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asymmetricinfo's profile
Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle
Verified account
@asymmetricinfo

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Megan McArdleVerified account

@asymmetricinfo

Columnist at the Washington Post. Opinions my own. Email me: Megan.McArdle -at- http://washpost.com  Buy my book, The Up Side of Down http://amzn.to/1a3i2tK 

Washington, DC
Joined September 2008

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    1. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

      The rain has stopped in Washington DC, but there's still a tweetstorm coming! Today we're talking women's World Cup, and equal pay for our champions.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/soccer-is-a-poor-arena-to-fight-out-the-issue-of-equal-pay/2019/07/09/8242cc6c-a28d-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html?utm_term=.d4750b445221 …

      47 replies 165 retweets 441 likes
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    2. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

      As usual, we will not be recapping the column, but answering questions it raised.

      2 replies 6 retweets 33 likes
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    3. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

      First question: why did you discuss overall FIFA earnings instead of the details of US Soccer, which doesn't draw all its revenue from the FIFA bonuses? Answer: Space. I originally included this in an earlier draft, but it's rather technical, and I've only got 750 words.

      2 replies 5 retweets 40 likes
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    4. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

      In an earlier era, when I was writing for the web, I would have naturally included the technical discussion, but print is a cruel taskmistress. But hell, pixels are free, so let's discuss it here.

      2 replies 5 retweets 42 likes
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      Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

      So for one thing, this is not actually about whether the women are paid more than the men, because the women on the US national team are being paid more than the men on the US national team. It seems weird that no one has pointed this out.

      6:12 AM - 10 Jul 2019
      • 184 Retweets
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      18 replies 184 retweets 555 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          The lawsuit is about how much the men could hypothetically be paid, if they won a World Cup, which they haven't. And probably won't, because the United States has other, more popular sports that attract men into them at young ages.

          5 replies 24 retweets 104 likes
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        3. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          For women, on the other hand, there's no particular reason to leave soccer for basketball or softball, because these aren't hugely more popular and (potentially) lucrative than soccer.

          6 replies 9 retweets 62 likes
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        4. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          If Americans watched soccer the way they watch football, basketball, and baseball, then we would probably have a dominant national team, the way we do in those other sports. Why? Because America's a huge country, and bigger countries on average field better teams in big sports.

          6 replies 12 retweets 78 likes
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        5. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          In the end, athletics is just a number's game: the bigger your country, the more potentially great players you have to draw from.

          9 replies 7 retweets 48 likes
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        6. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          This is one reason that China is becoming so dominant in the sports it has chosen to focus on.

          7 replies 6 retweets 45 likes
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        7. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          So in a weird way, this whole dispute only exists because of viewership/attendance/pay disparities between other sports, which increases female comparative advantage in soccer.

          1 reply 9 retweets 51 likes
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        8. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Now, let's discuss those contracts. The women do get paid than a hypothetical WC-winning men's team would. But we must note two things: 1) The hypothetical men's WC-winning team would be eligible for a much bigger bonus from FIFA, because FIFA revenue for men's WC is 45x women's

          11 replies 77 retweets 290 likes
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        9. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          2) The women are paid a salary, with health benefits, and small bonuses. The men are on 100% performance pay: they only get paid if they play, and their pay varies depending on whether they win, lose, or draw. It's the difference between inside sales and 100% commission.

          6 replies 50 retweets 155 likes
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        10. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          This guarantee is very valuable! Imagine someone offers you a job that can be either 100% commission with no benefits, or salary-and-benefits plus a small amount of incentive pay, with the commission set so that the expected payout for the average salesperson matches the salary.

          2 replies 13 retweets 73 likes
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        11. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Obviously, you'd take the salary, right? Why would you bear the risk for no gain? If you want someone to work on incentive pay only, you have to pay them a lot more.

          2 replies 9 retweets 76 likes
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        12. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Now, this structure is also necessitated by the revenue differential in professional soccer. The men can support themselves by collecting salaries from professional soccer clubs. The women can't. So US soccer provides them steady income. At the cost of some upside.

          5 replies 14 retweets 92 likes
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        13. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          But they are still making more than the *actual* men's team this cycle. They're just not making as much as an imaginary men's team that won the world cup.

          3 replies 28 retweets 130 likes
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        14. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          But of course, we can argue that this represents embedded sexism: sexist audiences don't watch women's soccer as much as men's. US Soccer shouldn't necessarily just ratify social biases, but actively work against them. Fair enough, but are we *sure* that's just social bias?

