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May 7, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
14:37
The Degeneration of the Daily Show
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Players on the U.S. women's national soccer team say they're being discriminated against because they make less than members of the men's team.
Now, I'm the first person who'll admit that I'm no economist, but I don't think economics is rocket science, especially when you are simply comparing two figures to see which one is the greatest.
So when I saw an expose on the American women's soccer team suing to get the same amount of money as the men's soccer team, I was really perplexed.
I mean, why would they think that they're going to earn the same as the men?
Now, slow down regressives.
I know that you have an allergy to facts and you don't like figures and things that generally don't pander to your feels, but real life doesn't care about your feelings.
And neither do I.
So what we're going to do is start by establishing the objective empirical facts of this issue.
Then we're going to demonstrate how you're complete morons.
So if you don't know anything about football, and not hand egg as played by the Americans, FIFA is an organization that runs a World Cup every four years.
They run a men's and women's World Cup in separate years, and there is no crossover between the teams.
These are gender segregated and they do not play each other.
The last World Cup in men's football was in 2014 and 3.2 billion people watched it, with a billion people watching the final.
The Women's World Cup was held in 2015 and hit a record-breaking 750 million TV viewers.
Not only did the entire Women's World Cup see less viewers than the final of the Men's World Cup, it was more than four times less than the overall number of people who watched.
The TV rights fees is of course dependent on advertising revenue, and advertising revenue is earned by viewership.
As you can imagine, the majority of revenue made by FIFA, 2.4 billion in fact, was TV rights fees, with 1.6 billion in sponsorships and only 527 million in ticket sales.
And this is out of a total 4.8 billion that was generated at the 2014 Men's World Cup.
We don't have the numbers for the 2015 World Cup yet, but we do have them for the 2011 World Cup, which was declared a financial success, with a total revenue of just about 50 million euros, which at the current exchange rate is about $57 million.
Now at this point, I'm sure you're thinking, well, fucking duh.
What kind of moron would need it explained that if you are being paid by the view, more views equals more pay.
And so it should come as no surprise that when it comes to prize money to the players and teams themselves, men's teams earn a lot more than women's teams.
This isn't sexism.
This isn't discrimination.
This is economics.
This is basic economics.
Which number is higher for what is effectively two separate and non-overlapping industries?
So if there is anyone out there who can look at two separate but comparable industries, see that one is vastly more profitable than another, and think that the people involved in these industries should be paid the same, just stop the video right now, close the window, unsubscribe for my channel, and go back to being a moron somewhere else.
I have laid it out for you to explain exactly why things are as they are.
It's not sexism, it's not discrimination, it is numbers.
If you can't grasp that, seriously, close the video.
I'll wait.
Okay, I'm going to assume that the idiots are gone.
And now we can actually talk about the nuances, because I know that idiots are not going to be able to understand the nuances.
And I'll demonstrate that in a minute.
Now, men and women's football is remunerated differently.
Women receive a salary and a bonus, but men receive only a bonus.
But even if they lose.
The current contention for regressive idiots is that even if women win all 20 games in a season, and men win all 20 games in a season, the men will be paid $263,000 and the women just shy of $100,000.
But since we know that they're not in competition with each other, they don't play each other, they're not on the same teams, they're not in the same leagues, they're not even ever on the same pitch together, they're not even paid in the same way from the same revenue, so it's amazing that you would think the women's teams would think that they deserve to be paid the same as the men, because they're not part of men's football.
They are part of women's football, a far less popular and less profitable industry that simply cannot afford to pay them what the men's teams get.
And it's going to really surprise you, but the bonuses for the winning teams is much higher for the men than the women.
I mean, we know exactly why this is.
It's because the men are playing in a much more profitable industry.
In fact, the only figure I could find that can really be explained by profitability is the per day allowance that men and women get.
These are for travel expenses and whatnot.
Men get $62.50, whereas women get $50, or an international $75 to $60.
And don't get me wrong, this probably is the result of the men's football being much more profitable than the women's football, but I mean, they're spending it on the same services, so why bother?
So now that we know what's happening in reality, let's go to Comedy Central and their regressive manifesto on how not to run an economy.
I sat down with three members of the US women's soccer team to find out why they're being so greedy.
We're not being greedy, we're just fighting for what's right.
No, you're not.
You're fighting for men to subsidise women's football because women's football is not very popular.
You are asking for money you did not earn.
That is being greedy.
Our contributions to the Federation should be seen as equal to what the men have done.
Why?
Your contributions to the Federation are not the same.
They are in fact drastically lower.
And the idea that you think this should be treated as an equal contribution is laughable.
I find this just to be the most baffling statement of all.
I mean, if I worked in a factory and in one day I made 10 units and someone else made 100 units, I wouldn't demand that my contribution be treated the same as his contribution because we can quantify exactly what our contributions are and see that mine is a tenth of his.
I mean, seriously, how on earth can you sit there and go, well, ours should be treated the same as the men's?
It's not the same.
Why the fuck should it be treated as the same?
Oh, you want special treatment.
Fine, whatever.
But you need to understand that the men made it to the round of 16 and the World Cup.
Man, when did Comedy Central become an intellectually dishonest hive of bullshit?
It does not matter what rank they came.
It has no bearing.
That is taken account in the bonuses the players are paid.
