I saw somebody complaining on Facebook about the prize money, I chose not respond because it wouldn't be able to fully justify it as I will here.
Quote:
The total prize money offered by FIFA for the tournament was US$15 million, which represents 2.6% of the total prize money for the 2014 Men's World Cup ($576 million).
The winning team, United States, received $2 million, representing 5.7% of the amount received by Germany for winning the 2014 Men's World Cup ($35 million).
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Massive and ugly looking disparity but even without knowing all the exact numbers it can be justified. I guess the first thing to mention is that it was 24 teams in WWC vs 32 in the men's, so adjusted for that the total women's pot is more like ~$20M, still some 3.4% of the men's total.
2014 total attendance = 3,429,873 (64 matches)
2015 WWC attendance = 1,353,506 (52 matches, 60% of men's total)
2014 attendance per match = 53,592 per match
2015 attendance per match = 26,029 per match (49% of men's total)
These raw attendance numbers are fantastic for WWC especially considering the tournament was not optimized for max attendance by the inclusion of weak venues in the form of Edmonton, Moncton, and Montreal. Had this cup been played in the US it would have averaged well over 40k for a total of draw of over 2M. Impressive, no doubt.
Of some value is the fact that WWC reported ticket sales were skewed by doubleheaders, but that's negligible when you consider the average ticket price which is where WWC starts to get sunk in terms of revenues. Something way over $1,000 was the average for the men's cup ($7,000 for the final), while tickets were being sold for $5 at one point in Moncton, and the average for the tournament I'll optimistically guess to be $75.
Rough estimate for '14 cup ticket revenue: $3,429,873,000
Rough estimate for WWC ticket revenue: $101,512,950 (~3% of men's total)
Then TV audience. An extremely optimistic estimate would put worldwide viewership of the final at 100 million (more realistically was 70-80 million) which is about 10% of the estimated audience for the '14 final of 900 million.
Can the women getting 3% of the men's total be justified? Yes, almost entirely, given that the tournament is less than 3% the revenue. Good news is that the pot will probably at least double for the next cup as it did for this one; WWC money is sort of "1 cup behind" in that the '19 Cup and its TV deals will be based on the higher than anticipated numbers that this '15 Cup got. I guess what's left to say is that such little prize money is a missed opportunity to grow women's football in the lesser countries leading to better competition and subsequently higher revenues at future cups, but such thinking is too advanced for the corrupt minds at FIFA.
TL;DR: based on revenues, the women's pot is correctly sized, but FIFA has missed an opportunity to grow women's football outside of the powerhouse countries.
