FIFA called out to offer equal prize money for men/women World Cup tournaments
- Thread starter LadyStanley
- Start date
Buy you got wnba player who think that there entitled to charter flights because of “ equalliyy” and yet even less popular men pro leagues like the nll aren’t complaining about that
These comparisons still aren't showing what you think they are. Also continue to exclude what makes the World Cup the World Cup in terms of worldwide popularity, and that's people watching worldwide.
You can extrapolate the point with U.S. TV ratings.
2023 WWC Final, that the USWNT obviously wasn't in, did 2.21 million. Which isn't good.
2022 WC Final, that the USMNT obviously wasn't in, was the most-viewed soccer match in U.S. TV history.
That is the difference.
Around the world, people will watch -not just the final but- whatever two countries are playing in a group stage match of the [Men's] World Cup -- e.g. more people in the U.S. watched Qatar-Eduador group stage match last year than watched the WWC Final this year.
When it's non-home nation playing, significantly fewer watch the WWC. Certainly it's nowhere near the 'WWC gets 50%, 75%, the same! viewership of the men's World Cup' you tried to claim based on some non like-for-like comparisons from a single countries m&w national teams.
They get better ratings than the NHL. You should see how few people in Dallas watch a Stars game. Abysmal local tv ratings down there.
RefalancheStillLose
irreverent
- May 24, 2014
- 9,405
- 7,539
And? A lot of things get better ratings than every NHL team, let alone a sunbelt team.
The WWC averaged 610k viewers on Fox through 41games. The "pinnacle" event for Womans soccer.
Regular season NHL games on ABC averaged 1.1m.
Last edited:
Johnny Rifle
Pittsburgh Penguins
I think the US men’s and women’s individual players and coaches should get the exact pay.
Nothing.
The World Cup is a cash cow, but it’s a global exhibition at best for professional players who already make money elsewhere. Give the revenue from the World Cup to grow and develop the game through youth programs and for better practice and medical facilities for programs that need it.
If you can’t volunteer for a few weeks of work for three meaningful games then maybe you aren’t the best choice to represent the country.
If the US women want to complain that they don’t make enough money in their professional careers, then they need to put a more interesting product on the field and market themselves better.
I don’t believe that any athlete should be paid to represent their country in global events outside expenses. Same goes for every sport. Put on the USA jersey for love of country and not love of money. .
Nothing.
The World Cup is a cash cow, but it’s a global exhibition at best for professional players who already make money elsewhere. Give the revenue from the World Cup to grow and develop the game through youth programs and for better practice and medical facilities for programs that need it.
If you can’t volunteer for a few weeks of work for three meaningful games then maybe you aren’t the best choice to represent the country.
If the US women want to complain that they don’t make enough money in their professional careers, then they need to put a more interesting product on the field and market themselves better.
I don’t believe that any athlete should be paid to represent their country in global events outside expenses. Same goes for every sport. Put on the USA jersey for love of country and not love of money. .
KevFu
Registered User
Not what I meant. There's no "taking money away" from anyone. Which is why I ignored the comment.
But it's actually a very good point that probably needs addressing:
I think a lot of people are arguing about the place of women's soccer within FIFA from a standpoint that: "in order to give more money to women's soccer, you have to take money away from men's soccer... and aren't the men more deserving because they bring in more money?"
And that's the absolute wrong way to look at it. FIFA has been completely ignoring the women's side, charging MEN'S PRICES for TV rights, licensing, merchandising and sponsors and just giving those deals the "value-add" of the women. There's plenty of money available to increase the payout to the women's side if they just keeping saying "You want the deal for the men's world cup, but it costs X now because the women are actually bringing value now, too."
But FIFA is FIFA, so they did the dumbest thing possible, which was separate the women's TV rights (From the leverage they had).
You're really going to compare TV ratings in the US for a match that started at 3 PM Eastern/Noon Pacific to one that started at 6 AM Eastern/ 3 AM Pacific?
KevFu
Registered User
Show me an NHL game that started at 3 am Eastern and drew 610k viewers.
KevFu
Registered User
The apples-to-apples comparison for time zones would be the WWC in Australia/New Zealand would be the 2002 Men's World Cup in Japan/South Korea.
The 2002 Men's World Cup was the lowest rated in the US since the modern US Soccer era (1994-present) because of time zones. This WWC was no different in that regard: overall ratings down 60% from more time-zone friendly editions (and of course, the US sucking; but the US men traditionally suck).
2002 Men totaled 56.7 million viewers in 63 matches* (USA thru R16)
2023 Women totaled 42.8 million viewers in 64 matches (USA thru R16)
That's 75.4% of the viewership.
Now, that's "women NOW" vs "Men 21 years ago." Which was one of my previous points: The growth of women's soccer and women's sports is going to follow the same trajectory.
