U.S. Soccer Is Offering The Same Contracts For Its Men's And Women's Teams

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or - how about no money can go from USSF to MLS/SUM. Just make it a basic rule.

Now - it does not resolve the past history issues but it is a good start moving forward.

Sigh … how many times do I have to point you to the high $20m annual payouts FROM SUM TO the federation before you get the point?

Your mean the payouts for rights that are worth 2-3 times that amount? You mean the ones that require sponsors to sponsor MLS, if they want to sponsor the women’s team?

[Anonymous]

Let's just all agree that Women's soccer is not as fun to watch as mens, doesn't bring in the revenue and was ruined by Rapino.

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or - how about no money can go from USSF to MLS/SUM. Just make it a basic rule.

Now - it does not resolve the past history issues but it is a good start moving forward.

Sigh … how many times do I have to point you to the high $20m annual payouts FROM SUM TO the federation before you get the point?

Your mean the payouts for rights that are worth 2-3 times that amount? You mean the ones that require sponsors to sponsor MLS, if they want to sponsor the women’s team?

Nice work moving the goalposts.

Now that the SUM arrangement is ending, we'll see how much the rights are really worth. SUM bought them when no one else wanted them. (This is all covered in my first book.)

No one "sponsors the women's team." U.S. Soccer is a federation that, like every other national soccer federation, is responsible for soccer within its own country. That means they're responsible for the women's team, the men's team, the beach soccer team, the futsal team, the disability teams, the youth national teams, coaching development, referee development, etc., etc., etc. Fortunately, their sponsors understand that no single national team operates in a vacuum, and so they sponsor the whole federation. (I could see sponsors for specific programs -- deaf soccer, grassroots grants, etc. -- but sponsoring either the women's team seems like a bad idea because it opens the possibility that someone might instead *only* sponsor the men's team, which wouldn't be good. Maybe they could line up one major sponsor for each team, but why?)

If you want to sponsor women's soccer and do so where it would actually help, I'll start spelling the proper means for doing so: N .. W ... S ...

Nor do you have to sponsor MLS to sponsor U.S. Soccer. Among the USSF sponsors who do not sponsor MLS: Chipotle, Deloitte, BioSteel, GoGoSqueeze, Anheuser Busch, Hyperice and Visa.

No mpving the goalposts. You just wanted to pretend that the USSF was not now, and has not for decades, been helping MLS/SUM by giving them sweetheart deals and then also allowing them to require national team sponsors to also sponsor MLS if they wanted to a connection to the men's or women's team See -- trying to hide the obvious only makes your argument silly. The "oh no how will we ever be able to figure out how to allocate sponsor revenue" is frankly just plain stupid. Joe's Accounting and Bookkeeping Service could tell you how. Grant Thornton could set up the financial recording system tomorrow and an office temp could run it for the USSF.

The real problem is that this creates a very big black hole for the USSF at a time when everyone is looking. There really is no good choice for the USSF , but to say, "yes we discriminated against women and girls for decades -- not in the 50s and 60s, but well into the 2010s actually. We are sorry." That is obviously an expensive statement, because moving forward does not compensate for past actions. But, it has to be made. How will has it worked out for the US Gymnastics Association to pretend that no one was molesting gymnasts? Everyone already knows it. It is a big dead elephant in a pretty small room after all. If, in the end, it blows up the USSF then it blows up the USSF. But, moving forward it will be better than to have an organization pretend it did not openly, wantonly and yes, even recently, discriminate against half of the people playing soccer in the US.

And, of course, there are other issues with the USSF that are only beginning to arise, perhaps as you would expect when apparently greed was the motivation for running things rather than fairness and even common sense. Is there a youth club in the US that thinks the USSF has not royally screwed them? That is a huge issue yet to come, and the easy way out would be to simply form a new youth organization that is non-USSF affiliated. The countdown for that happening is already underway.



Do you really want to run down the tied sponsorship list? That does not come out well for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not an easy problem. The problem is why do women earn less and generate less revenue.

It's because they're not as good at the sport. This makes them less entertaining to watch.

There is a slight twist here in the US because our women are relatively (compared to other nations) better at the sport than our men, and people like watching winners.

WNT overall compensation from USSF is higher than MNT overall compensation from USSF (not including pro contracts). The USWNT performs better than USMNT. Unclear how much revenue M and W teams generate for USSF?

More generated by men. Much more if the men's team qualifies for World Cup, and even more for reaching the playoff.

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's just all agree that Women's soccer is not as fun to watch as mens, doesn't bring in the revenue and was ruined by Rapino.

Let's not.

"Fun to watch" is subjective.

