The USA women’s soccer team opened play in the Women’s World Cup on Tuesday with a decisive victory over Thailand, 13-0. Their actions in that dominating win and prior to the game have fueled the controversy that has surrounded the team for the last several months. This comes at a time when they are the favorites to defend their World Cup championship that should be galvanizing interest not only in the team but also in women’s soccer in general. Instead, their actions and statements are turning many away from watching them.
The longest running gripe the women have had is the inequality of pay between the USA men’s team and the women. The women point out that they not only have won the World Cup but they are a dominant team in the sport, something the men have not achieved. While correct in that statement their statement smacks of a victim mentality and a serious lack of understanding of economics.
USA Soccer and FIFA, the governing bodies for men’s and women’s soccer, get most of their revenue from sponsorships aka advertising. During the last World Cup cycle, the women earned revenue of about $73 million while the men earned $4 billion in ad revenue. The prize money was $30 million and $440 million respectively. The women were actually paid a higher percentage of the revenue pool than the men. This holds true for USA Soccer as well.
The men have been competing for a World Cup since 1930 while the first women’s competition was held in 1991. That means there have been several generations of fans brought up watching men’s soccer while the women have only had at most 2 generations to build a fan base. When you can reach a billion people as compared to about 50 million, advertisers will spend much more money on your sport. Simple economics.
The second controversy had a few of the players refusing to sing or recognize the national anthem. Their protest was against Donald Trump who they believe to be the most misogynistic man in the history of all time. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant; they are throwing away all the good that this country represents to point out their disagreement with one person. They are forgetting that this country has moved forward with promoting women’s issues and sports faster than any other country. People don’t mind politics being mixed with their sports if proper respect is shown for the good as well as the bad.
Lastly, the women were absolutely classless in their win over Thailand on Thursday. Worst yet, they did not acknowledge that fact by showing remorse, but they doubled down by calling male detractors misogynists. Typical behavior for today’s victim mentality.
The women trounced Thailand 13-0. To put it in perspective, that would be like an NFL team winning 90-0. No one has a problem with the final score. Total goals scored in group play is a tie breaker so getting as many goals as you can is important, especially since 2 teams in the USA women’s group are likely to run up the score on Thailand just like the USA.
The problem with the women lies in their over the top celebration of each score. If you did not know it was the opening round and only watched the women celebrating each goal, you could have easily thought they were winning the final game of the tournament and getting ready to hoist the championship trophy. From a group of liberals who have complained about the ‘ugly American’ and how America is hated around the world, it’s ironic to see behavior that reinforces the stereotype.
By contrast, Germany was on its way to an 8-0 win. After the 3rd goal the ladies did not celebrate each subsequent goal. The gave each other a brief high five or quick pat on the back and immediately ran back to get in place for the start of play. They did not do anything to humiliate their opponents, who were clearly inferior. That’s the way we were taught to act when I was young and participating in sports; play hard, do everything you can to win, but respect your opponents and the game.
I won’t watch the World Cup this year as I have in the past, rooting for my country’s team, not because I think their opinions about our President are ill informed but because they represent two things that I think are wrong with the youth in America; they embrace the victim mentality rather than seeing the underlying reasons and understanding they have the control to redress perceived wrongs and make things better for themselves and future soccer players; secondly, the hypocrisy they exhibit between their words which denigrate this great nation and their actions which support those who call us arrogant or ugly; then they throw the bigotry card at their critics.