On Tuesday night, U.S. Women’s Soccer star Megan Rapinoe appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” to discuss her team’s World Cup win, and of course, politics. During the interview, Rapinoe actually made the same point about the so-called “gender wage gap” that has been made countless times from the Right: women are paid less than men because they generate less revenue.
Maddow highlighted that U.S. soccer fans in France chanting “equal pay” in the moments after the women’s team won another World Cup final and asked the star forward how fans can help make “equal pay” a reality.
“Fans can come to games, obviously national team games will be hot ticket, but we have nine teams in the NWSL, you can go to your league games, you can support that way, you can buy players’ jerseys, you can lend your support that way, you can tell your friends about it, you can become season ticket holders,” Rapinoe responded.
In other words, fans can help the team generate more money, thus leading to the female players being paid more.
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“I mean…um… yes that’s we’ve been saying this entire time?” responded popular conservative writer Stephen Miller via Twitter. “I mean you can go after her if you want. I kind of don’t get the frothing impassioned opposition to her. Whatever. She is literally saying the thing critics are saying. Buying merch & attending games is exactly how you solve the pay disparity. So why is everyone fighting?”
“She’s right. That’s how it works,” said “Factual Feminist” Christina Hoff Sommers.
As highlighted by The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh on Monday, the “equal pay” debate surrounding men and women’s World Cup soccer is silly. In fact, women are actually paid a higher percentage of revenue (13%) than the men (9%), meaning there’s theoretically a case that the women are overpaid.
Mike Ozania at Forbes explained:
“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.”
Aside from the silly calls for “equal pay” and her undeniably impressive play, Rapinoe has stuck out on the women’s team for her national anthem protest. According to the athlete, refusing to place her hand over her heart during “The Star Spangled Banner” is an “F you” to President Donald Trump.