In the final bonuses the teams get for coming in the top three ranks or whether they do or not.
The total value of the industry is what counts here.
So, for instance, when the women's team say, Well, we've won three World Cups.
Well, they are ranked 30th in the world.
We're ranked number one.
Who cares?
You're ranked number one in a tiny industry.
Ranking you number one isn't anywhere near the equivalent of being ranked 16 in the other industry, at least on financial terms.
I mean, don't get me wrong, when it comes to comparing relative glory, sure.
But the idea that you should compare these two separate industries, one which being far more profitable than another, and then say, we should be paid the same, is fucking ludicrous.
They play with so much passion.
Why aren't you talking about the value of their industries?
You fucking moron.
Why are you doing this?
Why can't you be intellectually honest?
We have four Olympic gold medals.
Humble brags, okay?
No one gives a shit.
It doesn't matter how many Olympic gold medals you have.
What matters is the number of people watching your games.
And the number of people watching your games is much less than the number of people watching games that men are playing.
How much less could their pay possibly be?
If we win a match, we get $1,300.
And then they get around $17,000.
I love that they have just given their bonus there.
They didn't include the $3,600 they get as a salary in an industry that is vastly less profitable than the industry the men are playing in.
I mean, that's not dishonest.
Oh, no, wait, it's totally dishonest.
Whoa.
If the men's team loses, they make $5,000.
Five?
Jeez, if you lose!
Could you imagine having that much money?
Can't really imagine it, because we don't get paid anything if we lose.
And that's an outright lie.
The women get paid $72,000 for 20 games per season.
This means they get paid $3,600 per game no matter what happens, with $1,350 extra bonus per win, giving us a grand total of $4,950 per game one.
And if you're number one in the world, then you must be winning a lot of games.
And again, I can't say I'm surprised given that men's football is worth about 50 times what women's football is worth.
And yet you still have the gall to say.
Can't really imagine it because we don't get paid anything if we lose.
Seriously, this is the kind of outright lie Comedy Central are willing to peddle to push the progressive narrative.
This is just not true.
They in fact get paid five grand almost per game if they win.
And apparently they're so good, they're always winning.
I mean, there is bragging about it.
So in fact, they can imagine it.
They do get paid if they lose, and they're actually earning a huge amount of money.
It's not like the men are earning 50 times what the women are earning.
The men aren't even earning three times what the women are earning.
While the US Soccer Federation has their own interpretation of the pay differences, the bottom line is the women want them to level the playing field.
Did you see how dishonest that was?
Their interpretation of the pay differences is based on empirical reality.
The financial reality that the women earn less accounts for their pay.
But it doesn't matter.
The women want the playing field leveled.
Well, I have some bad news.
The playing field is level, and that's why you're earning less.
What they are now asking for is men's football to subsidize their pay.
Well, I don't think it should.
I think that if you didn't earn it, you don't deserve it.
We actually broke the record for the most watched soccer game in the history of America.
For women's football.
If men's football brought in only 750 million viewers instead of 3.2 billion viewers, FIFA would be shitting a brick.
What annoys me the most about this, though, is that the Daily Show is clearly missing the intellectual rigor that Jon Stewart brought to it.
Because this is just deliberately dishonest.
To say that the women's football and men's football is in fact even anywhere near parity, let alone the women getting more, is not true.
It's a lie.
It's just objectively wrong.
And you can take two seconds on Google to find this out.
But instead, the Daily Show haven't done this.
They are willing to present you with a lie because it furthers their agenda.
Between men or women?
You're playing a man's game by man's rules?
This is the way it is in our world.
You gotta earn it.
No.
We've brought in, what, 17 million this past year?
The men lost $2 million in profit for the Federation this last year.
Again, completely dishonest.
The women's teams only got $70 million because of the Women's World Cup.
The year before, when the Men's World Cup was on, they got 352 million.
This is just not true.
If lunatics like this are against the women, who's on their side?
I mean, she's done so much for our women's sport.
We deserve the cake, the icing, the cherry on top, too, just like the boys.
Oh, well, the irony of that is that you are being treated just like the boys.
If their industry was 50 times smaller, I doubt their salaries would be as high as yours.
I think that's about all I need to say on this.
I'm deeply disappointed in the Daily Show.
I mean, I used to watch The Daily Show a lot.
I used to love hearing Jon Stewart's analysis.
And then if I looked into it myself, I would find he wasn't misrepresenting things.
I don't know who's running the show now, but holy shit, they're just, they're lies.
Just the lies.
The agenda pushing the lies.
I mean, it's embarrassing.
It's embarrassing to watch the Daily Show become like this.
Why are you doing this?
Why do you have to lie?
Why is your political position, your narrative built on lies?
And I just want to be clear here that you understand that if you want women to be equal, if you want them to be treated like men, you want them to be the equal of men in every respect, they have to be able to fail.
They have to be able to compete and then not win.
If they don't achieve the same levels as men in a different or similar field, that's okay.
And like we've shown, the Women's Football Association, the whole industry is growing.
It's growing.
People are starting to watch it.
In 10 years' time, 20 years' time, it will probably be comparable, assuming they keep pushing standards of excellence, which I'm sure that they are.
We don't need to treat them like children.
You don't need to lie about them to try and make them look like some oppressed victim class.
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