The U.S. National Soccer Team Versus Misogyny

Unless you’ve been living under some sort of unpatriotic rock, you’ve probably heard that the badass women of the U.S. National Team won the World Cup yesterday. They beat the Netherlands 2-0 in the final game in France to bring home the trophy. And yes, I didn’t call them the “U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team” in the headline of this piece, because honestly it’s the men’s team who should carry the distinction at this point. The women have earned the default status.

As the team continued to dominate throughout the tournament, renewed media attention has turned to the players’ fight for equality. In March, all 23 women of the U.S. National Team filed a lawsuit alleging they have been denied equal pay, training and travel conditions, and game promotion compared to the men. And every time I see another headline or hear another statistic about it, it drives me crazy that we even have to have the discussion.

Lets look at some of those statistics, shall we? First of all, the USWNT has now won four World Cup titles. That is half – half! – of all the women’s World Cups in existence. The men have never won. Ever. They didn’t even qualify for the 2018 tournament, and haven’t made it past the quarterfinals since 1930. Meanwhile, in the opening match of this year’s World Cup, the U.S. women scored an unimaginable 13 goals against Thailand – more goals than any team has scored in a single game in the history of the World Cup. It also happens to be more goals than the U.S. men have scored in every World Cup since 2006 combined.

The record breaking doesn’t end there. This year’s USWNT is tied for most total goals ever scored in a World Cup tournament. The U.S. women aren’t just better than the men. They are SO much better that it is honestly ridiculous. Forget equal pay – they should be earning even more.

And it’s not like America hasn’t been paying attention. The 2015 World Cup final, which saw the U.S. triumph over Japan, still holds the record for the most viewers of a soccer match – men’s OR women’s – with 25.4 million Americans glued to the screen. And twenty years ago, their 1999 victory over China created one of the most iconic images in women’s sports after Brandi Chastain scored the winning penalty kick.

This year’s tournament also brought in huge viewing numbers – FIFA expected to reach one billion worldwide viewers by the end of yesterday’s final. The semifinal between the U.S. and England brought in 9 million viewers on Fox and its streaming platforms. We don’t have the U.S. viewing figures for the game yet, but they promise to be significant. Plus, those numbers won’t even take into account all the people who watched on the same screen, like this watch party under the Dumbo Archway in Brooklyn.

Now, even with all the above, soccer officials will tell you that it’s all about business. Yes, the women are amazing, but everything is tied to profits! There’s nothing we can do about it! Sorry, but that argument falls flat as well. In the three years since America won the 2015 World Cup, U.S. women’s games generated more revenue than the men. In 2016, they did so by a margin of $1.9 million.

The next logical conclusion for skeptics reading this piece is bound to be “Okay but how bad can it be? How much are they really being underpaid?” Well buckle up. For the 2019 World Cup, FIFA increased the total prize money to $30 million. That is only 7% of the $400 million the various men’s teams received in last year’s cup. According to the Guardian, the U.S. women can expect to take home $200,000 each for winning the World Cup. If the men won (which, again, they never have), they would each receive over $1 million. In fact, when the U.S. men finished 11th in the 2014 World Cup, the team took home four times the amount of money the women received for winning the World Cup one year later.

It’s not just about this tournament, though. In a 2016 interview on the Daily Show, the U.S. women reported they are paid a bonus of around $1,300 for winning a regular season match. They say the men get around $17,000, or $5,000 if they lose. If the women lose, they get nothing at all. When it comes to their base salary, women make $1,400 less than the men per game – that’s a total deficit of nearly $30,000 in a theoretical 20 game season.

In short, the U.S. Women’s National Team has endured a whole lot of sexism – I’m not even going to go into the “controversy” over Alex Morgan’s brilliant, clever, and completely harmless tea celebration after scoring against England. Like I said at the beginning, these women are badass and deserve to be treated as such by their organization. For the rest of us – lets try to support women’s soccer more than every four years, okay? These players are going back to their professional club teams now. Go to a game if you can. Watch the magic in person. I know it’s on the top of my list.

(Image courtesy @alexmorgan13)