Soccer phenom Hope Solo is an outspoken advocate for the gender pay gap in sports. Along with her U.S. Soccer teammates she is advocating for equal pay in the league. Cheddar's Hope King spoke with the athlete about challenges facing women in sports, and how she is inspiring the next generation.
"Being the best in the world--the best soccer player in the world in my position--I still wasn't making a good enough living so I had to supplement my income," says Solo. "When you're the best in the world as a female I still am forced to make these choices that I don't want to have to make. It's a serious issue that present day athletes are facing every single day."
The gender pay gap in professional soccer is staggering. In 2016 male players won about $390,000 in bonuses for winning the World Cup, compared to $75,000 for female players according to a study by The New York Times.
"We have progressed, but at some point when it's simply not equal we can't keep talking about well it's better. Because better is not good enough," said Solo.
Fintech companies are taking notice of the rapid growth in esports, and Quicken Loans has partnered with 100 Thieves, a League of Legends expansion team. Quicken CMO Casey Hurbis said this venture opened the company's eyes to the endless possibilities of esports and its personalities.
The Twitter Esports Business Summit ran from Oct. 1-3, and it held its focus on the growing market of esports and how Twitter fits into the business. Rishi Chadha, head of gaming content partnerships at Twitter, said the company is focusing on the communities that foster players and fans, as well as publishers and developers of different platforms.
The team became the first in the NBA to introduce GIFs for the Facebook platform. Sandro Gasparro, director of social media for the Los Angeles Clippers, told Cheddar it's not just another way to promote engagement, but can also connect fans to players on a more personal level.
Ralf Reichert, CEO of ESL, sat down with Cheddar at this weekend's tournament at the Barclays Center and talked about the esports world and what he believes is needed for the enterprise to grow.
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Ron Darling, a former MLB starting pitcher and current TBS baseball analyst, said the easiest way to attract younger people to baseball is to get more kids playing it when they're kids. Darling said there are more children opting out of football due to concerns about head injuries, and those athletes should be primed to take up a different sport.
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18Birdies has seen success as a one-stop shop for golfers, both amateur and pro, gaining 1.3 million members since its launch. The app lets players book tee times, navigate a new course, and choose the right club. But CEO Eddy Lui says the main goal is to create a community ー a social network ー of golfers.
The blockchain has made its way into a slew of industries. Next at bat ー the sports world. The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving away from traditional promotions and have begun using crypto tokens to give away digital bobbleheads to fans. Ralph Esquibel, VP of information technology for the team, said this is the first giveaway of its kind and could lead to more experiments with cryptocurrencies.
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