An Important Difference (Play Like a Girl)

“Abby said that she wanted her final World Cup to be like a fairytale. And I’m not sure she could have written a better ending: a world champion at last, draped in the Stars and Stripes, showing us all how far we’ve come―on and off the field―by sharing a celebratory kiss with her wife.”

―President Barack Obama

This is an illustration of the difference.

President Barack Obama, on Tuesday:

This team taught all America’s children that “playing like a girl” means you’re a badass. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used that phrase. Playing like a girl means being the best. It means drawing the largest TV audience for a soccer match―men or women’s―in American history. It means wearing our nation’s crest on your jersey, taking yourself and your country to the top of the world. That’s what American women do. That’s what American girls do. That’s why we celebrate this team. They’ve done it with class. They’ve done it with the right way. They’ve done it with excitement. They’ve done with style. We are very, very proud of them.

Two days later, over at the Capitol:

On Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked a resolution that called on soccer’s global governing body to “immediately eliminate gender pay inequity and treat all athletes with the same respect and dignity.”

“It is a shame that in the Senate, we cannot even agree to pass a resolution that calls for the equal treatment of male and female athletes. If we cannot even pass a non-binding resolution, how can we ever achieve real pay equity for women?” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who introduced the resolution this summer.

Earlier this year at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the pay disparity between male and female soccer players was put into sharp focus when it was reported that while the U.S. Women’s National Team received $2 million for winning the championship, men’s teams who lost in the first round of the 2014 World Cup, including the U.S. men’s team, received $8 million.

(Gibbs)

Remember this, when people tell you there is no difference, that they’re all the same.

Just Another Rant (#ENGvGERmix)

It is easy enough to denounce the lack of attention paid women’s sports in the United States, especially when the idea that the local women’s professional soccer team aims for a sixty percent attendance increase to a six thousand per game average for a team featuring that much international play talent. And it is easy enough for Americans to scratch their heads in puzzlement—since awe and soccer are a forbidden combination in this country—at the thought of the best-attended MLS team averaging twice what the next team draws, the word out of England regarding Sunday’s match at Wembly is a kick to the shin:

England women’s midfielder Karen Carney believes their historic game at Wembley on Sunday proves there is an appetite for the women’s game.

“TV are behind us and we’ve just got to do the business now. I think the rest will take care of itself,” Carney said.

Tickets have sold out, but sales have been capped at 55,000 due to London Underground engineering works ....

.... The game begins England’s preparations for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which takes place in Canada, and will be the first women’s international fixture played at Wembley.

(BBC Sport)

Fifty-five thousand. Sold out. With allocation capped because of disruptions caused by public infrastructure work.

Just a reminder: Our U.S. Women’s National Team just won the CONCACAF Championship, with world-record goal scorer Abby Wambach notching a ridiculous four goals against Costa Rica, and we are supposed to be impressed by the 11,625 who showed up to watch the game in person.

If something about the previous statement seems amiss, I promise you it isn’t the statement.

Well, okay. Supposed to be impressed? Yeah, I kind of made that up. Women’s soccer in the U.S. is only supposed to be impressive if it’s a World Cup match. Or one of the players pulls off her shirt after scoring a goal. Preferably both at once, then all the guys can feel like they tuned in for a reason.

And, you know, at times like this I recall a t-shirt, of all things. One of my daughter’s classmates happened to be wearing it one day when I was at the school. It was a soccer shirt, with a silhouette female mid-plant and about to deliver a hard shot to the upper right corner of the net. The slogan read, “You only wish you could kick like a girl!”

Cool shirt. I applaud.

Then again, that’s also what it comes to.

I just don’t get it. Is a woman playing soccer not sexy enough unless she whips off her shirt? No, seriously, what is the problem here? To the one, soccer is the most popular team sport on the planet. To the other, the U.S. has some of the finest talent in the history of women’s sports. To the beeblebrox, we also have an untapped talent reserve of unimaginable size. What, exactly, is the problem here?

Fifty-five thousand will gather at Wembley to watch the English women’s team host Germany. I’m not going to knock this particular match, but come on, really? The USWNT can’t even sell out eighteen thousand tickets at PPL Park? For the freaking CONCACAF Championship?

What … is … the … problem … here?

Get your heads out. Open your eyes.

Watch … in … awe.

The U.S. Women’s National Team has a tournament next month; four matches in eleven days.

Seriously. Open your eyes and watch in awe.

Oh, right. After all that, I forgot: Congratulations, Karen Carney; we hear you’re up for your hundredth cap. Good show, madam. Indeed, great show.

____________________

British Broadcasting Corporation. “Karen Carney: England women forging place in football market”. BBC Sport. 20 November 2014.

Some Thoughts on a National Disgrace

You know how we always hear about various pro sports teams struggling with their salary cap? And the persistent question of how much is too much, and whether any pro athlete is really worth that many millions of dollars a season?

Here’s a real salary cap for you: $30,000 per season.

For the record, that’s not a minimum salary. That’s a maximum salary for the National Women’s Soccer League.

While KUOW gives an August report from Arwen Nicks and Marcie Sillman a happy title, “Seattle Taking Notice Of Reigning Women’s Team”, it’s also a bit deceptive. Seattle took greater notice of S2, the new Sounders FC third-league team intended for their reserves to get playing time.

It should be noted that aside from playing their games at Starfire, the Seattle women’s professional soccer team is entirely unrelated to Sounders FC. Rather, they are Seattle Reign FC, a name apparently held over from the former ABL squad.

While SRFC is blessed with powerful talent, it is almost a prerequisite for any kind of success; unless a player is on a national team, her salary is capped at thirty thousand dollars per season, creating a situation in which the lucky players without a national team roster spot get to play in the championship game, go home, and either pay rent the next morning or move.

As any sports fan in general can tell you, this is no way to run a premiere league. Then again, considering the history of, say, English football clubs, we’ll have to see what the NWSL becomes over the course of the next century.

Meanwhile, this miserable state of things is accentuated by a soccer match that had nothing to do with SRFC or the U.S. Women’s National Team except for the fact that the winner will meet Hope Solo, Sydney Leroux, and Megan Rapinoe (all of SRFC) and their USWNT teammates in the semifinal round.

Mexico topped Jamaica in a CONCACAF contest at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., earlier tonight. The final was 3-1, though Joseph White of Associated Press tweeted during the game, “Not that you care, but I just saw Donna-Kay Henry of Jamaica score one of the best soccer goals I’ve seen in ages.”

And, yeah, as goals go, it was a sweet one.

This was the end of CONCACAF group play; Mexico will meet the U.S. in the semis. And, true, the weather only made the game that much tougher, but White’s recap for USA Today should probably be praised for not making a point of the absolute embarrassment this game has caused should cause Americans.