In the morning segment on CNN, host Don Lemon went macho man. He lost his woke. He FELL through the glass ceiling. It all had to do with soccer – and the differential in pay between the men’s and women’s teams.
Back story
If you are not up to the details of compensation for sports teams, you first need to know that the national women’s team receives less money – a lot less — than the men’s team. It is because women’s sports do not generate the same level of income – which is based on ticket sales, viewership, and endorsements.
That is not a sexist opinion, just a fact of the marketplace. The market picks the winners and losers – although those on the left believe that governments should do that.
So, even when women win more international tournaments, they still get less money than their male counterparts. In recent years, American women’s soccer teams have won several soccer championships. The men? None. Yet, men’s soccer players are receiving millions more dollars than the ladies.
When the American women’s team won the world cup, they got around $2 million. The recent American male team that was eliminated by Argentina received $13 million. In fact, if you add up the proceeds from the last three women’s championships, the total prize money was still less than what the losing men’s team received in Qatar.
In a unique exhibit of charity, the American men’s team has pledged half of its winnings to their female counterpart – a multimillion-dollar gift. That noble gesture has been praised across the sports reporting world. It would mean that the women’s team will receive more money from the guys than they did in those three championship seasons combined. All this was explained by CNN’s numbers guru Harry Enten.
Enter Don Lemon. Lemon warningly referenced his remarks with, “I am probably going to get into trouble for this.” He was not wrong. He went on to say that there was no justification for sharing the money because the women’s team does not earn as much as the men’s team.
Weeell … that brought down the house. His co-hosts, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins were aghast – as Enten. It turned into a one-sided shout-down. (Lemon never shouts).
The initial rebuttal was that it is simply not fair to pay men more than women. To which Lemon doubled down with great emphasis: “But the men earn more money than the women.”
The counter was that the women actually won more championships than the men. But Lemon was not cowed. That does matter, he said. The men bring in more money.
Lemon then went into the feminist penalty box, declaring that more people want to watch men’s sports. That is why they bring in more money. The value of a player or a team is how much money they draw. They should get paid according to their value.
Anyone who knows how a market economy works knows that Lemon is right.
That is why Tom Brady makes millions more than other players on his team. A team franchise is valued based on the gate, television audience, and endorsements. In our politically correct, identity politics world, free market forces are trumped by a redistribution of wealth based on some faux and arbitrary claim of equity.
Lemon was not about to back down.
He suggested that people do not watch women’s sports as they do men’s. It is not as interesting. Being correct is no advantage in the age of political correctness. Lemon continued to be verbally pounded. The dialogue was hard to hear since Lemon was being verbally brow-beaten in unison.
The shout-down ended when Collins blew the whistle and said they had to move on to some other news.
It was the kind of verbal confrontation you do not see in the tightly scripted world of cable television. Or was it a planned event designed to give CNN and Lemon a less hardcore liberal bias. I doubt it. The flare-up was too real and too intense. Regardless, it was entertaining because Lemon is the last person you would expect to fly into the buzzsaw of left-wing feminist orthodoxy.
The only thing missing was background music by the Village People.
So, there ‘tis.