Equal Pay

So since the US Women's soccer team has won (again) they are, well Rapinoe is, talking about equal pay for equal work. Unlike say women's tennis where the women literally play less than the men, this argument has at least the veneer of truth under it. The men play 90 minute regulation and so do the women. However; the men get paid more. Why is that?

Here's Forbes on the matter:

As Dwight Jaynes pointed out four years ago after the U.S. women beat Japan to capture the World Cup in Vancouver, there is a big difference in the revenue available to pay the teams. The Women's World Cup brought in almost $73 million, of which the players got 13%. The 2010 men's World Cup in South Africa made almost $4 billion, of which 9% went to the players.

The men still pull the World Cup money wagon. The men's World Cup in Russia generated over $6 billion in revenue, with the participating teams sharing $400 million, less than 7% of revenue. Meanwhile, the Women's World Cup is expected to earn $131 million for the full four-year cycle 2019-22 and dole out $30 million to the participating teams.

So $6 billion in revenue vs. $131 million in revenue. If the women were paid at the same percentage of revenue as men then the women's pay would decrease. I'm pretty sure they don't want that.

Why does this matter? Well, soccer is a business. A business pays it's workers what it can afford to (or in some cases, get away with). All computer programmers don't make the same money. The ones who work for financial firms who make billions are paid far more than a company that make far less.

Similarly, in the past I have had black academics say how they refused to work at HBCUs because the pay was too low and "slavery is over". Somehow they think that the average HBCU which have very very small endowments and budgets have the same ability to pay as a public state or even Ivy league institution. But back to sports.

I have a solution to this entire issue. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it but here it is: For one season only, mix the men and women. So for track, men and women compete at the same races. For tennis, the men are paired off with whomever, male or female. In soccer you either mix genders on each team OR have the women's teams compete as "duos" for each country. That is, you may get to play the men's team or the women's team. So on and so forth with the winners advancing to the finals.

What you will see is that with the possible exception of the soccer "mixed team" that all the women will be knocked out in the earlier rounds. This would end the entire "equal pay" discussion because it would be clear to the public that men and women are not equal in physical competition. And that's OK.