Revenue is fine. When the WNT win and the MNT doesn't qualify, the women bring in more. (And are paid more, even under the current deals.)

Rapinoe was an underrated player in the early 2010s and an overrated player from 2019 to today. Don't blame her for the sycophants who pay more attention to her than to the better players on the team. And her political comments are less stupid than many.

It is subjective. Mens soccer is more exciting. And even when them WNT qualifies, they still don't come close to the Rev numbers for mens games. Look it up.

How can people NOT pay a lot of attention to her - purple hair, ALWAYS the team spokesperson, ALWAYS in front of the camera, ALWAYS making a scene about something. You don't see Rose acting like that and she is a lot better. Rapinos political antics are right up there in the stupidity ranking. Now there, she is top dog.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men and women should play. Start with 100% and the number of goals you score over your opponent equals your % you get, the remainder other side.

Oh... sounds dumb? I thought this was about equal pay for equal work... but it's not. It's about whining and wokeness. #fail

So USWNT would get 3% and the USMNT would get 10%?

[Anonymous]

I watched a college soccer game between two top ten women’s teams the other day. It was horrible. So was the Spirit game I watched last month. If this is the best women’s product, then there is no hope unless there is some national flag behind the game. The NWSL should not be funded by anyone except investors. Not USSF, not MLS, no charity please either. It either stays afloat on its own or it doesn’t.

As far as USNT. Equal base funding and pay for all across all genders except for the actual international tourney revenue, and sponsor revenue which then goes to team that played in the tourney or got the sponsor. No cross gender revenue sharing. Let each gender stand up on its own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The USWNT said they want equal to men but no reduction.
now:
Men don’t get paid unless play
Women get fixed salary

From a neutral perspective I’d like to see equalization.
I also believe the fixed $ is a good benefit to women who have fewer and lower paying pro league options than men. For player selection I prefer the men system which is pay to play and if that were in place Rapinoe would have been cut a while ago. Morgan would
Not have been paid during her pregnancy and time off.

This is more complicated than it seems and. It served well by USWNT antagonism.

It seems that the women took the guaranteed annual contract money(and other benefits-401k, health insurance, etc). After they won it all, they want to be paid like the men. The men’s contract is high risky. No one really wants that contact unless you think you will win in all and be on the every game day roster.

They weren’t offered the same lucrative contract as the men. The high risk option for them still would have paid substantially less.

[Anonymous]

Women don’t deserve the same pay as men just as men don’t deserve the same pay as women. We have equal rights, not equal outcomes. Whoever holds the leverage and power gets paid the most. Always has been that way, always will. Alex Morgan is attractive and scored a lot of goals. That’s her leverage. So she earns more overall than most women players. I doubt she’d be willing to take a pay cut or share her sponsor dollars so that her fellow women players could make more. Pulisic is a better player and plays for a top EPL club so he earns more than other US men. Same deal there. What’s so hard to understand? Life is not fair and we were not meant to all be paid the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The USWNT said they want equal to men but no reduction.
now:
Men don’t get paid unless play
Women get fixed salary

From a neutral perspective I’d like to see equalization.
I also believe the fixed $ is a good benefit to women who have fewer and lower paying pro league options than men. For player selection I prefer the men system which is pay to play and if that were in place Rapinoe would have been cut a while ago. Morgan would
Not have been paid during her pregnancy and time off.

This is more complicated than it seems and. It served well by USWNT antagonism.

It seems that the women took the guaranteed annual contract money(and other benefits-401k, health insurance, etc). After they won it all, they want to be paid like the men. The men’s contract is high risky. No one really wants that contact unless you think you will win in all and be on the every game day roster.

They weren’t offered the same lucrative contract as the men. The high risk option for them still would have paid substantially less.

Well the purse for the last MWC was $400 million vs $30 million for the WWC. Are you saying the WNBA players should get the same compensation as the NBA players? The women signed the contract because the were looking for equitable paid. The women wanted guaranteed money. Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan would not have been paid during their pregnancy. Julie Ertz Would not have been paid while recovering from her injuries. Why because with the men’s contract you have to be on the game day roster to get paid.

Also remember the WWC is much less competitive vs the MWC. Each cycle there are only about 1-2 women’s teams realistically that have a chance to win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women don’t deserve the same pay as men just as men don’t deserve the same pay as women. We have equal rights, not equal outcomes. Whoever holds the leverage and power gets paid the most. Always has been that way, always will. Alex Morgan is attractive and scored a lot of goals. That’s her leverage. So she earns more overall than most women players. I doubt she’d be willing to take a pay cut or share her sponsor dollars so that her fellow women players could make more. Pulisic is a better player and plays for a top EPL club so he earns more than other US men. Same deal there. What’s so hard to understand? Life is not fair and we were not meant to all be paid the same.

