U.S. World Cup Win Sparks Sales, TV Ratings. Is Equal Pay Next?

(Bloomberg) -- As the U.S. women’s soccer team prepared for the World Cup trophy presentation after the final Sunday, fans in the stadium chanted for something more meaningful. “Equal pay! Equal pay!” they yelled.

The team’s dominance in France intensified the pressure on U.S. Soccer, which is defending itself against charges of pay discrimination. It’s long argued that the U.S. Men’s National Team earns more than the women’s team does because the men generate more revenue, but this World Cup cycle has made that position more difficult.

The final, a 2-0 win against the Netherlands, drew 14.3 million viewers on Fox, the most-watched English-language soccer game in the U.S. since the women beat Japan to win the 2015 World Cup. The U.S. men’s team hasn’t played a game for as wide a television audience since 2014.

Meanwhile, the U.S. men failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, decimating American interest in the tournament. The audience for the women’s championship Sunday on Fox was 22% higher than it was for the men’s World Cup final last year, the network said.

Merchandise sales have also soared. Two weeks before the end of the World Cup, Nike Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Parker said the U.S. women’s jersey had broken records for a soccer uniform on Nike.com. At Fanatics, the world’s largest seller of sports merchandise, the women’s team has shattered its own benchmarks from four years ago.

The record-setting response “has been amazing,” Fanatics executive Jack Boyle said.“This team has already sold more merchandise than the 2015 champions sold in the entire month after their title.”

The women’s games also earn roughly the same as the men’s games -- a balance that could skew even further following the added buzz of another World Cup title. From 2016-18, the women’s games brought in $50.8 million versus $49.9 million for the men, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing financial statements. In 2016, a year after their last World Cup championship, women’s games generated $1.9 million more than the men.

The success in France “can only help with their bargaining power,” according to Neena Chaudhry, general counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. “When you have members of Congress writing letters to the federation, when you have people chanting in the streets, it definitely becomes part of the conversation and it can’t be ignored in the litigation.”

But about half of U.S. Soccer’s revenue comes from sponsorships and media rights, which often encompass both the men’s and women’s teams. Fox, ESPN and Spanish-language carrier Univision all have deals that include the men and the women. Same with U.S. Soccer’s Nike deal, which pays the federation over $20 million per year.

During the tournament, the players and U.S. Soccer agreed to settle their dispute through mediation. The governing body didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the players have been as vocal as their fans. Shortly after the win, a spokeswoman for the team on their lawsuit released a strongly worded statement demanding change.

“These athletes generate more revenue and garner higher TV ratings but get paid less simply because they are women,” the statement said. “It is time for the federation to correct this disparity once and for all.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net;Rebecca Greenfield in New York at rgreenfield@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Janet Paskin at jpaskin@bloomberg.net;Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net

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