A friend of mine posted a photo of a McDonald’s menu board from 1974 on social media with a wistful, “I remember those days.”
McDonald’s 1974
I immediately thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to get a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, fries, and a soda at McDonald’s for $1.31?”
Well, that was nearly 50 years ago.
And that $1.31 in 1974 is equivalent to $8.41 in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI inflation calculator.
The cost of a QPC meal now is $7.99, according to the website FastFoodPrice.
So, I was surprised that I would actually pay 5% less for lunch now (adjusting for inflation) than I would have in 1974.
Those calculations got me wondering: If the cost of lunch is less now, how does that compare with what McDonald’s paid its workers in 1974?
In 1974, the federal minimum wage was $2 an hour. The $1.31 cost for the QPC meal represented about 40 minutes of work at that rate.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. The $7.99 cost for the QPC meal represents about 66 minutes of work at that rate.
For me, the issue is not that lunch at McDonald’s costs more. It doesn’t. It actually costs less. For me, the real issue is that the buying power of the minimum wage workers who serve that lunch has tanked.
If the 2023 minimum wage were equivalent to the 1974 minimum wage, it would be $12.84. Reverse engineer those the minimum wage numbers, and the equivalent of a $7.25 minimum wage in 2023 would be $1.13 in 1974.
That made me rethink my initial reaction.
Perhaps our nostalgia shouldn’t be directed at the price of lunch at McDonald’s, but for the much more robust purchasing power a $2 minimum wage afforded workers at the time.
Who’s the best free throw shooter in professional basketball?
Delle Donne
Steph Curry?
Nope.
It’s Elena Delle Donne — by a lot.
The Washington Mystics forward has a career shooting percentage of 93.7%, far ahead of Golden State Warrior guard Stephen Curry, the NBA’s all-time leader at 90.6%.
In fact, three of the four best free throw shooters among active professional basketball players play in the WNBA. Kayla McBride, and Tiffany Mitchell rank above the NBA’s number two active free throw shooter, Portland shooting guard Damian Lillard.
Following are the top ten …
Automatic
1
Ellena Delle Donne
Washington
93.69%
2
Stephen Curry
Golden State
90.69%
3
Kayla McBride
Minnesota
89.82%
4
Tiffany Mitchell
Indiana
89.46%
5
Damian Lillard
Portland
89.33%
6
Allie Quigley
Chicago
89.28%
7
Jewell Lloyd
Seattle
88.41%
8
Kevin Durant
Brooklyn
88.30%
9
Kyrie Irving
Brooklyn
88.08%
10
Kristi Tolliver
Los Angeles
87.96%
Top 10 active free throw shooters. Source: NBA and WNBA record books.
I’ve met several men who believe their success in coaching women’s teams is because of their unique understanding of female athletes.
It’s utter bullshit.
What makes coaches of female athletes successful?
The same thing that makes coaches of male athletes successful.
Sarina Wiegman/FIFA
Take, as an example, Sarina Wiegman, the manager of England’s national women’s soccer team. Less than a year after she arrived, England won the 2022 UEFA championship, their first major international trophy in 56 years. It was the second Euros trophy in a row for Wiegman, who managed her native Netherlands to the 2017 title.
What’s her secret?
“She is a special person and puts us first as human beings,” said Leah Williamson, the England defender and team captain.
That assessment sharply contrasts with descriptions of despicable coaches/predators women have had to endure in the National Women’s Soccer League, where a damning 371-page report this week by former U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates documented rampant and persistent sexual assault and abuse of players perpetrated by male coaches and covered up by league executives.
The report is horrifying not just in the details of the sexual predation and abuse, but also in the cavalier attitude by league officials, team owners, coaches, and managers.
“Our investigation has revealed a league in which abuse and misconduct—verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct—had become systemic, spanning multiple teams, coaches, and victims. Abuse in the NWSL is rooted in a deeper culture in women’s soccer, beginning in youth leagues, that normalizes verbally abusive coaching and blurs boundaries between coaches and players. The verbal and emotional abuse players describe in the NWSL is not merely “tough” coaching,” Yates wrote.
“In well over 200 interviews, we heard report after report of relentless, degrading tirades; manipulation that was about power, not improving performance; and retaliation against those who attempted to come forward. Even more disturbing were the stories of sexual misconduct. Players described a pattern of sexually charged comments, unwanted sexual advances and sexual touching, and coercive sexual intercourse.”
The fall out from the report has been tepid — even with the Portland Thorns, where the reported documented multiple and repeated offenses by owners, executives and coaches.
