It’s the aftermath of the Independence Day weekend. It’s July, and the Twins are seriously in contention.
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We shouldn’t HAVE to think about Soccer. I’d hope that we are better, as a society, than that. Our forefathers fought and died so that we’d be *free* of things like Eurovision, parliamentary government, and soccer. And this time of year, I like to honor and respect their sacrifice.
But I’m genuinely curious about something, and would love to find some genuine answers.
With the US Women’s Soccer team winning their fourth World Cup, they’ve proven themselves to be the most successful soccer team in the US. Which is a little like being “the best funk band in Sweden”, but certainly deserves respect.
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But now, the news is full of their next story – going to court for “equal pay”. The US Men’s soccer team – which qualifies for the World Cup about as often as Swedish funk groups got on Soul Train – gets paid more, for fewer games, and enjoys much less success than the women. They enjoy other benefits – like better hotels, better facilities, better travel arrangements, and not being identifiable as “soccer players” by most Americans. The women play more, are more successful – and, some say, should be paid much better for their time.
I don’t have a problem with that, as far as it goes; also, I don’t care ,because again, it’s only soccer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Men’s World Cup soccer is, of course, the most popular athletic spectacle in the world. There’s an insane amount of money changing hands due to that Godforsaken sport.
Does anyone know if the US women generate more money than the men do? Or that women’s World Cup, worldwide, generates as much \/ more money than the men’s sport?
I’ve heard various reporters and opinion-mongers say it’s only be “Fair” for the women to get paid more – but on economic matters, most journos are…well, we’re back to “Swedish Funk Band” analogies again.
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Does anyone know how the numbers – all of ’em, not just the cherrypicked ones – break out? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s the aftermath of the Independence Day weekend. It’s July, and the Twins are seriously in contention. We shouldn’t HAVE to think about Soccer. I’d hope that we are better, as a society, than that. Our forefathers fought and died so that we’d be *free* of things like Eurovision, parliamentary government, and soccer. And this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-men-and-women","category-the-rare-sports-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71712,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71711\/revisions\/71712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}