The U.S. Women's National Team has now won three FIFA World Cups all-time - the most recent of which was secured with a 5-2 win over Japan just two short weeks ago and which the team then celebrated with a jubilant victory parade through the ticker-tape strewn streets of New York City - which, coincidentally, is three more than their male counterparts have, but you certainly wouldn't know that based on certain economic factors.
While the women's squad has grown in skill and competitiveness alongside and now, clearly, beyond the U.S. Men's National Team, there remains a major discrepancy in the level of compensation both groups enjoy.
In the wake of the women's recent victory in Vancouver it was revealed, via a report from Mary Pilon of Politico, that despite their much higher level of achievement overall as compared to the men's team, the women's team makes a paltry sum. The payout for the women's World Cup win over Japan was $15 million, per Pilon. Last year, the men's team garnered $576 million. Meaning the men make nearly 40 times what the women do.
Christie Rampone, the captain of the U.S. Women's National Team, addressed this imbalance while speaking with Jordan Schultz of Huffington Post recently.
"We've been fighting since 1999 for salaries and bonuses and continuing to get paid more, but now with the fan support and the sponsors, that's where it all comes together," said Rampone. "So we're hoping that U.S. Soccer re-evaluates and sees how powerful this team is -- not just for us but for other women's sports. When you put the money behind it with the marketing and the media, good things can happen. I think a lot of people witnessed in this last month now that women can play, and seeing the slow-mo and the retakes of certain tackles, that it's a powerful sport, a powerful game. Yes, we're women, but we're playing at an amazing level."
Unfortunately for players like Rampone, part of the reason for the discrepancy is the overall draw of the women's game as perceived by television and entertainment executives - lackluster ratings means lower interest, means fewer advertising dollars pushed into the pot to sweeten it for the players who actually provide the product.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the National Women's Soccer League, a young entity still in its nascent stages, which is comprised of nine teams and has been in operation since just 2013. According to EqualizerSoccer.com, each of the NWSL's teams operates with a salary cap of around $200,000, meaning that salaries for individual players range from $6,000 to $30,000. America's men's professional soccer league, the MLS, gives teams over $3 million to spend as they see fit.
"In aggregate, first division women's soccer players are making 98.6 percent less than professional soccer's male cohort," according to an article appearing on the website Fusion.
As tends to be the case, an imbalance like this will likely take time to fix as market forces adjust to the women's continued dominance and the overall cultural acceptance of gender balance. That's probably not what young women, hopeful of a career as a professional athlete want to hear, but it's the unfortunate truth, just as it's the truth that things will change for the better eventually.
For the time being, it seems the best thing the women can do is continue to fight and continue to win and continue to show the U.S. and the world that they deserve the same recognition and compensation as their male counterparts.