Thorns owner Merritt Paulson said in a statement he was stepping away from a decision making role but did not say he would sell the team. \
The report shows Paulson protected former Thorns coach Paul Riley after two Thorns players complained of harassment and sexual coercion. Riley’s contract was not renewed, without explanation, but Thorns executives vouched for Riley with he Western New York Flash. General Manager Gavin Wilkinson told a Flash executive “he felt Paul ‘was put in a bad position by (a) player’ and he ‘would hire him in a heartbeat.’”
The reported also documented abuses by Thorns president Mike Golub, who asked Thorns Coach Cindy Parlow Cone, a national team star who led the Thorns to an NWSL championship, “What’s on your bucket list besides sleeping with me?”
The Thorns declined to make Golub available for an interview with Yates and generally tried to obstruct the investigation.
The NWSL’s response has been to issue a statement and refer to its own internal investigation, which is not yet public. So far, no one has been fired; no owner barred from the league.
“As the League continues to evaluate the Yates report, I want to assure you that we remain committed to implementing reform and disciplinary action,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in a written response to the report.
It’s not enough.
In the end, women sports must turn to coaches like Wiegman, who see female athletes not as women but as human beings.
Still, I was transfixed by the US Open and the farewell to Serena Williams.
Serena Williams sending love to the US Open crowd. Photo credit: US Open
I could have done without the Oprah voice-over tribute (though I loved the hype video with Queen Latifah) as well as some of the cheesy post-match, on-court interviews/toasts/statements.
But, my, Serena did sparkle.
She has completely co-opted what Billie Jean King once characterized as one of the “good clothes sports” — tennis, golf, skating — where female athletes were encouraged to compete. Her flowing black entry cape and her tennis/evening wear court apparel were perfect for her primetime turn at sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium.
More captivating, underneath all of that high style, was the pure, once-in-a-generation athletic greatness.
Williams, 40, had played only a few matches in total the previous year. She was thick and strong and confident. Her shot-making was brilliant. She was resilient; remarkable. Every shot drew the crowd’s applause.
She came in unseeded and cruised in her first-round match 6-3, 6-3. She stepped up in the next round as a clear underdog against World #2 Anett Kontaveit, who was three when Williams won her first US Open title. Williams provided an epic coda to her career with a two-and-half-hour exhibition of guts and glamor, winning narrowly 7-6, 2-6, 6-2. Williams would lose in a three-hour, three-set, third-round thriller.
Some suggest that had she not played doubles with her sister, Venus Williams, between her second- and third-round singles matches, she might have had a shot at a 24h Grand Slam singles title.
She brooked no such talk. In her farewell, it was important for her to honor a legacy that is completely intertwined, she said. “Without Venus, there would be no Serena.”
Ahead of the Open, in (another) cover story for Vogue magazine, Williams said she will “evolve away from tennis.” She said it was a transition rather than a retirement, which seems wise for a 40-year-old who’s at the midpoint of her life.
At her post-match news conference, Williams was less definitive. Asked if this is definitely her last tournament, she smiled. “Yeah, I’ve been pretty vague about it, right?” she said. “I’m going to stay vague because you never know.”
Whether she returns or not, her turn at the US Open leaves no doubt about her legendary status as the greatest women’s tennis player of all time.
Maybe the best thing about Heaven Fitch is her flex.
Fitch won the 106-pound division of the North Carolina 1A high school wrestling championships. In a bracket with seven boys, Fitch made history as the first girl to win an individual state wrestling title. She was named the meet’s outstanding wrestler. “It’s, like, insane what I’ve done. It’s not fully sunken in yet,” Fitch, a junior with a 54-4 season record at Uwharrie Charter Academy, told WRAL-TV in Raleigh.
Fitch won the title with an incredible reversal in the final seconds of the match and celebrated with a mighty flex to demonstrate her domination, as any champion would.
But Fitch’s personal accomplishment resonates in a much more profound way.
It is yet another bit of evidence that demonstrates women can (and probably should) compete against men. Wrestling is a great example because of its weight classes, which acknowledge that smaller wrestlers can’t fairly compete with bigger wrestlers. Wrestling by weight classifications means technique and mentality, the real hallmarks of good wrestling, become just as important as strength.
Fitch showed that a female not only compete on a level playing field with males, but can excel in a way that can’t be denied or diminished or dismissed because of her gender.
In the effort to subjugate women as athletes, many people (usually men) like to argue that nobody watches women’s sports.
