The U.S. Women’s National Team’s lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) has set a court date for May 2020.
The USSF asks for both men’s and women’s teams to play the same but admits to paying the women’s team less. The “market realities are such that the women do not deserve to be paid equally to the men.”
However, the USWNT claims that they should equal pay due to “performing demonstrably better.”
The USWNT paid annual salaries around $100,000 plus bonuses from winning according to their collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
The USMNT CBA does not allow the men’s team to have annual salaries, but give bigger bonuses on top of a $5,000 guarantee for every match played even if the team loses.
In other words, if both teams played 20 exhibition games and won every game, the women’s team would make a maximum of $99,000 per game, while the men’s team would earn an average of $263,320 per game. So, in comparison, the women’s team would only earn 38 percent of what the MNT earns.
The USWNT team was awarded $1.725 million for winning the 2015 World Cup. The USMNT was given a performance bonus of $5.375 million for losing in the Round of 16.
In this last round of World Cups, the women’s team brought in $73 million in profit, while the men’s brought in $4 billion. Although the women’s team was awarded less, they were given 13 percent of the profits made while the men were given 9 percent of the profits.
Although the women’s team earns less from tournaments, they bring in a larger profit because of how many competitions they win compared to the men’s team. USSF gains equal or more money from the women’s team, but are paid less.
From 2016 to 2018, the USWNT brought in a $50.8 million profit for USSF compared to the $49.9 million that the men’s team brought in.
Image courtesy of sportingnews
The U.S. men’s players’ association stated that it “fully supports the efforts of the U.S. Women’s National Team Players to achieve equal pay. Specifically, we are committed to the concept of a revenue-sharing model to address the U.S. Soccer Federation’s ‘market realities’ and find a way towards fair compensation.”
Washington Spirit majority owner, Steve Baldwin is also fighting for women’s pay.
“This is the best league in the world. We have to change how we sell it, promote it and market it. I believe the opportunity is there to where unequal pay is achieved and the women make more,” Baldwin said.
Alex Morgan and the team is fighting for this because they want the future generations of women soccer players to have equal pay.
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