Soccer wasn't a "normal sport" in the US when the 1990s began, but it grew. The more it was on TV, the more people got used to it and it became part of our sporting culture as a society... Now women's sports is undergoing that same process of normalization.
The 2002 Men's World Cup was the lowest rated in the US since the modern US Soccer era (1994-present) because of time zones. This WWC was no different in that regard: overall ratings down 60% from more time-zone friendly editions (and of course, the US sucking; but the US men traditionally suck).
2002 Men totaled 56.7 million viewers in 63 matches* (USA thru R16)
2023 Women totaled 42.8 million viewers in 64 matches (USA thru R16)
That's 75.4% of the viewership.
Now, that's "women NOW" vs "Men 21 years ago." Which was one of my previous points: The growth of women's soccer and women's sports is going to follow the same trajectory.
Soccer wasn't a "normal sport" in the US when the 1990s began, but it grew. The more it was on TV, the more people got used to it and it became part of our sporting culture as a society... Now women's sports is undergoing that same process of normalization.
WWC Final when the U.S. has NOT been involved (eng-lang viewership in the U.S.):
2003 1.2M
2007 664k
2023 1.7M
You can use time-zone excuse for two of those if you'd like but can't for all three.
Men's world cup has never been anywhere near that low. Even the aforementioned 2002 (worst of men's World Cup U.S. viewership in 21st century which naturally is the one you chose for a comparison) had more than twice the viewers for the Final than the completely different generation but we'll call it "like-for-like" 2023 WWC.
Again, the point was worldwide. You used a single country where the WNT is popular to extrapolate that to "50-75%" worldwide in a non like-for-like comparison. Disingenuously, as you're want to do. I gave an example of a single country watching NT's that aren't their own, which was the point.
People will watch their national teams -like the Olympics when people watch sports they otherwise would never watch and don't care about but they're rooting for their country- but the difference between the men's and women's world cup is that neutral fans, again nowhere near the 75% watching the WWC worldwide as you try to claim, will watch ANY men's World Cup match (especially the Final) in large worldwide viewership numbers. That's the major difference between the two.
FWIW, look how many in Spain watched their WNT win their first WWC.
KevFu
Registered User
Excuse. That's funny. Comparing people setting an alarm to people flipping channels during the daytime is ridiculous.
Very valid point, but you're also talking about very different cultural paths.
You're right, the United States audience cares more about women's soccer than most other nations around the world; because we had a 20-year head start on the rest of the world in caring about it, with Title IX, a dominant US team and hosting 2 of the first four WWC...
The rest of the world is only now caring about the women's game in some places (and yeah, Spain's numbers are atrocious for a team that good. Coaching scandal/mutiny didn't help).
But remember when the common argument was that the only people watching soccer were foreign nationals, who grew up watching it elsewhere, moved here and THEY watch the World Cup (but people from families who've been in the US for a number of generations don't care about soccer). That was an extremely common argument.
Doesn't it stand to reason that the dynamic of THAT works the opposite way for women's soccer? That the people who were pre-disposed to like soccer when no one around them did because they had European/Central & South American values would hold those same values for the women's game: which is ignoring it?
I don't recall saying that the interest level in women's soccer worldwide was 75% of the men. I DO recall saying that the POTENTIAL for women's soccer as a product definitely is.
And I think that's the point you're missing. You're arguing "what it is" with my posts that are calling out the BS statements that "no one cares." (People DO care. The question is HOW MUCH).
And I've never pretended to give a damn about what IT IS NOW, because what it is NOW is after decades of gross business negligence. The goal is progress, normalization and moving toward the potential.
This whole 75% thing was after posters saying attendance was a ghost town (it wasn't). Or that MEN'S Revenue is $7 billion and WOMEN'S revenue is $191m (Not true either).
This is not how businesses work if FIFA considers themselves as a business. It is basic supply and demand economics.
KevFu
Registered User
The main reason I talk about this so much is because I lived it once.
I got into soccer during the 1994 World Cup when "no one cared" and the average American sports fan was openly hostile toward it. "I'm going to watch the World Cup" was met with "what are you, a F-Slur?"
I went from watching World Cup games on Univision because there wasn't English TV coverage of every game to seeing Twitter clips of thousands of people in Atlanta going nuts for a USA goal.
My college buddies happened to get together during the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, so we said "Let's just make this a thing" and started meeting up in NYC to go to soccer bars.
2006, saw no one in USA gear on game day until we got to the block of the soccer bar. Someone on the subway saw our shirts and said "Oh, World Cup is going on, isn't it? When does the US play?" (We just tied Italy an hour ago).
By 2014, we sat in awe watching people dressed to watch the US get on the subway and dudes in Captain American outfits.
It's the same thing all over again on the women's side. Soccer got popular in the United States because a lot of people saw dollar signs: Tons of people, tons of money... it's so similar to something they like (SPORTS!) that we can MAKE THEM CARE and turn them into customers!
