How US Soccer Changed Women’s Sports’ Equal Pay Problem

May 18, 2022 marked a game-changing day in the fight for equal pay in sports. That’s when the US Soccer Federation reached a historic agreement with the United States Women’s National Team Players Association and the United States National Soccer Team Players Association, one that guarantees equal pay for the women’s and men’s US soccer teams through December 2028.

The announcement of this final agreement came just a few months after the USWNT scored a $24 million settlement in a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation for unequal pay in relation to their male counterparts.

This collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) achieves “true equal pay,” making US Soccer the “first Federation in the world to achieve this goal,” a CBA fact sheet states. “While there will be separate CBAs for each team, the agreements are identical in working conditions and financial components including appearance fees and game bonuses, prize money, commercial revenue share and more.”

Notably, under this CBA, the men’s and women’s teams will pool and share prize money from the FIFA World Cup. Prior to this CBA, for example, qualifying for the World Cup meant $2.5 million went to the men’s team while the women’s team would get $750,000, according to an ESPN report. Now those amounts will be pooled and shared equally between players of both teams (with a small portion also going to US Soccer).

In the two-plus years since the agreement was struck, we’ve seen this in action. During the 2022 World Cup, the USMNT took home $14.5 million ($13 million for advancing to the knockout stage, and $1.5 million for qualifying to the tournament). US Soccer got a 10 percent cut, which meant over $13 million was split between the men’s and women’s teams.

At the 2023 Women’s World Cup, the US team was eliminated early, but still took home a bit over $3 million, which was also split between the men’s and women’s teams.

This is obviously a really big deal for many reasons, just one of which is the fact that it encourages the USMNT to root for better prize money for women’s games, since that would translate into more money in their pockets as well. (Especially considering the USWNT is more successful, having won four World Cup titles to the USMNT’s none.)

But the USWNT’s actions also had a very significant trickle-down effect. By not just opening up a conversation about pay discrepancies between men’s and women’s sports, but also taking legal action to correct the discrepancies, these athletes made it impossible to blindly accept any of the past excuses we’ve been given for why women athletes earn less money than men.

Professional women basketball players deserve to be paid on an equitable scale to their counterparts in the NBA. So do women hockey players, and tennis players.

While that goal can depressingly feel far away, change keeps happening. In Jan. 2023, President Joe Biden signed the Equal Pay for Team USA Act into law, which requires that all athletes representing the US in global competition — like the Paris 2024 Olympics, taking place right now — receive equal pay and benefits in their sport, regardless of gender.

After the Act passed in the House in Dec. 2022, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who co-sponsored the bill, said: “I also want to thank heroes like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan who brought that case against US Soccer. US Women’s Soccer led the charge after winning the World Cup and making it clear to everyone that women athletes deserve equal pay,” according to ESPN.

While the USWNT didn’t solve the equal pay problem in sports, they did help move things in a very positive direction — and we hope that momentum only continues to build, especially as women’s sports continues to get more attention.

“I feel a lot of pride for the girls who are going to see this growing up, and recognize their value rather than having to fight for it. However, my dad always told me that you don’t get rewarded for doing what you’re supposed to do — and paying men and women equally is what you’re supposed to do,” US forward Margaret Purce said in 2022, regarding the agreement being reached, according to an Associated Press report. “So I’m not giving out any gold stars, but I’m grateful for this accomplishment and for all the people who came together to make it so.”

Angelica Wilson is a former associate fitness editor for PS. She’s a tall, plus-size yoga instructor who’s a been a K-pop fan since ’09. She enjoys sharing what brings her joy so that others can potentially find joy in her interests as well.

Mirel Zaman is the health and fitness director at PS. She has 15 years of experience working in the health and wellness space, writing and editing articles about fitness, general health, mental health, relationships and sex, food and nutrition, astrology, spirituality, family and parenting, culture, and news.