Sold-out Matthew Knight Arena, Eugene, Ore. Photo: Oregonlive.com
It’s not true.
We could talk soccer or tennis or gymnastics, but let me use the past week or so in women’s basketball as an example.
On Monday of last week, 13,163 fans packed Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, SC, to watch No. 1 South Carolina edge No. 9 Mississippi State, 81-79. And that wasn’t the biggest crowd of the week. On Thursday, 13,659 showed out at the XL Center in Hartford to watch No. 3 UConn drop a close one to No. 23 Tennessee, 63-58. The same night, at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville, 7,756 paid to see No. 5 Louisville beat unranked University of Virginia, 71-56, and then, on Sunday, another 11,624 saw the Cardinals rip Pitt, 83-49.
Over the weekend, women’s games drew tens of thousands of fans.
In Spokane, No. 13 Gonzaga ran away from Loyola Marymount, 78-52, in front of 6,000 people at a sold-out McCarthey Athletic Center.
In Knoxville, 10,230 showed up at Thompson-Boling Arena to see Tennessee defeat the No. 14 LSU Tigers.
In Tucson, a rowdy crowd of 10,160 saw No. 18 University of Arizona defeat its in-state rival, No. 16 Arizona State University.
In Eugene, No. 4 Oregon sold out 12,364- seat Matthew Knight Arena for a rivalry game against No. 7 Oregon State. Oregon won 76-64
Two nights later, 50 miles away in Corvallis, the Beavers drew a near capacity 9,301 fans to Gill Coliseum for a rematch with the Ducks, who won again, 66-57.
Two nights ago, 13,919 turned up at XL Center in Hartford to see the US Women’s national team fend off UConn, 79-64, with a fourth-quarter surge.
To sum up: eight days; ten games; 108,176 tickets sold.
Get the point?
It’s simply not true that the public isn’t interested in watching female athletes.
The myth is propagated by TV networks, especially ESPN and Fox, who invest so little in broadcasting female athletes.
Let me use my alma mater to illustrate the point. At 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon, the No. 4 Oregon women played No. 7 Oregon State in Corvallis in a back-and-forth contest that was heightened by likely player of the year Sabrina Ionescu’s friendship with Kobe Bryant. The game was broadcast on ESPN2, although ironically the first half was bumped to the ESPN app because of the news of Bryant’s death. Meanwhile, at 2 p.m. Fox TV aired the No. 14 Oregon men hosting a mediocre UCLA team in a snooze fest that was over by halftime.
I watched both. The women’s game was far more compelling. Hands down.
By the way, the Oregon women have been outdrawing the men at home, averaging 10,363 fans at the Matt compared with an average of 7,502 for men’s games.
One last point about the networks:
From Tuesday of this week to Monday of next, 125 mens basketball games will be televised; 45 of them on Saturday alone, including primetime gems like UMass (8-12) at Davidson (10-9). CBS will carry three games and Fox will carry one. Another 19 games will air on ESPN or FS1. The others will air on subESPN channels or regional broadcasters like BTN or the Pac12 Network.
Compare that with the 41 women’s games that will air the entire week. ESPN and FS1 will air three of those games. None of the major networks will carry a women’s game.
It seems the lack of interest isn’t in fans who choose to buy tickets and attend games, but in network executives (almost entirely men) who fail to recognize the untapped potential that exists in women’s sports.
So, I really want to be happy about the new collective bargaining agreement the WNBA players signed this week. It’s so much better than the previous agreement, yet it falls short in several critical areas.
WNBA players union president Nneka Ogwumike, a star forward for the LA Sparks.
Good Morning America reported a “landmark deal” that for the first time in WNBA history athlete establishes a six-figure minimum salary for all players and allows the league’s top players to earn up to half a million dollars. It also includes paid maternity leave and a provision that players don’t have to share hotel rooms on road trips. Players association president Nneka Ogwumike and WNBA boss Cathy Engelbert disclosed the eight-year deal in an interview with GMA host Robin Roberts. “We’re hoping to lift, not just women in sports and women in basketball, but women in society,” Engelbert said. Ogwumike said she hoped the deal would “set the tone” for women in other professional sports leagues.
Let’s break this down a bit.
The new WNBA maximum salary is less the NBA minimum salary. And the salary cap for each WNBA team is less than the salary for three out of four NBA players. With half of what the LA Lakers pay LeBron James, the WNBA could pay the salary of every player in its league.