          3 replies 10 retweets 66 likes
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        15. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          It is a fact that women are slower, weaker, and have less endurance than men. The strength distributions, for example, barely overlap. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/4vcxd0/almost_all_men_are_stronger_than_almost_all_women/ …pic.twitter.com/LHgHe9eLfD

          6 replies 25 retweets 129 likes
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        16. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          I'm not really going to argue this, because the disparity is *the whole reason we have women's soccer in the first place*. If it didn't exist, Megan Rapinoe would be playing for Manchester United.

          7 replies 14 retweets 133 likes
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        17. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          It is surely at least *arguable* that greater strength, speed, and endurance make a difference to the quality of game play, and how exciting it is to watch. After all, if it didn't, senior sports would be a big a draw as the kind featuring young buff people.

          3 replies 12 retweets 91 likes
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        18. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          I am not really qualified to assess the differences in men's and women's soccer play. But having played basketball (sadly the only thing I was good at was 'being tall'), I can tell the difference between the women's and men's basketball games.

          2 replies 7 retweets 56 likes
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        19. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          There is a minority that prefers the slower, more stately play of the WNBA, with its much greater focus on teamwork rather than showboating. But it's kind of like a taste for classical music over hip-hop--sure, those folks are out there, and bless 'em. Most folks like showboating

          5 replies 8 retweets 72 likes
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        20. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Maybe some of that is sexism. That's impossible to fully disaggregate. Hey, maybe all of that is. But I can't rule out the possibility that people just like watching faster, stronger players. WNBA & NBA are 2 different games, and there are many reasons to prefer one or the other

          3 replies 7 retweets 67 likes
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        21. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Many soccer fans seem to feel that the same is true of men's and women's FIFA, and I can't gainsay them.

          3 replies 7 retweets 46 likes
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        22. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          This brings us, finally, to the claim that women's World Cup has much higher revenues in the US than men's. Eh ... this is at best highly debatable.

          3 replies 11 retweets 62 likes
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        23. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          I know: a CNBC article says the women's team had higher attendance than men's over the last 3 years. Question: why would you look at 3 years, in a sport that plays on a *4* year cycle? Usually when people choose weird metrics, it's because the obvious one yields a boring answer

          4 replies 33 retweets 178 likes
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        24. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          And indeed, a four-year comparison doesn't give you that result; on average, the women were earning less, at least, 3 years ago.http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/15277241/us-soccer-federation-says-uswnt-earns-only-22-percent-less-men …

          1 reply 12 retweets 61 likes
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        25. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          USMNT have much higher attendance than USWNT games, about 2x, comparing best to best and worst to worst https://worldsoccertalk.com/2018/12/13/uswnt-average-attendance-declines-22-percent-in-2018/ …https://worldsoccertalk.com/2018/12/12/usmnt-average-attendance-2018-worst-since-2006/ …

          3 replies 16 retweets 66 likes
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        26. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          The women played more games than the men in 2018, but this doesn't necessarily translate into profit. There's a fixed cost for the venue, which amortized over fewer fans can actually mean bigger losses on each game.

          1 reply 8 retweets 53 likes
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        27. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          But even leaving that aside: you might have an incentive to schedule more games if your players are on salary than you do if your players are contractors who get paid by the game. So we can't necessarily separate this from the choices USWNT made with its collective bargaining

          2 replies 4 retweets 49 likes
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        28. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Television viewership roughly follows the same pattern: men attract a lot more viewers than women do. Importantly: except for the finals of the World Cup.

          3 replies 5 retweets 51 likes
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        29. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Many of my interlocutors were mad I didn't mention that in the US, the finals of the world cup attracted many more viewers. True that! Guess who sold those rights? FIFA, not US soccer. Which brings us back to the upthread question of I chose to look at FIFA rather than US soccer

          6 replies 6 retweets 56 likes
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        30. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          Which brings me to my final point: this argument has been really ill-defined. Treating an argument about hypothetical pay in a typical year as if it were an argument about the actual money people are collecting. Jumping back and forth between FIFA & US soccer.

          3 replies 17 retweets 86 likes
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        31. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 10 Jul 2019

          And assuming, without bothering to prove it, that we're talking about the exact same game, which we really aren't, even though they're both played by the same rules.

          3 replies 5 retweets 56 likes
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