04/23/24
December 15, 2015
U.S. Women's Soccer Wants a Level Playing Field: The World Cup-champion U.S. Women's National Team has been fighting to stop being asked to play on artificial turf -- something that never happens to the men's team. They cancelled a friendly in Honolulu shortly after player Megan Rapinoe tore her ACL on a terrible practice field when they discovered the playing surface was abysmal. The team wrote in an open letter, "We have become so accustomed to playing on whatever surface is put in front of us. But we need to realize that our protection -- our safety -- is priority No. 1. At the end of the day, we expect to be treated equally as our male counterparts. And we hope that, in the future, our fields and our venues will be chosen and inspected at the standard of an international match whether it's men or women playing on the field."
This is perhaps a case where the men's revenues should subsidize the women's team because losing players like Rapinoe is going to cost much more. Another big negative for Gulati!
posted by billsaysthis at 12:45 PM on December 17, 2015
Hang Up and Listen had a good segment on this last week.