The women's game is the same thing: Very similar to something that makes billions of dollars, so you're stupid to not try and make people care about it. (And FIFA has in fact been very stupid about it).
It's NOT as popular as the men's game. And that's fine. That's okay. It doesn't have to be. You guys are HOCKEY FANS, so you have to get this. If you were on an NBA or NFL message board and people were shitting on Hockey because no one likes it, you'd sound exactly like me! "Uh, it makes $6 billion in revenue a year. Clearly there's a market for it."
There's a market for it. It's also extremely cost-effective for investors right now. You might as well get on board that kind of view and sound really smart to all your friends.
I got into soccer during the 1994 World Cup when "no one cared" and the average American sports fan was openly hostile toward it. "I'm going to watch the World Cup" was met with "what are you, a F-Slur?"
I went from watching World Cup games on Univision because there wasn't English TV coverage of every game to seeing Twitter clips of thousands of people in Atlanta going nuts for a USA goal.
My college buddies happened to get together during the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, so we said "Let's just make this a thing" and started meeting up in NYC to go to soccer bars.
2006, saw no one in USA gear on game day until we got to the block of the soccer bar. Someone on the subway saw our shirts and said "Oh, World Cup is going on, isn't it? When does the US play?" (We just tied Italy an hour ago).
By 2014, we sat in awe watching people dressed to watch the US get on the subway and dudes in Captain American outfits.
It's the same thing all over again on the women's side. Soccer got popular in the United States because a lot of people saw dollar signs: Tons of people, tons of money... it's so similar to something they like (SPORTS!) that we can MAKE THEM CARE and turn them into customers!
The women's game is the same thing: Very similar to something that makes billions of dollars, so you're stupid to not try and make people care about it. (And FIFA has in fact been very stupid about it).
It's NOT as popular as the men's game. And that's fine. That's okay. It doesn't have to be. You guys are HOCKEY FANS, so you have to get this. If you were on an NBA or NFL message board and people were shitting on Hockey because no one likes it, you'd sound exactly like me! "Uh, it makes $6 billion in revenue a year. Clearly there's a market for it."
There's a market for it. It's also extremely cost-effective for investors right now. You might as well get on board that kind of view and sound really smart to all your friends.
That's all I've been responding to, as I've had no takes on equal pay or attendance. Just merely pointing out that using a non like-for-like ("knockout" was a disingenous way to get around different rounds / national viewership obviously goes up the further the NT advances) from a single country (one that the WNT has a fair amount of popularity) to extrapolate to a worldwide "50-75%" of the interest is extremely flawed, for the reasons provided in previous responses.
That's talking about the "what IT IS NOW" (your words) that you're now claiming you "don't give a damn about." You literally said between 50-75% and used England viewership from non like-for-like rounds to extrapolate that to 50-75% WORLDWIDE are how many care "NOW." That's the sole thing I've been responding to.
If that's not what you meant, multiple replies could have been avoided as a simple, "what I said isn't what I meant, I meant it has the potential for 50-75%" would have sufficed.
KevFu
Registered User
It isn't for FIFA because they're not a business, they're technically a non-profit. The revenues they get have to be distributed to their members.
FIFA revenues get "re-invested" in what makes more money in the future. And their lack of investment in women's soccer is really, really dumb...
Because what return are you going to get on further investment in men's soccer when the entire globe is basically already in? The reason the 1994 World Cup came to the US was to bring our market in as customers, since our economy is huge. All the major economies of the world are already into men's soccer -- There's India left, but that's about it.
On the women's side, they got England, they took the WWC to Canada and France, Australia and New Zealand. You hope you just made inroads in Spain, there's still Italy and Mexico and Brazil (which has had good players but not any kind of investment).
The goal is to create at least a Silver Goose if not a second Golden Goose.
KevFu
Registered User
Wasn't that replying to a generic "no one cares" non-sense and not the actual intellectual discussion you're engaging in? (Thanks for that BTW).
England is a pretty solid peer-to-peer comparison to combat "No one cares" because their teams are about the same quality, and they played in the exact same timeslot for a like-to-like comparison. So people THERE clearly care.
There's so many variables in all the data (which is incredibly small sample sizes of 3-7 games every four years), it's really difficult to make any kind of quantitative analysis of "Where the game is globally"
The whole point is that there's clearly a market to sell women's soccer, and to grow that customer base. And it formed with virtual no FIFA leadership (if anything, they've been an active obstacle until at least 2018, but since they were AGAINST expanding this WWC to 32 teams and the President of FIFA gave his absurd speech last week, I'd say they remain an obstacle into the future). Actual investment in the product would make it the Silver Goose or second Golden Goose for FIFA.
Is it actually going to CATCH and draw even with men's soccer? Of course not. But who cares? Like I said, we've been on a hockey website talking about NHL economics for decades and the NHL isn't catching the NFL or NBA. Growing revenues, increasing attendance, fan interest, TV ratings and popularity is what matters.
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