The U.S. Soccer Federation released numbers on Monday showing it actually paid the U.S. Women’s National Team more overall from 2010-2018 than the U.S. Men’s National Team. That’s great and all, but the worst offender in the equal pay for equal play debate has always been FIFA, not U.S. Soccer.
FIFA awarded $30 million total at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, compared to the $400 million awarded at the 2018 men’s World Cup. In fairness, the men’s World Cup earns more revenue. But partially that’s because FIFA hasn’t tried particularly hard to make more money at the Women’s World Cup.
After leaving money on the table in France, though, FIFA has apparently realized women’s soccer is worth the investment. With the success of the 2019 edition, the organization says in a document obtained by the Associated Press on Friday that the Women’s World Cup “has the possibility to shift from being subsidized by men’s football to becoming a sustainable revenue stream.” For example, FIFA wants the Women’s World Cup to have dedicated sponsors instead of bundling sponsorship deals together for the men’s and women’s competition.
That’s progress, but FIFA should also learn from its mistakes in France to make more money (and then share the riches with the players, naturally).
Tickets for the World Cup in France were absurdly cheap. When ticketing opened, FIFA charged just $55 total for the cheapest tickets to the three-match “champions package,” which included the semifinals and the final in Lyon. That came out to less than $20 per match. Just before those matches, tickets were sold on the secondhand market for hundreds of dollars, showing their true value. Single-game tickets to the quarterfinal in Paris between the U.S. and France were similarly cheap from FIFA, but in the days before the match, they were sold on the secondhand market for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.
FIFA also could have planned ahead and put the tournament’s higher-profile matches in bigger stadiums. The Parc des Princes in Paris (capacity 45,600) hosted the France-South Korea tournament opener and the U.S.-France quarterfinal. The U.S.-Netherlands tournament final was at the Stade de Lyon (capacity 57,900). All those matches could have been held at the Stade de France in Paris, which can hold more than 80,000 spectators.
Higher attendance and ticket prices can be achieved even if FIFA doesn’t fix its other problem: lackluster promotion.
Walking around Paris during the tournament, you’d have hardly known the World Cup was going on unless you bumped into the FIFA Fan Zone or came within a couple blocks of the Parc des Princes. As Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl said on the first day of the tournament, “There’s more visible promotion of the tournament right now in New York City than there is in Paris.” The same was true in Lyon, except for some stickers on their subway trains. And if you wandered outside the host cities, there was no sign of the World Cup at all. Plus, aside from uninspired merchandise on sale at stadiums, official merchandise was hard or impossible to find around the host cities.
Still possible that a France victory tonight could get the country more excited about the World Cup, but there’s more visible promotion of the tournament right now in New York City than there is in Paris. https://t.co/IWdZl39PIa
— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) June 7, 2019
FIFA President Gianni Infantino also proposed expanding the Women’s World Cup from 24 teams to 32 (the same number of teams the men’s World Cup had since the 1998 World Cup through the 2022 World Cup). That would mean more money, but a less interesting competition — it will only lead to more slaughters like the 13-0 U.S. victory over Thailand.
Infantino’s other proposal, doubling the women’s tournament’s prize money to $60 million, is spot on. If FIFA will just give the Women’s World Cup the promotion, venues, ticket prices, and respect it deserves, they’ll easily make the revenue necessary to give female soccer players a better payday.
