INTRODUCTION
In July, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won its second consecutive World Cup and fourth overall. Since then, there have been ongoing debates about the disparity between how the men’s and women’s teams are treated (e.g. money).
The issue of increased compensation for the women’s team is a PR case study on how U.S. Women’s Soccer and the U.S. Soccer Federation have framed their arguments. Here’s our analysis:
U.S. WOMEN’S SOCCER
U.S. Women’s Soccer has focused on two main talking points:
- They do the same job as the men’s team in exchange for lower wages and inferior working conditions.
- They deserve equal pay.
Do the women have a leg to stand on? According to The New York Times, the 2018 American-less Men’s World Cup generated $6 billion in revenue, while the women’s tournament earned around $131 million. To counter this data, the women’s team received support from members of Congress, as more than 50 legislators signed a letter addressing “institutionalized gender discrimination.”
The letter itself doesn’t counter the facts; rather, it sends a powerful, emotional message that women’s skills and accomplishments are of lesser value than men’s. In the court of public opinion, emotion typically trumps logic, which is one of the reasons why U.S. Women’s Soccer has gained so much support.
That’s also why logical arguments aren’t chipping away much against the fight for equal pay. For example, the women’s team has said it does the same amount of work (e.g. practice, travel, etc.) as the men’s team. A counter-argument could be: a major Division I football head coach (e.g. Michigan) will usually make much more money than his counterpart from a mid-major program (e.g. Western Michigan). Even though they both do the same amount of work, they don’t make the same money, nor do they expect to. But once again, logic is losing out to emotion.
U.S. SOCCER FEDERATION
During and immediately after the World Cup, there were cries of “equal pay” from fans and players. When the USSF President Carlos Cordeiro spoke at the parade, he responded well to the chants by saying he believed by working together they could achieve “equal pay.”
In late July, Cordeiro wrote an open letter with a fact sheet outlining the economics of the men’s and women’s programs. It explained the women’s team ($34.1 million) was paid more overall than the men’s ($26.4 million) from 2010-18.
Using facts (logic) when so much emotion is involved in a situation usually doesn’t work. Instead, a press release with selected information, along with ways the USSF is trying to come to a solution, would have been a better approach.
To their credit, Cordeiro and the USSF have put their own public relations spin on how they discuss the issue. Instead of using the term “equal pay,” they have reframed the discussion as “fair pay.” In numerous documents, words such as “fair” and “equitable” are being used rather than “equal” in describing pay.
Reframing is often a good tactic. Instead of using the opposition’s talking points, why not use yours? Even the U.S. men’s team parrotted the word “fair” in a recent statement: “… in their pursuit of fair compensation for their work as professional soccer players.”