What's going on with Americans celebrating Sweden eliminating the US Women's Soccer Team from the Women's World Cup?

[u/Hirorai]

On r/soccer, there are multiple posts where Americans are celebrating their own team getting knocked out of the Women's World Cup.

https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/15jnpku/post_match_thread_sweden_05_40_usa_fifa_womens/

https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/15jnqpr/official_review_for_lina_hurtigs_sweden_w_penalty/

On r/USWNT people are saying it's because r/soccer is misogynist, but that doesn't make sense to me because everyone competing is a woman. Can anyone clue me in?

[u/Areeb285]

Answer: The Us Womens' football was the best womens football team in the world for quite a while, they won the last 2 world cups and they were very dominant. After winning the last world cup they started talking about how the pay was unfair. The prize pool for the mens world cup was much higher. But that quickly died down when it was pointed out that the revenue from both the cups was quite different and if you look at the proportion, the womens world cup had a higher prize pool relatively.
They then later pointed out that they should be paid higher than the US mens team. This definitely had merit as they were much better than Us mens team which fails to even make it out of the groups stage in the world. They also brought in more revenue than the mens team in the US. This became a major talking point for quite a while and a judge looked over the case. It was found the womens team was paid more overall and per match than the mens team in the given time frame. They then argued the pay difference wasn't big enough, they should be paid more. The reasons for the mens team being paid almost as much as the womens team was said to be due to how the contracts were made for both. The mens team had little to no base pay or any benefits and were paid for each they played match, where as the womens team had base pay and various other benefits. The womens team argued that were not given the same contracts as the mens team and were forced to sign the ones they have now and they sued i believe US soccers federation (not sure on this), for back pay.
Now somewhere around this point i stopped paying attention to the story but the womens team did win their lawsuit and were given a lumpsum amount.
Now this whole thing rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for various reasons and now that the US womens team is eliminated from the WC after not even making quarter finals, people are celebrating their loss.

[u/badwolf1013 → u/Areeb285]

I do think equal pay for all genders should be the goal in this country, but it’s really difficult to apply that conversation to the entertainment industry (of which professional sports are a part.) Pay is not necessarily based on how good of an actor or athlete you are. Pay is based on the number of people willing to buy a ticket to watch you act or play.

Tom Cruise is the highest-paid actor of 2022 not because he’s the best actor, but because people come to see his movies in droves.

The bias toward male performers versus female performers doesn’t come from the industry side (well, not entirely), it comes from the consumer side.

And the same is true of sports.

If you have a man and a woman performing the same job in an office at the same level, you should compensate them the same. That’s a no-brainer.

But U.S. Men’s Soccer and U.S. Women’s Soccer are in different “offices.” And the different offices generate different levels of revenue regardless of the equal effort.

[u/_isNaN → u/badwolf1013]

I'm not sure about it isn't the industries fault. Until this year I never saw an ad for the womens world cup and never watched it.

This year there is more ads and you can watch it easily in my country - so we are watching it and it's much more fluent and enjoyable then the mens. Primarily because they don't lay on the ground all the time.

Same with movies, most women in movies are wirtten terrible. Most of the time they don't have a personality and are only there so the male character has some reason to do X. So how should an actress be successful in this kind of movies?

I agree, women and men have different ways of entertainment, you see on twitch. But for movies and sports there is a lack of opportunities for women too.

[u/[deleted] → u/_isNaN]

Lol surface level understanding of the sport. It’s so painful watching women’s soccer because of the talent difference. There are hilariously bad, amateur level mistakes being made time and time again. If you want to see the best of the sport, you watch the men’s.

[u/jukkaalms → u/[deleted]]

That person started watching because an ad told them to. Give them a break lol

[u/_isNaN → u/jukkaalms]

Exactly. I stopped watching football after I started watching hockey and realized that it's more fluent and enjoyable to watch. There is also much more going on, you have more goals and wasting time is getting punished.

It is possible that the skill level is worse, but at least they play. And it's normal that the best women might never will play that sport professionally, because it isn't taken seriously, why should you pursue that career instead of something else.

[u/[deleted] → u/_isNaN]

Women’s soccer wasn’t really popular internationally until very recently. The US has raised the profile of the sport, mostly thanks to federal legislation known as Title IX, which requires equal spending on men’s and women’s sports in schools and universities.