Negotiation

If women’s soccer players don’t get equal pay, they’ll quit playing.  Then people who don’t watch womens soccer won’t be able to watch womens soccer.  That will show them!!

Joe Doakes

It’s fascinating, to me, watching people who clearly have no idea how the free market works, trying to engage in the free market.

This is a battle the women should be winning – or, perhaps, already are.

I’m starting to think it’s not about money,

23 thoughts on “Negotiation

  1. I treat women’s sportsball with the same complete disregard I do men’s sportsball. There is no bias.

    Well, with the exception of women’s beach volleyball; that shit is awesome.

  2. Update.

    I read the HuffPo story and it says the women have generated more revenue and more viewers than the men. If that’s true (HuffPo doesn’t offer any proof), judging from the empty seats I saw during the women’s World Cup, I think that says more about the indifference America shows soccer in general, but again, if it’s true then yeah I think the women should be paid the same.

    I’m just happy we don’t have any pro sportsball teams down here.

  3. Given that the men’s game generates much more revenue, exact pay-parity is probably illusory. Revenue generated vs compensation earned. This is what matters here.

  4. They sign a contract to play then bitch about the compensation they got. Bores me to tears about the same as the game itself. 15 minutes have passed, now they can take their place in obscurity.

  5. Women’s sports… blah, blah, blah… geez, you could get the same quality of play by going to a jr high boys traveling team tournament. And way, way less politics.

    The trannies can’t take over women’s sports fast enough.

  6. Swiftee Pinochet: if it’s true then yeah I think the women should be paid the same.

    Don’t fall for this trap. I agree that all of this nonsense is fascinating not just because of the stupefying ignorance of economics and market leverage on display but because it is rebutted with one sentence:

    They play different teams with different players.

    If the ladies would argue that they are not properly compensated given the value they bring well then fine, as that’s typical negotiation, especially in sports. But they are arguing that their work is the SAME as men’s, therefore the pay should be the same. It is not the same, which is so obvious yet unspoken that it feels like everyone is in on a secret – like Santa Clause or something.

  7. But they are arguing that their work is the SAME as men’s, therefore the pay should be the same.

    The article says they claim their team brings in more $, puts more butts in the seats and in front of TV’s. Like I said, there’s no proof of that, but if it’s true then that makes a legit argument; Compensation = contribution.

    That being said, they couldn’t even fill a stadium for the world cup, so I’m inclined to conclude they’re lying. Maybe they meant they do better than the men when the men aren’t playing.

    As to their work product being equal to men’s, well, the woman’s team got whipped by a team of 15 year old boys in Dallas.

    https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-boys-squad-beat-the-u-s-womens-national-team-in-a-scrimmage/

    The only competitions I’m at all interested in involve burning gasoline, alcohol and nitro-methane.

  8. It’s fascinating, to me, watching people who clearly have no idea how the free market works, trying to engage in the free market.

    Reminds me of the story a few years ago of this guy who threatened to kill himself if his SSI benefits were cut.

    I’ve advised young children, and some leftists, to always negotiate from a position of strength. My money’s on the kids learning it sooner.

  9. This is going to end badly for them. It will be ashame if they do it but it will make the womens world cup vastly more competitive and open.

  10. Like every other spot, the difference in mens and womens competition post puberty is vast. I still say that the best Lynx team or a team of WNBA all-starts probably couldn’t beat the best 7th or 8th grade boys team or a bad high school team. If people ever have the nerve to say there is virtually no difference between men and women, bring up sports first. Thats where its most obvious.

  11. wow Emery made a valid, intelligent point. Im pretty sure this is a sign of the apoclypse.

  12. The article says they claim their team brings in more $, puts more butts in the seats and in front of TV’s.

    That’s irrelevant to what they are arguing, both in public and in their lawsuit, which is: they are being paid less for EQUAL work to the men’s team. They are not engaging in equal work, as evidenced by the fact they play different teams populated with different players and a different quantity of games to boot.

    You are making the typical argument of “I’m worth more [full stop]”. They are making the “I do the same thing as those guys over there” argument.

    It would be like a AAA baseball player claiming pay discrimination because the owner pays the Major League players more. Citing AAA game revenue, attendance, TV ratings etc is superfluous.

  13. It’s the HuffPo, so they’re missing some important points.

    Yes, womyn’s soccer generates better numbers in the US than does men’s.

    But it’s soccer in the US, so the numbers are literally Minor League.

    When the US manages to make the World Cup, they get a cut of global revenues, and globally men’s World Cup soccer income numbers make the US womyn’s income look like rounding error. Heck, they make less than most countries’ bureaucrats skim out of World Cup revenue! So when the US men’s team makes the World Cup, the (male) players get a share of that jackpot, while the womyn, in a different league and completely unrelated to the men’s league, get no share.

    Back out the World Cup numbers and the womyn do better, for sure. They certainly get a much bigger fraction of the (tiny) revenue they generate than do the men.

