune to economic realities?

No.

 

[daver]

No.

Every athlete wants to leverage economic realities to their benefit. Using the "pay gap" narrative is one way to leverage economic reality to one's benefit. That only women can use this, and it gives the impression of immunity to reality.

 

[Doshell Propivo]

Every athlete wants to leverage economic realities to their benefit. Using the "pay gap" narrative is one way to leverage economic reality to one's benefit. That only women can use this, and it gives the impression of immunity to reality.

The issue being discussed here is FIFA's prize money. And what would make the most sense for FIFA from a PR and investment perspective. KevFu really explains the nuances in great detail in the previous posts.

The players of the WWC are not "employees" of FIFA. The question at hand isn't whether a pro women's team should pay their star player the same as Messi. Or whether Nike should pay a female soccer player the same for endorsements as it does Mbappe. (Although both may happen in the future).

Corrupt or not, the economic reality for FIFA is that it is a non-profit. Investing in and growing the sport globally is its mission.

 

[KevFu]

I don’t think you realize how insignificant of a stat sell out is when you consider capacity. It’s like the Coyotes boasting about a sellout in their beer league arena that fits like 10 people. I’ve watched most of the games and yes the arenas are definitely smaller. And yes fifa will invest a lot more in whichever generates most revenue like all businesses.

No one is pretending that a 15,000 seat sell-out and a 90,000 seat sellout is the same thing.

Here's my point: We make blanket statements about just how popular the men's world cup is and then blanket statements about how unpopular the women's world cup is.... and all of those blanket statements are ridiculously exaggerated and reality is a lot closer to what I'm saying than what you're saying.

For the men, "every game is a sellout in front of 90,000 people and the entire countries shut down to watch." But for the women, "it's small stadiums and they can't even fill that; and only like 5% of the country is watching at best."

The reality is that the WWC just sold out the 75,000 seat stadium for all five matches. And 22 out of 23 matches in the big stadiums (40,000 to 50,000 or more) were at 96% capacity or higher. And Brazil hosting the men sold 98% of their tickets, not 100%. And England men WC TV ratings aren't all 55m people, they "Only" had 8.1m watching a group game last November "because it was a workday" (aka country didn't shut down), while the women in a similar time slot, quarters instead of R16, got the same 11m in TV ratings the men did the year before.


If you're tasked with marketing and selling a product, and what you've been given to sell is FIFA Women's Soccer, your reaction is "Yeah, I can work with this." (The lousy part of the gig would be whom you report to, because they're clearly clueless idiots).

World Cup is full of teams and players who earn probably about 1% of Mbappe's money, and they are still 3 heads and shoulders above women as to skill and entertainment. So you offer to give their money to women?

You may say whatever you want about corruption in FIFA, but it's still a democratic organization, where 3/4 members are from poor countries where femail soccer is basically nonexistent. So they care about men teams and money only. If you try to strip them from money and give this money to American women, you will lose your place in the organization at the next FIFA congress. Infantino understands this very well...

That's not what's being discussed at all. Not even remotely close.

 

[KevFu]

Do women think they should be immune to economic realities?

The economic reality is that FIFA's bungling of women's soccer is so catastrophically bad that billions of dollars are left on the table.

The prize money for men and women's WASN'T set by "Men earn X revenue, Women earn Y, and Z% of their revenue = prize money." But so many people pretend that's what's been happening.

The whole issue stems from the fact that the definition of FIFA and "FIFA's Revenues" WAS exclusively Men's, and never adapted from that even as women started playing.


If you saw the movie AIR (about Nike signing Michael Jordan in 1983), picture FIFA as Nike, the company that makes RUNNING shoes and has a basketball division of like four guys who everyone ignores. ONE guy is crazy, because he thinks Nike came make money in basketball, and his plan is to spend the entire basketball budget signing Jordan, give him his own shoe and he'll make it popular by how great he is.

Okay, the two takeaways from that comparison are:
#1 - When people talk about FIFA MEN making $7 billion and WOMEN making $200m, that's like 1982 Nike saying RUNNING makes $7b and BASKETBALL makes $200m. It doesn't make more because no one's ever really tried to make more selling the product. (And that's actually bad because the $7b includes plenty of women's revenue not being itemized).

#2 - Who's the FIFA woman's soccer version of Sonny? Who was leading the charge from within FIFA, telling a bunch of men who thought she was crazy that she could grow women's soccer if they just let her start a WWC in 1991?

Answer: There wasn't one. FIFA named its first executive for Women's Soccer in 2016. The First WWC since FIFA implemented their first-ever strategy for women's soccer... is THIS ONE.


We can argue about what's the percentage of potential revenues for women's soccer compared to men; whether it's 10% to 75% to 100%. But the fact is, it got from NOTHING to THIS basically by itself; with rogue operators being either humored or fought by FIFA every step of the way. The list of things FIFA has FOUGHT at were WRONG about is longer than the list of things FIFA has done to help the women's game grow.

This week is when people will talk about the prize money because the tourney just ended and the prize money is being handed out. So articles about "how to divide the pie" will be dissected here a sports business topic. The REAL TOPIC is how FIFA has never made any significant effort to GROW THE PIE from women's soccer over the last 32 years and are actively an obstacle to that instead of a leader.

 

[Kshahdoo]

No one is pretending that a 15,000 seat sell-out and a 90,000 seat sellout is the same thing.

Here's my point: We make blanket statements about just how popular the men's world cup is and then blanket statements about how unpopular the women's world cup is.... and all of those blanket statements are ridiculously exaggerated and reality is a lot closer to what I'm saying than what you're saying.

For the men, "every game is a sellout in front of 90,000 people and the entire countries shut down to watch." But for the women, "it's small stadiums and they can't even fill that; and only like 5% of the country is watching at best."

The reality is that the WWC just sold out the 75,000 seat stadium for all five matches. And 22 out of 23 matches in the big stadiums (40,000 to 50,000 or more) were at 96% capacity or higher. And Brazil hosting the men sold 98% of their tickets, not 100%. And England men WC TV ratings aren't all 55m people, they "Only" had 8.1m watching a group game last November "because it was a workday" (aka country didn't shut down), while the women in a similar time slot, quarters instead of R16, got the same 11m in TV ratings the men did the year before.


If you're tasked with marketing and selling a product, and what you've been given to sell is FIFA Women's Soccer, your reaction is "Yeah, I can work with this." (The lousy part of the gig would be whom you report to, because they're clearly clueless idiots).



That's not what's being discussed at all. Not even remotely close.

If you don't discuss it then you do it wrong...

 

[RefalancheStillLose]

Wait a sec? Women play soccer?

When the hell did that start?

If nobody watches it, does it really count?