U.S. women’s soccer finally achieved equal pay. Here’s how players reacted online
The U.S. Women’s National Team recorded a landmark victory on Tuesday morning, coming to an agreement with U.S. Soccer on a new collective bargaining agreement that will see the women’s team earn the same amount of prize money as the U.S. Men’s National Team.
The new deal runs through 2028 and ensures that prize money from international tournaments — primarily the FIFA World Cup — will be split evenly among the players of both the men’s and women’s teams. The contract will run through two World Cup cycles.
The USWNT won its fourth and most recent World Cup title at the last Women’s World Cup in 2019, collecting $4 million in prize money for their efforts. A year earlier, France won the men’s version of the tournament and was awarded $38 million.
The USMNT didn’t even qualify for the men’s iteration of the World Cup in 2018 but was awarded $9 million for making the Round of 16 in 2014, according to NBC Sports Network.
Several USWNT players feature for the Seattle-based OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League. Many Reign’s players and other prominent athletes took to Twitter to celebrate the victory.
Among them is Megan Rapinoe, who has been at the forefront of the USWNT’s fight for equal pay. Rapinoe, a two-time World Cup winner, Olympic gold medalist, and the 2019 Ballon D’or Feminin winner, which crowns the best female soccer player in the world, was a significant figure behind a gender-discrimination lawsuit filed against the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2019.
Rapinoe quote tweeted USWNT captain and Portland Thorns defender Becky Sauerbrunn, thanking everyone who helped get to this point.
One of the people that came before Rapinoe was Brandi Chastain, who scored the game-winning penalty in 1999 against China to win the USWNT its second World Cup.
USWNT star Alex Morgan was also a key figure in the class-action lawsuit against USSF. Morgan, who has played 190 games with the national team and spent a brief time with the Seattle Sounders Women in 2012, called it a “historic moment for the team.”
Former American tennis player Billie Jean King, who was ranked No. 1 in the world throughout the 1960s and 70s and famously won the Battle of the Sexes in 1973, said on Twitter that “American soccer is stronger when everyone is unified.”
Former USWNT defender Yael Averbuch West, who finished her career with the Reign, tweeted out a list of wins for women’s soccer so far in 2022. Her list included the NWSL entering its 10th year and agreeing to its own CBA and women owners and coaches in the league, such as Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang and Orlando Pride head coach Amanda Cromwell.
The OL Reign also hired Laura Harvey as head coach in 2021.
On the men’s side, former USMNT midfielder Stu Holden and current USMNT and Red Bull Leipzig midfielder Tyler Adams both sent out celebratory tweets.
This story was originally published May 18, 2022 at 3:55 PM with the headline "U.S. women’s soccer finally achieved equal pay. Here’s how players reacted online."