The argument for equal pay are not really given in good faith. It goes like this. The women had more revenues vs the men. Yes 2% when the men did not make the World Cup and the women won it all. The women’s contract gave an annual salary with healthcare and 401k based on being selected to the USWNT roster. The men only get paid if they are on the game day roster. Now the women want to be paid based on what the men would have won if the men had won the WC? No that is a different tournament under a different contract.

Maybe the USWNT should try to qualify for the men’s World Cup? See if they can preform better vs the men with the men’s contract.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I watched a college soccer game between two top ten women’s teams the other day. It was horrible. So was the Spirit game I watched last month. If this is the best women’s product, then there is no hope unless there is some national flag behind the game. The NWSL should not be funded by anyone except investors. Not USSF, not MLS, no charity please either. It either stays afloat on its own or it doesn’t.

As far as USNT. Equal base funding and pay for all across all genders except for the actual international tourney revenue, and sponsor revenue which then goes to team that played in the tourney or got the sponsor. No cross gender revenue sharing. Let each gender stand up on its own.

I agree. Womens college soccer is just a way to support Title 9. The play is really bad. Most of the goals are lucky. I'm glad there is a way for girls to stay fit and receive money for college but it's honestly not great soccer. College soccer coaches make less than 100K /year - most of them. Pro players make 14-35K a year. Seriously what is the point? Yeah - go pro - work at Starbucks to pay rent. No.. go to college on a scholarship - and get a fabulous degree and an even more fabulous non-soccer job.

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or - how about no money can go from USSF to MLS/SUM. Just make it a basic rule.

Now - it does not resolve the past history issues but it is a good start moving forward.

Sigh … how many times do I have to point you to the high $20m annual payouts FROM SUM TO the federation before you get the point?

Your mean the payouts for rights that are worth 2-3 times that amount? You mean the ones that require sponsors to sponsor MLS, if they want to sponsor the women’s team?

Nice work moving the goalposts.

Now that the SUM arrangement is ending, we'll see how much the rights are really worth. SUM bought them when no one else wanted them. (This is all covered in my first book.)

No one "sponsors the women's team." U.S. Soccer is a federation that, like every other national soccer federation, is responsible for soccer within its own country. That means they're responsible for the women's team, the men's team, the beach soccer team, the futsal team, the disability teams, the youth national teams, coaching development, referee development, etc., etc., etc. Fortunately, their sponsors understand that no single national team operates in a vacuum, and so they sponsor the whole federation. (I could see sponsors for specific programs -- deaf soccer, grassroots grants, etc. -- but sponsoring either the women's team seems like a bad idea because it opens the possibility that someone might instead *only* sponsor the men's team, which wouldn't be good. Maybe they could line up one major sponsor for each team, but why?)

If you want to sponsor women's soccer and do so where it would actually help, I'll start spelling the proper means for doing so: N .. W ... S ...

Nor do you have to sponsor MLS to sponsor U.S. Soccer. Among the USSF sponsors who do not sponsor MLS: Chipotle, Deloitte, BioSteel, GoGoSqueeze, Anheuser Busch, Hyperice and Visa.

No mpving the goalposts. You just wanted to pretend that the USSF was not now, and has not for decades, been helping MLS/SUM by giving them sweetheart deals and then also allowing them to require national team sponsors to also sponsor MLS if they wanted to a connection to the men's or women's team See -- trying to hide the obvious only makes your argument silly. The "oh no how will we ever be able to figure out how to allocate sponsor revenue" is frankly just plain stupid. Joe's Accounting and Bookkeeping Service could tell you how. Grant Thornton could set up the financial recording system tomorrow and an office temp could run it for the USSF.

The real problem is that this creates a very big black hole for the USSF at a time when everyone is looking. There really is no good choice for the USSF , but to say, "yes we discriminated against women and girls for decades -- not in the 50s and 60s, but well into the 2010s actually. We are sorry." That is obviously an expensive statement, because moving forward does not compensate for past actions. But, it has to be made. How will has it worked out for the US Gymnastics Association to pretend that no one was molesting gymnasts? Everyone already knows it. It is a big dead elephant in a pretty small room after all. If, in the end, it blows up the USSF then it blows up the USSF. But, moving forward it will be better than to have an organization pretend it did not openly, wantonly and yes, even recently, discriminate against half of the people playing soccer in the US.

