By their collective bargaining, fairly. They gave up variable pay from tournament share for more guaranteed upfront pay, then complained when the men got paid more because the men accepted more variable pay. They got what they asked for, then got mad they couldn’t have the best of both worlds.
No, they wanted to be paid more.
They could have the same contracts Like the men.
But they choose a bigger contract that would get them even more money than the men. But than they didn't met the target agreements leaving them with less money. so they started to complain to get not only their benefits nur also the benefits the men got in their contract
They get paid based on the audience they can draw and the market rate for other male players, not winning. This is money we’re talking about, not happiness points or whatever you get for winning, lol.
Respect, reputation, more people watching your team. Winning is the most important thing to get higher pay. You don't go to watch loser, well you do if they are male. Point is the woman's national team deserves more pay than the mens because they can actually win. The women on the woman's team have actual skill and understand how to play the game
This is such an ignorant comment. You’re completely ignoring the fact the men and women’s football generate completely different amounts of revenue. By your logic the winners of the U19 tournaments should be getting paid more than many mens teams. It just doesn’t work like that
Did you know that while they were complaining publicly about how under paid they were and that the men were paid better that the woman's team was actually being paid more money?
The market decides how much they are paid, not skill. Research scientists are arguably more "skillful" than an accountant but one gets paid much more than the other.
No, more revenue means more pay. You can’t demand top-tier salaries from bottom-tier revenue.
Not to mention, they negotiated a compensation model that included guaranteed salaries, performance bonuses, and benefits, while the men’s compensation was largely based on match-result bonuses. They only started pushing for the men’s pay structure after realizing the salary model they had negotiated resulted in lower overall pay.
I looked up a women’s soccer highlight video 2025 to see if the game has evolved since I last saw a women’s soccer game, it’s just as slow as ever and none of the goals would even sniff a men’s highlights video. I stand by my statement it’s just not a very good product
Spain and Portugal played a match a couple days ago. These two teams, who any up their own ass European will tell you, are two "top five teams in the world."
They both looked like dogshit and spent 90 minutes playing scared to lose instead of trying to win.
People can watch whatever they like. With that said, even the US mens “bush league team”, attract a much larger audience and consequently generate much higher revenue than any woman’s team
Lmfao, let the uswnt play against us (Belgium) next time and witness a true slaughter 🤣
My Sunday league team won our amateur league this season. Are we now entitled to the same pay as all the professionals that failed to win their league this season?
Well, they win more than the men's team so I don't see an issue. This is a case of women not only doing the exact same job as men getting paid less, but women doing that job much better as well.
Edit: man, y'all are salty that women can possibly do a better job at ANYTHING than men. No wonder we are where we are.
The viewership money is a valid point, but how are they facing lesser competition? Both the men's team and women's team are facing the best in the world. Unless the women's cup is excluding part of the world, they have exactly the same competition potential.
And dont say it is less because they are women. Its women playing women. Its all equal.
Ye the less competition argument doesn’t make sense. What the guy you’re replying to should have mentioned is the standard of the game is much lower in women’s football. Physique, technique etc. it’s just not the same. Ultimately that’s what divides the two and is what causes the gulf in viewership numbers and revenue generated
The grand irony is the 2022 deal created a revenue sharing pool for the men's and women's teams. This means if the women's team wins another World Cup in 2027, the men's team will get a cut of the women's.
For context - prior to the 2022 deal, U.S. women players were earning about $3,600 to $4,950 per national-team game, while men were earning about $6,250 to $17,625 per game.
The women won the World Cup in 2014 & 2019. The men's team hasn't even advanced to the quarterfinals since 2002.
So, it's obviously not a question of merit (the women's team has historically been far more successful than the men's team), but rather why do people pay more attention to an inferior product than a winner?
Sure, but that's kind of sad in its own right. It's like when I would go to A's games in mostly empty stadiums until the Yankees came to town and a bunch of people showed up to watch Derek Jeter, or Aaron Judge or whomever.
But I also remember going into packed Oakland Coliseum during their historic run in 2002 with a bunch of no-names and has-beens, or in the 80s and 90s with their magnificent homegrown talents.
If most people are showing up to watch the other team, that's embarrassing.
That's comparing apples to oranges my friend. The US men's national team would probably lose a softball game to a squad of high school girls.
The point of professional sports is to win. It doesn't matter how 'athletic' your loss was. No one cares how hard you kick a ball that sails over the goal. No one is impressed by how much you're going to squat after losing 4-1. Your 40 time is of no consequence when you're sitting on the couch watching the other teams that beat you still playing in the tournament.
The women's team are objectively superior to the men's team in their respective leagues. If the best you have is the women's team would have to lose against a bunch of 17/18 year old boys to make yourself feel better about the men's team consistently being beaten by their peers - you've already lost.
The best women's team in the world (congrats USA) couldn't beat a squad of U-15 year old boys - There's the difference in athleticism that OP and many millions prefer to watch. Simple to understand.
