‘I’m Not Sexist’: Don Lemon Says US Men’s Soccer Should Be Paid More Than Women in Tense Debate With Harlow and Collins

Things got tense on the set of CNN This Morning Thursday morning during a heated debate about the US men’s and women’s soccer teams’ revenue share, their history of unequal pay, and the myriad reasons behind it.

At issue? News that the women’s US Soccer team would receive half of the prize money reward earned by the men’s US Soccer Team advancing to the knockout stage of the 2022 World Cup. The money earned through a revenue share deal agreed to by both men’s and women’s player associations will earn the women more — without playing — than they have from the past three world cups that they’ve won.

Resident CNN data analyst Harry Enten was brought on to explain the situation but did a better job of parading his limited knowledge of an albeit complex story that has been complicated by a fair amount of misinformation.

Let’s start with some objective truths about the story:

On the pitch, the women’s US soccer team has been, by every objective measure, FAR more successful than its male counterparts.

The prize money for the Men’s World Cup is four times greater than that of the women’s tournament, largely due to advertising deals and a far bigger viewer base. More eyeballs, more ad revenue, greater prize money.

The phenomenon of women’s soccer is a relatively new thing and probably one of the greatest legacies of the genuinely game-changing Title IX legislation of 1972. International women’s soccer is still not the global phenomenon that the men’s version is. The first Women’s World Cup was held in 1991, and the first men’s version was held in 1930.

The women’s team has to play fewer qualifying games than the men’s team does to get to the World Cup. There has been pay disparity, highlighted by the HBO documentary LFG, but it’s not as clean-cut an issue as is often presented.

For example, before the current agreement, the women’s team was offered the same deal the men played under but instead opted for what many deemed a safer deal that included salaries. The men’s players did not receive salaries. The recent agreement shares prize money between both teams, which resolved some possible discrimination lawsuits and allowed everyone to move forward.

For a better explanation of the economic variables at play, I strongly recommend Steven Goff’s write-up of the LFG documentary for The Washington Post, or Andrew Das thoughtful write-up for the New York Times from 2016.

The CNN segment provided an oversimplified explanation of a complicated dynamic, and it didn’t go perfectly, perhaps evidenced best by Don Lemon’s caveat, “I’m not sexist.” There’s an old aphorism (maybe from Sigmund Freud?) that if some opens with “I’m not saying _____” what they are really saying is ____.  I know Don reasonably well and can attest he is not at all sexist. But it’s never good to be in a place where you feel the need to say so…especially on live television.

Lemon argued that there is more interest in men’s sports because it’s more entertaining. It was a ham-fisted attempt to cite perhaps Susan Faludi’s famous “respect to gender differences” line of feminism, and it was not received well on the CNN panel.

To their credit, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins pushed back. And pretty hard. To the degree that things became awkwardly tense on set. The gist of their argument is that the reason there is less revenue and fewer eyeballs on women’s sports is that it doesn’t get the promotion and carriage that men’s sports get.

This overlooks a fundamental part of broadcasting, ratings, and supply and demand. It would be great if there were more interest in women’s sports, and ESPN is set to launch a women-only channel soon. But, simply put, there just hasn’t been the demand.

All in all, it was a spicy and thought-provoking segment that entertained, surprised and delighted. The co-hosts and producers felt the topic was worth re-addressing at the show’s end when Lemon reaffirmed that he is not sexist, and his co-hosts quickly and amicably agreed.

Collins then correctly noted that it was a healthy conversation to have about unequal pay and cited how professional tennis also adapted a revenue share for unequal prize money in the 80s, though she neglected to mention that men’s tennis players play more sets in grand slam tournaments (best of five) than women do (best of three.)

Harlow cited a conversation she had with the WNBA CEO, who complained that the professional league she oversees does not get the media promotion or carriage that would allow the athletes to make more money. While she didn’t mention that there appears to be little demand for women’s sports to be broadcast, she definitely suggested the conundrum of little demand because of a lack of knowledge and current promotion. Watch the follow-up here:

Pay disparity is a real thing, borne from years of traditional patriarchy. And the pendulum of justice doesn’t always swing with the pace and precision that everyone wants. There is a lot of hyperbole surrounding these sorts of conversations that are amplified as absolutes.

Take, for example, the reasonably well-accepted idea that women make roughly 79 cents to the dollar that their male counterparts make. The Washington Post fact-checked that and gave it two Pinocchios. A better source though is the first tenure woman professor of Economics at Harvard, Claudia Goldin, who told Freakonomics radio show host, “Does that mean that women are receiving lower pay for equal work?  That is possibly the case in certain places, but by and large, it’s not that; it’s something else.” (Highly recommend you listen to Goldin explain the gender pay gap in a thoughtful and well-reasoned way.)

There is no question that Harlow and Collins’ points here are valid. And at the same time, Lemon makes a market-based point that is just as valid. There were no winners in this debate, apart form CNN viewers who were largely informed and entertained on a controversial and hot-button topic. Kudos to all involved.

Watch above via CNN.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.