Traditionally, sports have been more actively a boy’s or men’s activity with women and girls highly discouraged from participating. Incidentally, the ideology spreads across various global cultures with some taking it a notch higher by barring girls and women from watching multiple sporting events. Recently, there has been a widespread universal transformation in the perception of women and sports due to the availability of information ( Alvariñas-Villaverde, López-Villar, Fernández-Villarino, & Alvarez-Esteban, 2017) . The information, especially that which highlights the benefits of women and girls participation in games and sports is instrumental in the increasing campaign for gender equality. With the realization that sports are vital in the development of girl's and women's wellbeing and health, among other benefits has led to their increasing participation in games.
However, the accommodation of women and girls in games has not received much consideration as would be expected as there is extensive research that alludes to gender inequality in sports. According to Budd and Egea (2017) , the marketing and remuneration of different sporting personalities and events vary based on gender an aspect which should be non-existent in the context of gender and sports. For the study, the women's and men's United States' national football squads will undergo a review to establish how gender inequality is propagated in games.
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Men’s U.S. National Football Squad
History
The first international but unofficial match played by the men’s national football team was against Canada in 1885. This match laid precedence for the first official international game against Sweden played in Stockholm in 1916, where the United States emerged victorious scoring three goals and conceding two ( Alvariñas-Villaverde et al., 2017) . The team was later successful in the summer Olympics of 1984, a fit that earned the United States an opportunity to host the FIFA world cup finals in 1994. During the tournament, the team was more victorious as they passed the initial round. The other time the squad crossed the first series was way back in 1930.
Competitive Record
Some significant achievements of the team consist of the squad reaching the semi-finals in the 1930 World Cup FIFA finals and reaching the quarterfinals of the same tournament in 2002. The United States men’s squad has a track record in the Confederations Cup where they were runners-up in the 2009 competition while in 1999 and 1992, the team finished in the second runners-up position ( Anderson & Travers, 2017) . At the 2009 Confederations Cup, the United States men's football squad made their first appearance. It progressed to the semi-finals of the intercontinental tournament where they advanced to the finals after winning over Spain. The United States scored two goals in the finals of the Confederations Cup, making Brazil the champions with three goals. But it is the CONCACAF Gold Cup that the team has consistently taken home while in the Copa America, they managed to be the third runners-up in the 1995 and 2016 competitions.
FIFA Rankings
The current FIFA rankings place the United States men’s football squad at the 23 rd position while the CONCACAF rankings place it as the second-best. This positioning is as a result of their loss in a CONCACAF Nations League game against Canada ( Fasting, 2016) . However, Mexico which the best team in the league is 12 spots ahead of United States in the World FIFA Rankings. Canada, on the other hand, is holding the 69 th position a better place in comparison to its previous 75 th rank ( Fasting, 2016) . The move by Canada is the highest shift by any country ranked among the top 100 in the FIFA World Rankings.
U.S. Women’s National Football Squad
History
The United States women’s football squad played their first official match in 1985 against Italy and losing the game after conceding a goal. The team had a poor start in the Mundialito tournament as they lost the remaining matches as well. In 1988, FIFA introduced the FIFA World Championship for Women’s soccer, a global tournament that the women's team comfortably qualified for in 1991 ( Anderson & Travers, 2017) . Part of the qualification is due to their victory in the CONCACAF Women’s Championships held in Haiti. The team performed well in the group matches by winning all their games and proceeded to the quarterfinals where they trampled over Chinese Taipei. The team went and won the tournament in the finals that they played against Norway.
Competitive Record
In the 2003 FIFA World Cup Women’s tournament, the United States women’s team made it as far as the semi-finals and took home the first runners-up position. In 2007, the women’s side had less luck as they succumbed to Brazil in the semi-finals to take the fourth rank. The team has continuously won the Summer Olympics several times with an outstanding performance in the 2012 London Olympics where they broke the record scoring a total of sixteen goals winning every game in the tournament ( Carter, Burdsey, & Doidge, 2018) . Besides, the United States women’s football squad has become the first to win three consecutive women world cup titles.
