The US Women's Soccer Team Is Actually Paid More Than the Men

I know we live in an era when everyone wants to be a victim and facts don't matter, but notwithstanding this sad trend I continue to fight the good fight and bring you facts instead of feelings.

And the facts on this soccer pay dispute are pretty staggering.

You'll recall that the US women have claimed they are underpaid and they've actually sued to try and get equal pay with the men.

Most of the mainstream media has leapt on this argument, embracing the idea that the US women are horrible victims of a sexist and misogynistic sporting culture. The US women have also fed this narrative by constantly arguing they deserve equal pay to the men.

Only, plot twist, it turns out that far from being underpaid, the US women are actually paid MORE than the US men's soccer team. That's according to the financially audited details of the past decade Tweeted out by the president of the US Soccer Federation, Carlos Cordeiro.

In particular, the US women received $34.1 million compared to the $26.4 million in pay received by the US men over the past decade. This mean's women received 56.4% of all pay, compared to the men receiving 43.6% of the money. (This also doesn't count all the employment benefits like health insurance, sick leave, and the ability to have 401ks that the women negotiated to receive that the men don't receive at all. Both the men and women collectively bargained for their salaries.)

As if that weren't enough the US men produced $185.7 million in total revenue over the past decade compared to the US women producing $101.3 million in total revenue. (While the women played a few more games, the men produced an average of $972k per game while the women produced an average of $425k per game.)

This means the men's soccer team produced 64.7% of the revenue, compared to the women producing 35.3% of the revenue.

This also means the men produced nearly two-thirds of the revenue and received just 43.6% of the overall revenue.

Talk about unfair.

It gets even wilder from here -- the US women actually lost $27.5 million over the past decade on their games, while the men made money.

Good lord, the men are getting screwed here. They are insanely underpaid. Equal pay for equal work? Hardly, the US men are subsidizing the US women here. They are producing the vast majority of the revenue and actually getting less than the women despite producing nearly a hundred million more in revenue.

If anyone needs to be filing a lawsuit demanding equal pay for equal work, it's them.

Now these are, importantly, all the funds provided by US soccer.

The men receive more money for the World Cup, which is an international decision made by FIFA, but that decision is predicated on international revenues. The men's World Cup produced over $6 billion in revenue in 2018 while the women's World Cup produced $100 million in revenue.

Notwithstanding this 60-1 revenue difference, the women actually receive more prize distribution money than the men, receiving 20% of their overall revenue as prize money compared to the 7% received by the men.

So when you crunch all these numbers guess what happens?

The only pay gap is actually in favor of the women, the men are the ones being underpaid.

I know, I know, it's sexist of me to actually share facts that contradict a victimization narrative in 2019. How dare I?

I look forward to the vast majority of the media ignoring these facts so they can still portray the US women as victims, but I do think it's important that instead of engaging in histrionic arguments predicated on victimization ideology that we actually share the real facts in sports here at Outkick.

It turns out when you look at all the data that the men are the ones who should be suing to argue they're underpaid, not the women.