And, of course, there are other issues with the USSF that are only beginning to arise, perhaps as you would expect when apparently greed was the motivation for running things rather than fairness and even common sense. Is there a youth club in the US that thinks the USSF has not royally screwed them? That is a huge issue yet to come, and the easy way out would be to simply form a new youth organization that is non-USSF affiliated. The countdown for that happening is already underway.



Do you really want to run down the tied sponsorship list? That does not come out well for you.

I have covered women's soccer for a couple of decades and delved deep into USSF finances for several years, checking documents back to 2001.

You, on the other hand, have a bunch of conjecture and attempts at guilt by association. (USA Gymnastics? Really? I've written stories on SafeSport as well, you know. You can Google it.)

Is SUM's deal a sweetheart deal? In a sense, yes. Again, SUM bought in when no one else was interested, and bundling World Cup rights with MLS rights made sense. (Now, of course, MLS has broadcast partners who aren't World Cup broadcasters.) If you're old enough to remember where soccer stood in 2001 (or, worse, 1985), you get it. That deal has been renewed several times since then -- in unanimous board votes, including votes by the representatives of the youth and adult associations.

Now, USSF believes it no longer needs such a deal. You could argue they could've taken off the training wheels a few years ago, and that's a perfectly valid opinion. But the QAnon/flat earther stuff falls apart under the slightest scrutiny, let alone the research I've done over the years. (For example, you've seen the list of sponsors that sponsor either USSF or MLS but not both. Actually, USSF sponsors have more directly been sponsoring the NWSL because USSF ran the NWSL at its inception and continues to subsidize the league and pay its national team players' club salaries in addition to the $100k for national team salaries, though I'd again argue that any company specifically interested in women's soccer should sponsor a damn NWSL club or the league itself. They won't, because they prefer the glitz of Megan Rapinoe to the hard work of giving the 25th- through 50th-best women's players a place to play.

You obviously were unqualified to cover any soccer at all if you think Rapinoe brought glitz. Good grief.
National teams need non parent recruiters. National teams need real scouts - not recs from club coaches. The path to success is rarely paved with nepotism when a skill is required.

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or - how about no money can go from USSF to MLS/SUM. Just make it a basic rule.

Now - it does not resolve the past history issues but it is a good start moving forward.

Sigh … how many times do I have to point you to the high $20m annual payouts FROM SUM TO the federation before you get the point?

Your mean the payouts for rights that are worth 2-3 times that amount? You mean the ones that require sponsors to sponsor MLS, if they want to sponsor the women’s team?

I go back pretty far. With a daughter who played at a decently high youth level it became a "hobby" of mine. I find that attorneys get particular "hobby" issues and with an athlete daughter Title IX and Women's Soccer were a couple of mine. So -- I had a minor role in my kid's then club's efforts in being named one of the initial Development Academy clubs. They were a strong girls club, but not as strong on the boys side. I was involved in assisting with the application process, and, of course, the USSF lied about the program. Obviously we did not know it at the time. Initially the USSF announced that the DA would by "boys only" but just for the first year. Get things going kind of thing. Then year two came and went. Then year three and the -- "we don't need to do anything for women's soccer" statements begin to come out. Mind you -- this was no help to anyone actually involved in youth soccer, because every non-MLS club had a girls side to their program. So now, they had the "best" boys program with coaching development and guidance from USSF and millions of dollars in support -- and free club fees for kids being big -- and the girls? Nothing. Was this in 1965? Nope. It was 2007.

The club owners started the ECNL to provide a similar league and support system for girls -- but of course this was not free as the USSF wanted no part. They were girls after all so the USSF did not care. Rather, it was perfectly fine to discriminate against girls. Support women's soccer? The US team does okay. No one cares. (How did that work out last Olympics? Walked away with the gold again I assume right?)

What the DA proved to everyone in youth soccer is that the USSF does not give a crap about youth soccer, women or girls. It cared about helping MLS. That's it. Everyone else could xxxx off. For 12 years the USSF funded the boys only DA program to the tune of about $3M a year. And, people complain about putting money into the NWSL now? There is still a long way to go to make up.

As for the national teams -- a freshman business major could handle them better. Yes, of course, everything was turned over to SUM/MLS (and not very well managed at that) so that money could be pushed into MLS off the USSF books. Don't you find it odd that SUM has sponsors that are not USSF or MLS national team sponsors? SUM? Why would that be do you think?

Here's a thought. Do the exact SUM deal with the women's side. They can pay the same percentage SUM paid to USSF in exchange for getting all media and sponsorship rights to the national teams for the next 20 years. That would even the score don't you think?
























Nice work moving the goalposts.