And while the women now don’t have to share hotel rooms, the league still won’t allow teams to use charter flights for travel because it would be too onerous on the finances of some of the teams. It did, however, guarantee that the players would have premium economy seating on commercial flights, providing an extra five to seven inches of leg room.
Much has been made of the maternity leave. Too much, I think. The federal government requires family leave and many employers provide pay during the leave. It makes me wonder if the parent NBA offers paid leave for new fathers in its league.
The deal is also for eight years. That is an extraordinarily long time for a collective bargaining agreement, especially given the soaring popularity of women’s athletics. It might not be as short-sighted as short-selling Tesla stock, but the deal will outlive almost every player now in the league.
I guess what bothers me more than the details of the deal is the gee-golly-whiz way the giddy media is covering the deal, applying breathless adjectives like historic, ground-breaking and unprecedented.
The coverage has been great PR for the WNBA, but the league has underpaid and undervalued these athletes for a long time. In reality the salaries may have increased 53% but they still can’t compete with what women are able earn by playing overseas. And it’s a good bet most of them will continues to play in other parts of the world.
It’s not my hope that this deal sets the tone for women athletes (Sorry, Nneka). My “hope” is that the courts take up the lawsuit against the US Soccer and forces it to compensate the women’s National Soccer Team equally with the men’s soccer team. That would be a real “lift” to women in sports and society.
Carli Lloyd, one of the best players in the history of U.S. women’s soccer showed up this week at a practice for the NFL Philadelphia Eagles and almost on a lark booted a 55-yard field goal.
Lloyd kicked a 55-yard FG at an NFL pre-season practice between the Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens.
The feat lit up the Twitterverse, made headlines and had a run through two full news cycles on ESPN. The tone of the reaction was almost entirely surprise, although anyone who follows the US Women’s National Team would hardly be shocked by Lloyd’s leg strength. In the 2015 World Cup final against Japan, she scored the third of her three goals from beyond midfield. (Watch the video: https://youtu.be/mBosyOJ3PIY)
But Lloyd’s practice kick, in a more serious vein, showed that the NFL may be moving closer to gender desegregation.
“Honestly, I don’t think it
will be long before we see a woman break through this NFL barrier,”
tweeted Gil Brandt, an NFL hall of famer and the Dallas Cowboys’ vice president
of player personnel from 1960 to 1988. “I’d give her an honest tryout, if I were, say, the Bears.”
The Chicago Bears
experience with kicker Cody Parkey in 2018 was a disaster, including the
notorious “double-doink,” when a potential
game-winner from 43 yards out was tipped at the line, then hit the left upright
and the crossbar. The Bears lost that wild-card game 16-15 to the Eagles. The
Bears released Parkey in the spring. This pre-season, they’ve looked at nine
kickers — six rookies, three free agents.
Lloyd caught the eye of current NFL team managers, but was ambivalent about a career change.
“I’ve definitely got some inquiries, I’ve definitely got some people talking,” Lloyd told SI TV’s Planet Futbol TV. “Anything is possible but right now, I’m strictly a soccer player and we’ll see what the future holds.”
But are the rewards worth the risk?
As a rookie kicker, she would likely make the league minimum salary of $495,000. That would be a lateral move financially for Lloyd.
In 2017, she reportedly earned $400,000 after signing a
three-month contract with Manchester City in the English Premiere League
women’s division. After her EPL stint, she rejoined the Houston Dash in the National
Women’s Soccer League, where the maximum salary was about $40,000. She was also
on the roster of the USWNT for sixteen matches.
This year, playing for the national team in its run to the a
second straight World Cup in France, Lloyd stands to make $260,000. (Of course, if the women
received the same pay as the men’s national players, Lloyd’s compensation would
have topped $1 million).
The cost to her reputation might be more dear.
To step up as the first woman to play in the NFL she would bring
notoriety, but not necessarily in the same way as Jackie Robinson breaking the
color barrier in Major League Baseball. Maybe more in the way of Bill Veeck
signing Eddy Gaedel to the Chicago White Sox.
It would follow her everywhere.
It would be in the first sentence of her obituary.
It would likely overshadow her accomplishments on the soccer
pitch, where she has won two Olympic gold medals (and potentially a third in
2020 if she remains with the USWNT), two World Cups, the golden boot and the
golden ball awards as the leading scorer and best player in the 2015 World Cup,
and was named FIFA Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016.
At 37 years old, Lloyd has already established her superstar
credentials. She has nothing left to prove. Risking her stellar credentials for
a cameo in the NFL seems like the wrong
choice.
