OpinionsEditorials

Equal pay for better play

In a day and age where the president of the United States advocates for women athletes by saying that “playing like a girl means you’re a badass,” one would think it would be enough to at least slightly close the wage gap.

Apparently it is not. Five women on the U.S. national soccer team have filed a federal complaint accusing U.S. Soccer of wage discrimination.

Soccer stars Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn and Alex Morgan took a stand on the issue stating that they earned as little as 40 percent of what players on the U.S. men’s national team earned.

The men’s soccer team, which was eliminated in the round of 16 in the 2014 FIFA World Cup collected $9 million.

The U.S. Women’s National team, the winners of the 2015 Women’s World Cup, walked away with only $2 million each.

This is a problem that females have to deal with across the board, as women on average make 79 cents for every dollar a white man makes, however these female athletes are setting a good example for young girls everywhere by taking a stand against this injustice.

The women’s national soccer team is one of the most successful teams in international soccer. They have qualified for all seven women’s world cups and have come away with three World Cup titles. The men have qualified for only 10 out of 20 and have never won a World Cup.

A men’s player receives between $5,000 and $17,625 for games played while women’s players receive $1,350 for similar matches, bu are only paid if the United States wins. Women’s players receive no bonuses for losses or ties, according to a recent article published in the New York Times.

There have been arguments made that women’s sports do not get the viewership or as large of a following as men’s sports do. This claim is untrue. When the women’s national team won 1999 World Cup at the Rose Bowl in California they set records for attendance and television viewing.

In 2015 when the team defeated Japan to win its third World Cup, the final was watched by a record 25.4 million viewers on Fox. This set a new record for men’s or women’s soccer games watched on English-language television in this country.

U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati justified the wage gap, arguing that the U.S. women’s team does not generate as much revenue as the men do.

However, the women’s national team is projected to make millions in revenue this season after their World Cup win, while it is predicted that the men will lose at least a million, according to U.S. Women’s National Team forward Alex Morgan.

In a column published in Cosmopolitan April 12, Morgan said they decided to file the motion for all the little girls around the world who deserve the same respect as the boys.

“They deserve a voice, and if we as professional athletes don’t leverage the voices we have, we are letting them down,” Morgan said.

The women’s national team is discussing a boycott of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio if the matter of wage discrimination is not resolved in a timely manner.

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

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