Sponsor offers 20,000 free tickets to Women's World Cup as New Zealand sales lag

are they surprised?

Seriously - here in New Zealand... people just don't care about soccer. I wouldn't go even I was given a free ticket.

I'll watch women's tennis sometimes, apart from that no thanks!

Bah! Bah! I see what ewe did there!

It will still be held before majority filled stadia across NZ and Australia. Good luck finding any tickets to the opening games or finals. 80,000 roaring fans booked in for Ireland v Australia at the Olympic stadium. I suspect this will be the most attended and hopefully best women's world cup ever!

Bring on July 20!

Bill Burr was right. People are not that interested in Women's Soccer or Women's Basketball.

As a result, we can clearly see from this article that the tickets have to be given away. Therefore, I don't believe there is a real problem with the salary that women are paid to play these sports.

We have to be realistic. If people are not paying to see these sports, naturally the salary / pay these women receive should be lower than that of Men's sports where people actually pay to see LIVE events.

*disclaimer I'm not against equal pay for equal work. However, the money should go to the people who bring it in. It's a sad reality for those who want more.

It's wet and cold in NZ right now, people may watch it on TV.

The rugby women's WC last year had consistently packed stadiums, with the semis/final totally full houses.

That being said, the standard of women's rugby especially amongst the top teams, I would say is considerably higher than football. The NZ football teams (both men/women) are pretty poor and nobody wants to watch low skilled athletes in any sport, especially in a country where that sport is not popular anyway.

Please bear in mind that the difference in payment between males and females soccer players is used very often by feminist groups to claim gender pay gaps. They do this by fully ignoring the lack of interest in women's soccer, generating far less net income for the organizers.

Bill Burr was right. People are not that interested in Women's Soccer or Women's Basketball.

New Zealanders are not that interested in soccer - men's or women's. They're a rugby nation

In the US though, people are interested in women's soccer** and basketball - that's why they have winning teams

[** Often outdrawing even their men's. But that's not too surprising - their women's teams are multi-champions, while their men's teams are not]

Bill Burr was right. People are not that interested in Women's Soccer or Women's Basketball.

Never heard of this Bill Burr individual - but I can tell you he is wrong. People are massively interested in women's football. If he wishes to exclusively watch men run around and not women, that's his personal preference. I'm going to assume he does not have girls.

As of one month ago they had sold over 1 million tickets to the world cup. It is on track to become the biggest standalone women's sports event in history - eclipsing France '19.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jun/08/womens-world-cup-2023-set-to-break-attendance-record

Bring on July 20!

After the noisy and boastful US women's team was beaten 12-0 by a retired bunch of small-town players in the UK, who were hardly trying: the level of women's sport took a big hit, along with the re-publicising of Serena Williams being beaten by 203rd ranked man, Karsten Braasch

.

@ Wanderlust - well, enjoy watching only men run around.

Millions of us are able to enjoy both women and men's sport. The women playing in this world cup are also fantastic role models for our girls and tend not to have the prima-donnas of a few of the superstar mens players.

As the political left does, they try to make one side look like the victim thus the supposed wage/salary discrepancy between male and female athletes of virtually any sport.

The hard truth is more people prefer to watch men's sports vs women's sports. That is the bottom line.

And so because of that, comes greater revenue for the men's sports. It really is that simple.

It's like saying minor league baseball players should get the same wages as major league baseball players because they put out the same effort. Welp, the audience size and sponsorship dictate otherwise.

Really empowering....

Yet they want equal salary and yet have to give away tickets to save the embarrassing empty spaces in the stadium for a world cup.

Redtail Swift

If we were talking about poor sales for even the big games you would have a point. Don't forget sales to the big games are strong. Opening game, Australia vs Ireland sold had to be moved from a 40k stadium to an 80k and it still sold out....

And while we can't compare Mens to womens soccer, probably never will But I am pretty sure if NZ had the mens WC you would struggle to sell tickets to non NZ, non competative matches. Look at Qatar, they paid fans to go to games.....

Same thing happens with other sports as well. You play a WC in a non stronghold country, some games are going to be pretty empty. Same thing happened in Japan with the Rugby WC. They couldn't give away tickets to some of the games. But that's missing part of the point of a WC, it's a tool to grow the sport in new markets.

Let's just hope the womens WC isn't as corrupt as the mens.....

And this is why there is a discrepancy in wages between men's and women's soccer. It's simply about demand and which brings in more revenue. Nothing beyond that.

I'm going to watch it though as I always do. Nadeshiko back in 2011 were brilliant. I remember being in awe over how well they played.

LOL, wow a lot of guys like to take shots at women's sports articles.

NZ wasn't really the best choice, cold weather & the Super Rugby event. But, I'm looking forward to another USA vs Japan match.