US Women's Worst World Cup Finish Nets Them Double Their Previous Highest Payout, Thanks to the Men
You know how the U.S. women’s national soccer team is infatuated with raging against “The Patriarchy” because men are apparently the reason women can’t receive equal pay in the world of American soccer?
Funny thing about that: “The Patriarchy” appears to be the very same reason that the USWNT just walked away with its biggest payday to date — despite its worst finish ever in the Women’s World Cup.
Yes, despite losing in penalty kicks to Sweden (“Nice shot Megan“) in the Round of 16, the USWNT is set to take home more money from that humbling loss than from the team’s triumphant 2019 World Cup run.
How? Well, thanks to the men’s team!
First, the raw numbers according to The Wall Street Journal:
- The USWNT and USMNT will both be taking home $7,312,500 in net prize money from this latest World Cup cycle (the Men’s World Cup was in 2022.)
- The USWNT had a net payout of $2.925 million for being eliminated in the Round of 16. That’s more than the $2.73 million the team took home for winning the 2019 World Cup.
- The USMNT had a net payout of $11.7 million for being eliminated in the Round of 16 in 2022.
- All the above figures take into account the U.S. Soccer Federation’s 10 percent cut.
Even the mathematically challenged may notice a peculiarity with those numbers.
In short, the men appear to be losing about $4.4 million dollars, while the women’s team has seemingly gained that same figure.
And that’s because all the money comes from the same grand pool now, after a 2022 new labor agreement, according to the WSJ.
Previously, men and women collected their earnings from their respective financial pool and nowhere else.
Fox Sports’ Will Cain, no stranger to this USWNT paradox, has previously noted that men’s soccer generates billions in revenue, while women’s soccer generates millions, which has long been the explanation for that cavernous gulf between the two teams’ respective pay.
The USWNT fought against simple math with the kind of ferocity it would’ve been nice to see in the 2023 World Cup, and eventually, the Soccer Federation relented.
Effectively, men and women now combine their net payouts to create a singular fund that is then split in half between the two teams.
No, it’s not fair at all, but it’s the world we live in where equity oftentimes means kneecapping someone else instead of elevating oneself.
Fair or not, it’s inarguable that the men’s $11.7 million net payout from the 2022 World Cup makes up a whopping 80 percent of the roughly $14.625 million joint prize pool.
For the USWNT, the simple fact that they literally owe the men for their exponentially larger payout this World Cup cycle would be insulting enough.
But the women’s team is also grappling with swathes of furious Americans dancing on the USWNT’s grave.
Whereas the USMNT has generally tried to avoid peddling divisive leftist ideology, the USWNT have almost made it their entire identity.
And if the USWNT were continuing its winning ways, people would just have to begrudgingly accept it.
But they’re not winning (well, maybe in pay) and people are, fairly or unfairly, pinning it on the team going “woke.”
(This writer thinks that the issues with the USWNT run much deeper than “wokeness.” It’s a weird transition year where the USWNT’s stars are aging out and the next wave of talent isn’t quite ready yet. Did you know USWNT “star” striker Alex Morgan has only scored two goals in her last 17 World Cup games if you remove a 5-goal outlier versus Thailand from 2019? The play of Morgan and Rapinoe in 2023 is a perfect microcosm of USWNT’s reputation exceeding its talent.)
Things are toxic enough around the USWNT that even a relatively innocuous social media post from President Joe Biden was ripped to shreds for saying America was “proud” of the women’s performance.
Despite all of that toxicity, backlash and embarrassment, at least the USWNT can take home a cool $7 million as a team.
They just need to make sure to thank the men for that payout.
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