The Issue of Equal Pay for the U.S. Women's Soccer Team

CNN has a special tonight at 9:00 P.M. Eastern time on women's soccer. Apparently the special raises questions about equal pay between the women's and men's US soccer teams.

Please take this with a grain of salt. The facts are that the union representing the women's soccer team negotiated the current contract under which the women's players have been working. The women negotiated a different sort of pay system, based on security rather than based on results. To now complain of unequal pay is legally indefensible, which is why the women's union has lost in the courts.

Unlike the men, the women are on full-time salaries; they get paid the same regardless of results, regardless of whether they play or not, and regardless of whether they even make the team. They also have very generous fringe benefits, such as a year's maternity leave at full pay.

Equal pay for equal work is an important issue in this country. Frivolous lawsuits like this debase the equal rights movement.

I have noticed recently that CNN and other networks typically create controversy where none exits. Apparently controversy attracts more viewers than simply reporting the news in a straightfoward manner. An example is the continual bashing of Joe Biden over the Afghanistan pullout. The fact is that the Biden administration reached out privately 19 times to Americans living in Afghanistan, urging them to get out of the country and offering financial assistance to help them do so. But does this get reported? Of course not. All we heare is who Biden left Americans "stranded" in the country.

And just the other day CNN's Wolf Blitzer repeatedly suggested that New York officials did not adequately plan for the huge, record-setting rainfall and resulting flooding. Hey Wolf, shape up or find another line of work!

And now this ridiculous "special", again stirring up controversy where none exists. Shameful!

Next day update. The CNN "special" last night was worse that I had feared. Quite simply, it was one of the most biased and one-sided examples of journlaism I've ever seen.

There was repeated harping about "equal pay", implying that women were not getting paid as much as men. This is totally false. The opinion of the District Court Judge, in granting summary judgment to the U.S. Soccer Federation, pointed out that in the 2015-2019 period at issue, the women received $220,747 per game, compared to $212,639 per game for the men. The fact that the women chose to divvy up the pot differently than the men is on the women, not the USSF. And the CNN program failed to mention this, choosing instead to fan the flames of controversy.