Now that the SUM arrangement is ending, we'll see how much the rights are really worth. SUM bought them when no one else wanted them. (This is all covered in my first book.)

No one "sponsors the women's team." U.S. Soccer is a federation that, like every other national soccer federation, is responsible for soccer within its own country. That means they're responsible for the women's team, the men's team, the beach soccer team, the futsal team, the disability teams, the youth national teams, coaching development, referee development, etc., etc., etc. Fortunately, their sponsors understand that no single national team operates in a vacuum, and so they sponsor the whole federation. (I could see sponsors for specific programs -- deaf soccer, grassroots grants, etc. -- but sponsoring either the women's team seems like a bad idea because it opens the possibility that someone might instead *only* sponsor the men's team, which wouldn't be good. Maybe they could line up one major sponsor for each team, but why?)

If you want to sponsor women's soccer and do so where it would actually help, I'll start spelling the proper means for doing so: N .. W ... S ...

Nor do you have to sponsor MLS to sponsor U.S. Soccer. Among the USSF sponsors who do not sponsor MLS: Chipotle, Deloitte, BioSteel, GoGoSqueeze, Anheuser Busch, Hyperice and Visa.

No mpving the goalposts. You just wanted to pretend that the USSF was not now, and has not for decades, been helping MLS/SUM by giving them sweetheart deals and then also allowing them to require national team sponsors to also sponsor MLS if they wanted to a connection to the men's or women's team See -- trying to hide the obvious only makes your argument silly. The "oh no how will we ever be able to figure out how to allocate sponsor revenue" is frankly just plain stupid. Joe's Accounting and Bookkeeping Service could tell you how. Grant Thornton could set up the financial recording system tomorrow and an office temp could run it for the USSF.

The real problem is that this creates a very big black hole for the USSF at a time when everyone is looking. There really is no good choice for the USSF , but to say, "yes we discriminated against women and girls for decades -- not in the 50s and 60s, but well into the 2010s actually. We are sorry." That is obviously an expensive statement, because moving forward does not compensate for past actions. But, it has to be made. How will has it worked out for the US Gymnastics Association to pretend that no one was molesting gymnasts? Everyone already knows it. It is a big dead elephant in a pretty small room after all. If, in the end, it blows up the USSF then it blows up the USSF. But, moving forward it will be better than to have an organization pretend it did not openly, wantonly and yes, even recently, discriminate against half of the people playing soccer in the US.

And, of course, there are other issues with the USSF that are only beginning to arise, perhaps as you would expect when apparently greed was the motivation for running things rather than fairness and even common sense. Is there a youth club in the US that thinks the USSF has not royally screwed them? That is a huge issue yet to come, and the easy way out would be to simply form a new youth organization that is non-USSF affiliated. The countdown for that happening is already underway.



Do you really want to run down the tied sponsorship list? That does not come out well for you.

I have covered women's soccer for a couple of decades and delved deep into USSF finances for several years, checking documents back to 2001.

You, on the other hand, have a bunch of conjecture and attempts at guilt by association. (USA Gymnastics? Really? I've written stories on SafeSport as well, you know. You can Google it.)

Is SUM's deal a sweetheart deal? In a sense, yes. Again, SUM bought in when no one else was interested, and bundling World Cup rights with MLS rights made sense. (Now, of course, MLS has broadcast partners who aren't World Cup broadcasters.) If you're old enough to remember where soccer stood in 2001 (or, worse, 1985), you get it. That deal has been renewed several times since then -- in unanimous board votes, including votes by the representatives of the youth and adult associations.

Now, USSF believes it no longer needs such a deal. You could argue they could've taken off the training wheels a few years ago, and that's a perfectly valid opinion. But the QAnon/flat earther stuff falls apart under the slightest scrutiny, let alone the research I've done over the years. (For example, you've seen the list of sponsors that sponsor either USSF or MLS but not both. Actually, USSF sponsors have more directly been sponsoring the NWSL because USSF ran the NWSL at its inception and continues to subsidize the league and pay its national team players' club salaries in addition to the $100k for national team salaries, though I'd again argue that any company specifically interested in women's soccer should sponsor a damn NWSL club or the league itself. They won't, because they prefer the glitz of Megan Rapinoe to the hard work of giving the 25th- through 50th-best women's players a place to play.

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:


Is SUM's deal a sweetheart deal? In a sense, yes. Again, SUM bought in when no one else was interested, and bundling World Cup rights with MLS rights made sense. (Now, of course, MLS has broadcast partners who aren't World Cup broadcasters.)

It's like how CBS-SEC. They pay $50 million a year, less for the SEC game of the week and championship game than the SEC could get for just the championship game now.