Orlando Pride’s commitment to equality draws superstars
Twelve hours after arriving in the United States, Marta Vieira da Silva sat in front of a room full of reporters.
A soccer legend and icon known by her first name, Marta is the only athlete in the sport — male or female — to be named FIFA World Player of the Year five times. She could have played for any team in the world. Why come to Orlando? Without hesitation she said in Portuguese: “Orlando showed it has the same intent for its women’s team as it does for the men’s team.”
The Pride’s most recognizable names — Marta, U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris, defender Ali Krieger — all said Orlando City Soccer Club’s commitment to treating its men’s and women’s professional teams equally is one of the main reasons they signed with the team and will be wearing purple today in what they hope is a sold-out home
opener against the Washington Spirit. The match will be played in the same new stadium the club’s Major League Soccer team, Orlando City, calls home.
“We take it very serious,” Orlando City SC majority owner Flavio Augusto da Silva said of owning a National Women’s Soccer League team. “We see a huge, huge potential for this sport and this league nationwide. We believe it’s going to grow very fast. We are investing in this and we also want to take this opportunity to develop women’s soccer locally in Orlando.”
The women’s team has access to the same equipment, food and services as the men and receive similar marketing and promotion.
On each banner lining the streets of downtown Orlando, Krieger’s face beams alongside men’s star Kaká. They share the same locker room in the stadium, which is flipped to accommodate whichever team is playing at home on any given night.
There still is room for improvement, such as a permanent training ground for the women, a developmental academy similar to the men’s and more, but the club’s commitment means something to the Pride players at a time when women in sports are pushing back against what they see as a disparity in wages, working conditions and a variety of other issues.
Krieger, Harris and Alex Morgan, who will return to the Pride in July after a stint overseas, were part of the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s fight for wages that matched compensation for the men’s team. They reached a new deal with U.S. Soccer earlier this month after a year-long battle.
A new, five-year collective bargaining agreement was ratified April 5, providing higher wages and bonuses, investment in development, a commitment to improved travel and standards in the National Women’s Soccer League, per diems equal to the men’s team and players association control over certain sponsorship categories, among other items.
“We’re pushing the boundaries,” Harris said. “We’re continuing to be heard and be respected in our profession, and this is a good step forward.
“I think we’ve taken a back seat for a long time, and I think we’ve been a little complacent, and I think it takes one person to make a stand and a commitment to use their voice and everyone begins to support it.”
The fight is nothing new, and it’s definitely not singular to sports. Tennis icon Billie Jean King campaigned for equal rights in the 1970s, and as a result, tennis is one of the leaders in gender equality, with many major tournaments offering equal purses to the men’s and women’s champions.
Now, there seems to be a broader change happening.
Recently, U.S. women’s hockey threatened to boycott the world championship for similar reasons. The federation eventually met the players’ demands and they went on to win their seventh title in nine years April 8.
Ireland’s national women’s soccer team also is speaking up about a lack of support, with some saying players have lost money competing for their country. Why now? “I think women have been asking these questions for a long time,” said Alison Wrynn, a sports historian and kinesiology professor at California State University who has co-authored multiple reports on gender equity in Olympic games.
“In sports, women are playing the same thing on the same field and they’re getting paid less. I don’t know whether you’re just sort of fed up at a certain point, or maybe you feel you have the capital at a certain point to start demanding changes.”
Wrynn added professional athletes now were born in a time when women's high school sports teams, college scholarships and national teams always existed, far removed from the Title IX era that afforded them those opportunities.
“Other women have asked these questions before, but this is a generation that has had these opportunities in front of them and they’re just wondering, ‘Why can’t we finally get there?’ ” she said. “‘Why do we make these compromises continually, the women playing on artificial turf in Canada for the World Cup when that would not have ever been considered for the men?’ There’s been a shift for the women who have always lived this way and they’re not standing for mediocrity anymore.
“It’s not a natural progression, women have had to fight very, very hard and some women have had to sacrifice to get to this place.”
Wrynn also cited research by Purdue University’s Cheryl Cooky and the University of Southern California’s Michael Messner, which showed women's sports got 1.4 percent of airtime on ESPN’s SportsCenter in 2010, a drop from previous years, and similarly low percentages on other networks.
The Orlando Pride’s Tom Sermanni has coached women’s teams for more than 20 years and recalled when he started with Australian women back in 1994, it was the first time the players didn’t have to pay to play for their country.
The movement happening in the United States also seems to coincide with a political shift, with players such as Harris citing Hillary Clinton’s rise in politics and large corporations such as Audi coming out in support of equal pay.
“People are demanding now a little bit more respect for what they’re doing,” Krieger said. “Across all industries, we need to continue that fight, inspire each other and motivate each other to get everybody on board and support. We just want success and we want respect. Equal pay for equal play is ideal, and we’re going to change the game.”
Female players around the world are watching and hoping the change persists.
Marta said the women’s soccer in the U.S. was always a symbol of the best in the world, and now it’s a symbol for more.
“This movement that’s happening here in the U.S. is also a reference [point],” she said. “And which athlete wouldn’t like to be part of that and play their sport in such an environment?”