FIFA Rankings
The United States women’s side has continuously held the first rank with Germany taking the second position in the FIFA rankings that were in enforcement as from 2003. Within the same year, Germany’s women soccer team became the winners of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and ranked number one followed by Brazil that made the second position. In 2009 it was Germany that made the first place while England became the second-best team in 2018 FIFA Rankings ( Carter et al., 2018) . Nevertheless, it is the United States women’s soccer team that prides in holding the first position for an extended period ending 2014.
Wages and Marketing of the Two Teams
Despite the United States women’s football side making tremendous milestones in the acquisition and retaining of different women’s titles in both major and minor sporting events, the team members still face challenges in the payments they receive. To bring awareness to the issue of gender inequality in American soccer, the squad took to court the United States Soccer Federation. Despite the team generating more revenue in comparison to their male counterparts, the women earn lower wages of between $25,000 and $85,000 per season while men double the figures ( Hambrick, 2017) . Consequently, the women's soccer side holds that the promotion of their games is not as effective in comparison to their counterparts' development of their games.
The United States women’s team is quickly becoming a brand as witnessed by their games generating nearly $50.8M as revenue in between 2016 and 2018 while the men’s side generated $49.9M within the same period. In media coverage, Univision and ESPN/ABC held the rights to TV coverage of the Women’s World Cup for five years while Telemundo and Fox Sports reserve the rights to media coverage as from 2015 to 2023 ( Hambrick, 2017) . Meanwhile, Fox Sports airs the women's CONCACAF matches while NBC airs their Olympic games. The men's side has their events televised by ESPN and Fox Sports as well as Univision which has rights to Spanish language broadcasts.
It is interesting to note that in 2016, the women’s side had a budget expenditure of US$6.295 M in comparison to the men’s US$7.769 M in the team expenses. However, their events cost the United States Soccer Federation, a whopping US$ 6.228 M for the women's game and US$ 2.24 M ( Hambrick, 2017) . According to Hambrick ( 2017), the national men's team had a total budget expenditure of US$ 10,820,957 against the women's US$ 5,432,058, which supports the women's argument of gender discrimination. The marketing budget is as such, even though the women's soccer side generated more income through marketing and sponsorship as well as appearances fees.
FIFA Video Games
Fédération Internationale de Football Association abbreviated FIFA has a series of video games that compete competitively in the gaming industry. Since its inception in the '80s, the games simulate male players with some of the world's best professional players like Christiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and their ilk as the main attraction ( Hambrick, 2017) . However, FIFA 2016 was the first video simulator that had female players together with their country teams. Therefore, in the debate on gender evolution in sports, football or soccer has overcome to a great extent, the discrimination displayed at different angles by including the women’s side in the marketing strategy.
Conclusion
The women's side has more appealing results compared to the male team. Moreover, their performance attracts more viewers as the income generated is as a consequence of ticket sales, and thus, they make more revenue. To drive the nail home, the women’s side has outstanding FIFA Rankings in comparison to the men’s team and a better competitive record regardless of the male squad existing for more than a century. Even though the female’s side seems to enjoy comprehensive media coverage, they appear in the electronic marketing strategy such as FIFA games which also include female players as from 2016. Therefore, the aspect of gender favoritism in American soccer requires more detailed research to derive any meaningful conclusions.
References
Alvariñas-Villaverde, M., López-Villar, C., Fernández-Villarino, M. A., & Alvarez-Esteban, R. (2017). Masculine, feminine and neutral sports: Extracurricular sport modalities in practice. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise , 12 (4), pp. 1278-1288.
Anderson, E., & Travers, A. (Eds.). (2017). Transgender athletes in competitive sport . Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. pp. 42-47.
Budd, S. C., & Egea, J. C. (2017). The Evolution of Sport in Society. In Sport and Oral Health . Cham: Springer. pp. 3-6.
Carter, T. F., Burdsey, D., & Doidge, M. (2018). Transforming Sport: Knowledge, Practices, Structures . Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 33-38.
Fasting, K. (2016). Breaking the gender stereotypes in sports. In Sport, Education and Social Policy . Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 25-38.
Hambrick, M. E. (2017). Sport communication research: A social network analysis. Sport Management Review , 20 (2). pp. 170-183.
