Because for two decades or so, the U.S. women’s soccer team has been the most reliable sports entertainment in the world. There have been three World Cup championships and four Olympic gold medals along the way, and there has been more.
Because no team of any gender in any sport has been as consistently excellent and consistently compelling. No team of any gender in any sport has managed to win with regularity while demonstrating the character and charisma of the U.S. Women’s National Team.
The attraction? “Tall, big boobs, blonde,” former standout Julie Foudy quipped when I asked her that during my previous life as a sports reporter. In four words, Foudy delivered a dissertation that mocked society’s traditional measurements of female athletes — the kind of answer you probably should expect from a graduate of Stanford University, which Foudy is.
You see, we love our pixieish Olympic gymnasts and dainty Olympic figure skaters because they can be champions without offending outdated notions of femininity. We lavish attention on female athletes if they could do side work as a model, regardless of their competitive success. And we occasionally embrace a Serena Williams because the greatness is so undeniable.
But female athletes, particularly in team sports, often struggle to draw attention.
Not the USWNT. For decades, the athletes have managed to inhabit a tiny corner of the public’s sporting consciousness by kicking tail while happening to be women. As Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins wrote last week in a fit of righteous indignation that is well worth reading, the women’s soccer team is “nothing short of an American damn treasure.”
That followed a record-setting 13-0 victory over Thailand in the opening round of the Women’s World Cup. And while the Americans have received some criticism for winning by too much or celebrating too much, it should be pointed out that this is the world championship, not some high school contest.
Which brings up the story behind the story of this year’s Women’s World Cup. The U.S. players have filed a class-action gender-discrimination lawsuit against their employers, the U.S. Soccer Federation. Despite doing essentially the same job as the U.S. men, the suit argues, the women receive lower pay, poorer working conditions and less investment in their game.
According to The Washington Post, a U.S. women’s player earns a base salary of $3,600 per game while a men’s player receives $5,000. The maximum bonus for the women is $1,350, while the average men’s bonus is $8,166. The Post also reports that U.S. Soccer awarded the men’s team a bonus of $5.375 million for making the round of 16 in the 2014 World Cup; it awarded the women $1.725 million for winning the 2015 World Cup.
Fair? Of course not. But economics are not always fair. The bottom line is the bottom line — how much revenue an employee generates. The men’s team generates more revenue partly because men’s international soccer is more popular. The world tunes in to see Argentina vs. Portugal, and the U.S. men reap the benefits. That is inherently unfair.
Have we mentioned that the U.S. men did not even qualify for the 2018 World Cup? Or that the women’s last two World Cup warm-up matches in the U.S. drew an average of 31,000 fans, while the men’s team played before 24,000 last week in Cincinnati?
All of that seems relevant as the USWNT strives for victories both on and off the field. All of that seems relevant as a group of remarkable athletes elevates soccer in their country and women’s soccer throughout the world.
For years, there has been discussion about a gender pay gap in this country and about the notion of equal pay for equal work. The arguments rarely are as simplistic as advocates on either side like to pretend, but this one is:
The U.S. women’s soccer players don’t do work equal to the men; they do superior work. They should be paid like it.
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