by sussexpob » Wed May 13, 2020 11:12 am
And without wanting to sound like a horrible gammon, I do get tired of people continually moaning about these things like they are a victim, when in reality they really should look at the opportunities they have been given and appreciate that someone else is footing the bill for it, and the reality is they should be extremely grateful. I have no problem with sports clubs having an inbalance in funding or profits to promote womens sport, I think its great, but we never celebrate it at all. The immense generosity is instead sold as some horrendous system of oppression against women, which seems pretty baseless.
To illustrate it, lets look at USA womens top paid and marketed player, Alex Morgan. She gained a scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley to play soccer. The Cali Golden Bears are one of the worlds most staggering examples of sporting success, arguably the greatest American sportsman ever, Aaron Rodgers, also went there. They have produced 207 Olympic Gold medals. Hosts of NFL and NBA pro bowlers and a handful destined for the hall of fame shortly. A factory of talent. Using their latest sporting accounts, they made 96 million in revenue last year. American University sport is crazy big, someone like Ann Arbor Michigan can sell 115,000 tickets for one college football game. The NCAA rights are huge money spinners; the key is, they are also not allowed to be profit orientated, meaning every penny is given back to those teams and to support the students involved.
Out of that 96 million revenue, womens sport as a total is not broken down because it represents only 2 percent of revenue as a whole. Out of the 1.5 million revenue, most of it is charity donations from previous alumni that attended the college, to the tune of nearly 2/3rds total. 117k on ticket sales for all sports combined, 5k sponsorships, zero money generated from media rights....the rest is payments made from other assets the male teams own that gets filtered down. So in short, the teams generate about 125k themselves.
Then we come to costs......
Scholarships for womens sport....6 million dollars
Coach salaries.... 4.5 million
Travel, equipment, other related match day costs....4 million
Total around 16 million costs
Ironically to sell 117k tickets for womens sport, they spend 111K on marketing and promotion
The united facility costs are absorbed by the male NFL team.. they are nearly 20 million a year in costs.
So in general, to replicate those world class facilities, coaching, medical and technical support and to pay for scholarships, it requires around 36 million dollars off a revenue of 1.5 million, of which only 125k is not charity donations.
So next time Alex Morgan makes a few million on marketing her face for FIFA 21s cover and has an inclination to moan about how much she earns, she might to well to reflect on the fact that all her sporting opportunity was given to her on the back of the revenue her American male NFL team made and was donated to her far past the basis of proportionality . And also worth remembering that those guys in that team also dont get paid a wage, and many retire with lasting physical injuries or suffer horrendous concussions. And only a fraction will make it pro, and even then probably as undrafted free agents on a league minimum, non guaranteed wage structure.
Money talks in sports, and if Universities in Europe were making 34.5 million losses on womens sport to fund one varsity sports programme, they too would be dominating the sport. The program these ladies have access to is the reason for their success, and the reason they can earn way above the average wage and become icons. If we had equality, theyd be relegated to playing on astroturf pitches at power league, and playing in hand me down kits.... let alone travelling to ply other teams or having coaches or scholarships.
2010 French Open fantasy league guru 2010 Wimbledon fantasy league guru 2014 Masters golf fantasy guru 2015 Players Championship FL Guru 2016 Masters Golf Fantasy Guru
And a hat and bra to you too, my good sirs!