The women's national soccer team, after a lawsuit lasting six years, won a contract where they make as much as the men's team. About time. This coming at a time where the medal-winning women's team made far less than the also-ran men's team. Nice piece by Sally Jenkins in the WAPO:
Money is respect. For too long, a U.S. women’s soccer player opened a paycheck that told her she was cut-rate merchandise and that her gold medals were cheap.
Finally, the U.S. women’s national team members will be properly valued as the national treasures they are. The new “identical compensation” deal for the U.S. soccer teams — negotiated in mutual agreement with their male counterparts — will pay the women equal salaries and World Cup bonuses. It’s a revolutionary deal, and that’s only fitting because it took a revolt to get here. Don’t ever forget how hard it was to win such a basic contract.
It took 25 years, strikes and work stoppages, and a rebellious, siege-like lawsuit — all to win simple, fair fiscal recognition of an unprecedentedly achieving women’s squad, winner of four World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals, which has blown the door open to a fresh worldwide audience that pours new dollars into old suit pockets. No more devaluing pittances of 38 cents on the dollar for women who win trophies while men make exponentially more for losing in the group stage.
U.S. women’s and men’s national soccer teams close pay gap with ‘game-changing’ deal
No more paychecks that read like personal insults from their intransigent federation. In 1996, the women’s Olympic gold medal team “made about $10 a day,” Julie Foudy recalled. When players asked for bonuses, a soccer official told them, “Don’t be greedy,” and suggested they should be happy they got a jersey that said “USA” on it.
Three years later, they packed the Rose Bowl and beat China to win the 1999 World Cup — and believed they were entitled to a modest raise, especially after the federation signed a $120 million deal with Nike. So, going into the 2000 Olympics, the women asked for $5,000 per month, up from $3,150. The federation balked. When Foudy and Mia Hamm rallied the team to stage a strike, one soccer official said dismissively, “They’re currently unemployed.” Only when the women threatened to skip the entire Olympics did they win their measly raise. “They have essentially ignored our successes over the past three years — including a World Cup win and an Olympic gold medal,” team captain Carla Overbeck said then.
By 2015, the Women’s World Cup final was the most-watched soccer game ever on a U.S. network, men’s or women’s — more Americans watched it than the NBA Finals — and it spurred a $20 million boost in revenue for the federation. Yet the federation was still dealing out petty fiscal insults. It gave the women just $60 per day in meal allowance while paying the men $75. This time, when the women complained and asked for more equitable terms, officials called them “irrational” — as if they were hysterics.
They filed a federal discrimination suit — and fought that legal battle for six years while still raking in the medals.
“Everyone is kind of asking what’s next and what we want to come of all of this,” Megan Rapinoe said wearily after the most recent World Cup victory. “It’s to stop having the conversation about equal pay and are we worth it.”