U.S. Soccer equal pay settlement ‘monumental’ for women’s sports: Yahoo Finance’s Dave Briggs

Yahoo Finance's David Briggs joins the Live show to discuss the U.S. Soccer settlement over unequal pay.

Video transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: Big news in the sports world, as a group of women on the US National Soccer Team reached a $24 million settlement with the US Soccer Federation following that lawsuit over unequal pay compared to their counterparts on the Men's National Soccer Team. For more on this, let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Dave Briggs, who has been following the story. Dave, pretty important conclusion here to this long story.

DAVID BRIGGS: This is a monumental day, quite frankly, Brian, for women's sports around the country, not just in the United States. This dates back to really, like, a Billie Jean King type of transformation of all women's sports around the country. Now, this settlement really just applies to the US Women's National Team and the US Soccer Federation, not other teams around the world.

But it brings about important change-- $24 million in terms of back pay. But more than that, an illicit admission that they had been underpaying women for years and years. Now, quite frankly, Brian, I'm not a huge fan of-- don't jump on me for being sexist-- of equal pay for men and women in any sports. I'm a fan of getting paid what you are worth.

And, quite frankly, the US Women's National Team, in my estimation, and the "Wall Street Journal's" estimation, and just about any calculation you use, is worth more money. They should be paid more money than the men. They are better. They are more successful. They sell more tickets. They draw better ratings. And they sell more jerseys, Brian.

So still huge win for Megan Rapinoe and more-- Alex Morgan and the stars of US Women's Soccer and the players of tomorrow. But quite frankly, I think they should be earning more than the men right now and for years to come. They are far more popular. But this is big change, man.

AKIKO FUJITA: Dave, you got me, like, ready to jump in when you talked about equal pay. But yes, to your point, women's soccer is huge in the US. How much of this do you think this settlement and this acknowledgment trickles into other sports, like women's basketball, for example?

DAVID BRIGGS: I don't think at all. And that's why, Akiko, I'm not sorry [AUDIO OUT] equal pay for men and women. How can you pay WNBA players anywhere near what you pay NBA players, considering, again, revenue generation, ticket sales, TV contracts, jersey sales, which is exponentially higher for the men.

And when you look at tennis, for example, women's tennis, much like soccer, far more popular, a far better television product, sells more tickets, draws better ratings, at least in the United States. So a good argument could be made in both tennis and soccer that US women should be paid more. And I am the first one to say that.

You cannot apply this to just about any other sport because of the revenue generation. And when you look at the biggest body in soccer, that's FIFA, and the World Cup, this should not apply to that. Because the last World Cup generated $6 billion in revenue on the men's side, $131 million on the women's side. Soccer in the United States is far more popular for women, but around the globe, it ain't even close. It's apples and bananas.

Men are far more popular, far more revenue-generating. So nonetheless, I don't mean to water down this accomplishment-- it is a huge day. As Megan Rapinoe said, when we win, everyone wins. It's a monumental step forward.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Dave, I want to kind of ask a question about going forward what this settlement means-- because it was, I believe, five stars that were part of the actual lawsuit itself. But then you have the US Soccer Federation announcing this morning that there was going to be a new collective bargaining agreement so that the future generations of women stars on the team as well will hopefully benefit from this. Do we know the terms of that and kind of by percentage how much more they should expect to be paid compared to historical payout?

DAVID BRIGGS: We don't, because that collective bargaining agreement is not done. Now, this is all contingent on a new collective bargaining agreement being agreed to, which they have not. The reason the date matters so much is the court case goes before a judge on March 7. They extended the current collective bargaining agreement to March 31.

They have until then to come up with a new deal that will be, in all cases, equal for both men and women. And it's not just pay, Brian. The biggest issue that women pointed out here, which was really gross, was that the working conditions were far better for men, which really makes no sense.

We're talking about field conditions, locker rooms, travel-- all those things were very different, much higher on the men's side than they were the women's side. So assume that all of those things will be equal. The last collective bargaining agreement had men being paid $263,000 per game on a 20-game basis, where women got paid $100,000-- almost three times as much for the men. That number will now be equal once they come up with a new [AUDIO OUT] under a ton of pressure, Brian, to net equal and to get that deal done.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, David, I'm going to take a wild guess here and say more people or the average person can name a women's soccer star more than men's, at least here in the US. Dave Briggs, thank you so much for bringing us that story.