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Death. Taxes. These words are usually followed by a third thing used to illustrate certainty. Death. Taxes. Gigi Buffon.
Death. Taxes. The patriarchy.
This one is interesting because the latter subject is responsible in varying degrees for the other two, and because it may not be such a certainty anymore. One arena where the patriarchy has always been unquestioned in its dominance is the literal arena. Sports.
But the United States Womens National Soccer Team is fighting to change that. Five major players have filed a lawsuit (for those keeping score at home, this means both parties are now suing each other, for different reasons) against US Soccer alleging wage discrimination in favor of the men's team: Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Becky Sauerbrunn and Megan Rapinoe.
American society has never been more ripe for an action like this, but that doesn't mean the women's team will achieve equality overnight. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it wasn't destroyed in a day either.
We should stop here and note that I am not a lawyer (really? Could've fooled us).
The way I see it, there are two fundamental, very different questions here. One is "should the USWNT be compensated equally?" The other is "will the USWNT be compensated equally?" We'll take these one at a time.
Should the USWNT be compensated equally?
Yes.
Will the USWNT be compensated equally?
Maybe. It's complicated.
I don't see a court of law caring that much how much the women's team outperforms the men's in the field. More likely to come into play is whether the women generate as much (or more!) revenue as the men.
Around the world, the men's game generates far more revenue than the women's game. This is not in doubt. However, the USWNT is a far bigger draw compared to its competitors than the USMNT. The men's team is a warm-up act at its World Cup. The women's team is the headliner.
The USMNT received far more money in bonuses for making it out of the group stage than the women received for winning the entire tournament. Given how well the women's World Cup final did on television (it was far and away the most-watched soccer game in American history), and how television affects everything else (advertising revenue, etc.), it would be difficult to argue that the USMNT is a more valuable commodity than the USWNT, particularly by the proportions the players' salaries differ by.
This is not, of course, how things usually work in soccer. America might be the only country in the world where the women's team is both more successful and more popular than the men's. US Soccer, it appears, has chosen to pretend that the USA is just like everywhere else, where the women's team is a novelty and the men bring in all the money.
Clearly nobody knows what to do here because women aren's supposed to generate as much revenue or get paid as much as men. That's just the way the world works. It appears that the USWNT has decided that's not the way the world should work anymore.
The lawsuit clearly has US Soccer shook. They issued a denial that didn't actually deny any of the things alleged in the lawsuit, which is what you do when someone has you dead to rights and you want to avoid a public relations disaster.
Again, I am not a lawyer, so I don't actually know how strong the case is. The players seem pretty confident, and maybe they should be, considering all US Soccer has done in response to the suit so far is say the governing body is "disapponted" in the players.
I think what US Soccer actually means is it's "disappointed" the USWNT finally caught on to the scam.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
