The CrossFit Example
CrossFit is a niche sport that has been around for roughly 20 years, although many who do it don’t consider it a sport at all, and that’s OK too. Just to understand the development of it as a sport, it is helpful to realise that there were only 13 affiliates in 2005, and now there are over 13,000.
With Sponsorship from the likes of Reebok came some money, and the competitive aspect of the ‘sport’ evolved, culminating in the annual world wide Open competition. In 2018 over 400,000 competitors took part in this event. Male or Female, the prizemoney in CrossFit is the same. Australian world champion Tia Clair Toomey took home USD $300,000 in 2018 for winning the title, the same as her male counterpart, American Matt Frazer.
Why, or how has this occurred so ‘easily’ in the sport of CrossFit, and yet by contrast, for the largest sport in the world, being Association Football/Soccer, is it so far away?
Dave Castro, CrossFit’s Director of The CrossFit Games explained that ‘The discussion wasn’t even had about the cash prizes being higher for the men and less for the women…We just did what we all intuitively knew was right: equal prizes for both genders.
“I can’t imagine what message it would have sent to our athletes and, more importantly, our community if we would have given the men more than the women. It’s frankly just wrong.”[i]
This issue is topical again now due to the amazing success and performance of the U.S. Women’s Soccer team at the recent Women’s World Cup, where unless you are living under a rock you would know that the team led by the inspirational Megan Rapinoe, swept all before them to win an unprecedented 4th World title, destroying a long list of records along the way.
The team has recently taken up advocacy of the contentious issue of equal pay for women. They are passionately leveraging their success to rightly highlight the extent of the discrepancy in the sport of soccer. Unfortunately it is an argument that tends to be dismissed with a degree of contempt by many, drawing on an argument based on pure economics. It goes along the lines of ‘It’s a case of bums on seats old chap’.
The Men’s world cup drew over 3.5 billion world wide viewers in 2018, and by contrast FIFA has claimed that the Women’s World Cup just completed, drew in excess of 1 billion for the first time.[ii] Logic therefore suggests the revenues generated between the two events based on viewership alone (therefore sponsorship etc) would not be the same. So these are undeniable facts as they stand today.
However, in my assessment the US Women’s team’s argument can really be summarised into two key issues:
- The first is the subject of a lawsuit lodged by the team in March of this year, and that claim is essentially that the US Women’s Soccer Team generated more revenues and profits for the US Soccer Federation than the men but were paid 38% of what the men were paid, I assume in 2018. The economic rationalists should support that one then right?
- There is a multi-generational and cultural disadvantage, institutionalised by the sport and its governing bodies that have served male interests over female effectively since inception. Just consider at this point how CrossFit and its founding philosophy around equality, contrasts with the founding philosophies of say Cambridge University Association Football Club in 1846. I don’t really know what was said in the boardroom at Cambridge back then, but I think I can safely assume there wasn’t a lot of discussion about who was going to look after the women’s program. The US Women’s Soccer Team just perhaps, is very interested in accelerating change to benefit the development of the Women’s game more broadly. Increased funding, increased facilities, improved coaching from grass roots through to elite level etc.
The end result is equality. It’s a tough path to tread when so many dismiss the argument without seeing the bigger picture. The extent of the disadvantage is in some cases over 100 years’ worth of lost investment.
At this point can we deal with the elephant in the room, and the argument around whether females are as ‘good’ as males at the sport. Frankly, that’s like saying Venus Williams is not as good as Roger Federer. That’s really an absurd argument, and let’s just say it has to do with genetics, and wisely leave it there.
Fundamentally it all boils down to a question of ‘equal work for equal pay’, a moral argument that is rightly embraced by modern Western society. It is almost without thought a feature of newer sports, like CrossFit, and was even adopted by Wimbledon a few years ago. It is therefore achievable.
What Megan Rapinoe and her brave team of women are asking for, is a more serious conversation and more action on the part of administrators, driven by legislation if necessary.
There are an estimated 13 million female footballers worldwide according to FIFA’s latest data, and the success of the 2019 Women’s World Cup will no doubt help drive further growth in this participation. So many of these players will aspire to the feats of Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Sam Kerr et al (I had to mention another Australian!). In the end, their ability to ‘shine’ and achieve their best will unfortunately be limited by funding and support to grow the women’s game. These are the institutional foundations that started being built for men over 100 years ago.
When someone makes the counter argument ‘but women’s football is professional now, and when they generate the profits they can get the pay’, just remember that arguably the biggest Football Club in the world, Manchester United was founded in 1878, and in 2018 it established its first fully professional women’s team in the English Women’s Super League. Well done I say, but don’t expect female sportswomen of the world to fall over in gratitude. There is a long process of catching up to do, and activism on this front is well and truly justified.
Mark Yule
Mark Yule is Director and founder of CrossFit Minerva, and holds a Level 2 CrossFit Instructor certification. He also has over 10 years experience coaching Women’s football at local club and at National Premier League level.
[i] CrossFit Journal – Why Men and Women are always Equal in CrossFit (2018) – Mike Warkentin https://journal.crossfit.com/article/equality-warkentin
[ii] Women’s World Cup – Record Breaking Numbers (2019) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48882465
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