  14. One observation that is pretty interesting that displays a bunch of the differences between the sexes.

    In women’s soccer, the player’s union insisted on salaries and benefits.

    In men’s soccer, the pay is based on play time and performance and there are no benefits, and salary makes up a very small fraction of pay.

    Why, you might think there were differences in how men and women view risk and reward.

  15. Tex, I agree 100% that the women’s work product isn’t equal to the men’s (said it twice, three times now). And I’ve heard them make that claim, but now they have a new angle that would be legit, if it was true.

    Sportsball is a business. In business compensation is all about much your contribution is worth. That is to say, if more people are willing to pay to watch women engage in shitty, 2nd rate sports contests than they are to watch men do it correctly, they’re contributing more, so they deserve equal pay at the least.

    But I don’t believe that’s true. Despite the constant fawning and big time coverage of Lynx games from the MSM, no one goes to their games but lesbians and weak leftist men hoping to get it on with a lesbian. They can’t fill 1/2 the arena on their best days.

    The fact that the Lynx and US women’s soccer teams are champions just means they’re the tops among a field of crappy teams. That doesn’t earn them equal pay with the best players, who are all men.

  16. Personally, I think the salaries for sportsball players (h/t Swiftee) ought to be downgraded to account for the stadium subsidies….they’d be paying to play their childrens’ games, which is as it should be, with the possible exception of the Chicago Cubs and LA Dodgers. Those guys would get a little bit of green, maybe.

  17. It would be like a AAA baseball player claiming pay discrimination because the owner pays the Major League players more. Citing AAA game revenue, attendance, TV ratings etc is superfluous.

    Very good. Very astute.

  18. Tex and jdm, I’m missing something here.

    If a AAA team earns a club $100 per year, and the Major team earns the club $50 a year, why should the major team players make more? Maybe the fans have decided that fumbling around is more entertaining than precision play. The market drives the business.

  19. I’ll let texinole answer for himself, but those (gross? net?) profits values hide an awful lot of income and expenses behind them. I’d like a better idea of what they hide.

    And actually this was my problem with this whole topic from the git-go (see my first comment above). I don’t care about women’s sports and I don’t think anyone who pays real money for a sports as entertainment does either. And I think the HuffPo article (by that bint Jennifer Bendery) probably shows the truth of Twain’s comment about statistics. I don’t believe it or them.

    Here’s my take: if the female players feel like they are being cheated they should quit. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

    PS and yes, I agree with bikebubba, “the salaries for sportsball players ought to be downgraded to account for the stadium subsidies”.

  20. Tex and jdm, I’m missing something here.

    The key in my example is the player claiming “pay discrimination” (ie collectively discriminated against), as opposed to being plain old “underpaid” (ie individually discriminated against).

    It’s difficult to analogize this soccer situation since it’s so rare, honestly. But let’s say all the players of Team AAA claim equal pay discrimination because Team MLB players make more base salary. It’s a weak claim on it’s face because the two teams are in different leagues in the literal sense, so they are not doing equal work. But then Team AAA attempts to bolster their case by claiming:

    1) both teams play baseball with similar if not equivalent rules (true)

    2) Team AAA wins a lot while Team MLB is a cellar dweller (moot – different leagues, teams, players etc)

    3) Team AAA actually brought in slightly more revenue than Team MLB (irrelevant to discrimination, but relevant to player pay)

    Point 3, despite not proving discrimination, is the best argument for higher pay however your fears that they are lying are well placed. Keeping with the analogy, imagine Team AAA did bring in more revenue than Team MLB…in the last month of the season…because Team AAA made their shitty little playoffs while Team MLB did not.

    The ladies are a huge goldfish in a puddle while the men are emaciated sharks in the ocean. The current situation where the women win the World Cup and the men fail to qualify is unprecedented, and the men must merely qualify for ONE World Cup to out-earn the women winning 4 in-a-row, such is the disparity in earnings potential. So the whammen’s case falls apart as soon as you look at any other period of time.

  21. This is on topic, I think.
    In an Atlantic article on Podcaster Joe Rogan’s appeal to men, I found this paragraph:

    But that’s just a healthier response to the same core stimulus: a plunging sense of self-worth caused by a rapidly changing society. In 2019, men feeling thwarted and besieged is a bipartisan experience. This is the era of the Angry White Man, and it’s not just the MAGA army. It’s a description that also matches your garden-variety “Bernie bro,” the Biden guy who just wants to change the subject, and that walking man bun who charged the stage at a Kamala Harris campaign event and showed his “profound respect” for all the women present—for a conversation about equal pay—by grabbing the microphone to lecture her about animal rights. All kinds of men out there are pissed off and looking for someone to blame.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/my-joe-rogan-experience/594802/

    I don’t think that what the writer describes is real. I do not think that there is problem with “angry white men.” I do not think that “All kinds of men out there are pissed off and looking for someone to blame,” and I am dead certain I know more about what men are up to than the person who wrote the article.
    How would you describe the reaction of the women’s soccer team players to the knowledge that they make less than male soccer players? Anger maybe?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.