ESPN thinks the US Women’s National Soccer Team’s ‘equal pay’ farce was courageous
Zachary Faria
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The Arthur Ashe Courage Award has been politicized by ESPN for the past several years, so it is no surprise that the 2023 award winners are the members of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team for their crusade against the fictional gender pay gap.
ESPN announced that the USWNT would win the award for “their resilient fight for equal pay off the field.” According to ESPN, “The team reached a historic agreement that officially split men’s and women’s pay 50/50 and ultimately set a new global standard in sports.”
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In reality, there were always several issues with the USWNT’s claims. For starters, men’s soccer earns far more in revenue than women’s soccer because it brings in far more viewers. More specifically, for American soccer, the women’s team actually earned more than the men did from 2010 to 2018. In other words, there really wasn’t much “historic” about the USWNT’s “equal pay” demands, other than the level of complaining that accompanied it.
It’s difficult to get too upset about the award, though, because politics have often taken priority over athletes and sports figures who endured true adversity. In 2014, ESPN gave the award to former Missouri football player Michael Sam for being openly gay and playing football. In 2015, the award went to Caitlyn Jenner for claiming to be a woman even though he is a man.
Jenner won in 2015 over a double amputee Iraq War veteran who competed in extreme sports and Lauren Hill, a freshman basketball player at Mount St. Joseph University who battled an inoperable brain tumor. Hill died three months before the 2015 ESPYs.
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In fact, this isn’t even the first time that “equal pay” decided the Arthur Ashe Award. Tennis player Billie Jean King won the award in 1999 for threatening to boycott the U.S. Open if the women’s prize money wasn’t made equal to the men’s. In other words, for the second time in the award’s 31-year history, the award went to athletes who demanded that they get paid more. How is that for courage?
You can chalk it up to just another chapter in the political decay that has taken hold of ESPN over the past decade. Politics, brain-dead “hot takes,” and, increasingly, gambling have all become focuses of the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” all while sports have continued to take a backseat.