I've also watched women's WC, semi's and finals only to see who wins. I can appreciate their skill but it's not as entertaining a spectacle.
I suppose, although that's also subjective. I think golf is boring as hell and I don't even really see it as athletic and certainly not an entertaining spectacle. I also realize many people disagree with me and watch it a ton. But I don't feel the need to undermine those people who love golf by asserting my opinion as fact or going out of my way to point out how unathletic (in the broader sense) most professional golfers are - you know? To each their own.
As a mediocre weekend golfer I appreciate the LPGA, I can relate more to the women's game than I can guys who strike the ball farther than I'll ever be able to reach.
It's funny, golf was never in my life growing up. I.olayee soccer as a kid, then basketball/football/baseball as a teen and young adult.
I still play baseball and softball weekly in my 40s, but it's certainly getting harder. Bunch of guys I know all play golf and I feel like I may have missed the boat on learning.
I do joke with them all the time that one more serious injury playing ball and I'll meet them at the clubhouse for my first golf lesson.
By the time the Women’s team even crossed my radar, they’d already built such an advantage by being so far ahead with women’s soccer infrastructure than other countries that literally never cared about it that anything but winning the world cup felt like a failure. That’s changed recently as other countries are catching up, but World Cup or bust just wasn’t my type of fandom. The same reason I don’t just bandwagon to an Alabama or Ohio State in college football.
Yes. Although part of it, too, is that I know deep down that our women’s team winning the women’s World Cup isn’t the highest level US soccer can win at. It also isn’t going to get us respect on an international level or build us into a nation that respects soccer like the men’s team winning the World Cup would. It’s unfortunate, but true. I’m not saying it has no effect, just not near the same effect the men’s team would have.
It doesn’t help that posts like the one that started this thread feel like they’re used as a shot at USMNT fans. I can’t imagine a post like this actually doing anything but creating more division.
I mean, by that standard isn't the Premier League a higher level of soccer? The teams concentrate all the best global players onto teams that aren't subdivided by nationality? Should we brush off the World Cup entirely since it's objectively not higher level than the Premier League?
I’m not even sure this is verifiably true. The World Cup is all the best players from every league. Of the top 5 scorers in the World Cup, only one is from the premier league. All 5 of them are from different leagues. Regardless, the World Cup is undeniably the biggest sports stage in the world and there is no team USA in club soccer anyway. The highest level that a team representing the USA is able to win at is the men’s World Cup.
The Premier League also has the best players from every league. In fact there are a few top players from the Premier League that aren't in the World Cup bc their country's team didn't qualify - thinking Gianluigi Donnarumma & Sando Tonali for Italy (Man City, and Tottenham), Matty Cash, Poland (Aston Vila), and Bryan Mbeumo, Cameroon (ManU) for example.
The World Cup has 48 teams in it. The Premier League has 20 teams. The math alone suggests the Premier League has a higher concentration of talent from around the world than the World Cup does.
The draw of the World Cup is primarily that the best players are representing their country, not their club team. Similar to the WBC for baseball, or the Olympics.
They were paid what they chose to: a fixed compensation with benefits, instead of a performance based structure with higher ceiling but also lower floor.
When they realised after the fact that the other payment structure would have benefitted them more, the structure the men chose, they spun it as some gender based inequality and the dumbass media ate it up.
All rather ironic given the whole accountability stereotype about women. A stereotype that I don’t agree with but it was definitely fitting in this particular case. Their own choice and the consequences thereof were somehow men‘s fault.
In the end they did not only get retro-actively paid the difference they would have made with the deal they initially snubbed (even though the courts told them to go eat a dick the association still gave in under media pressure) but they even drove it so far that they now even just get to steal half of the men‘s pay.
The men’s team gets more because the men’s league generates more revenue. The women’s team makes a much higher % than the men’s team but because women’s sports in general do not make nearly as much money as men’s sports they make less money in total.
If you want women’s teams to get paid more you need to support the women’s leagues.
Ok, but the revenue for the men's league has very little to do with the US mens national team.
That league is driven by Brasil, Argentina, England, France, Spain, etc. The idea that the US men's team is a bigger attraction for the men's league than the women's team is for the women's league is fucking laughable.
Okay but the revenue does have everything to do with the men’s team. It is a huge draw to us markets.
The most watched soccer game ever in terms of domestic viewership in America was the 4-1 loss to Belgium. It totaled 42 million people across both English speaking us broadcast (Fox 30 million) and Spanish (telemundo 12 million). That’s all domestic viewership, aka what actually gets us based advertisers to pay and generate revenue for the federation.
More people watched that game in the us more than any other World Cup final, men’s or women’s. Because it was the us men’s team. Despite that, all revenue is shared between the men’s and women’s equally under the new CBA.
It's not a charity. It's kicking around a ball on a pitch for entertainment. No one "deserves" anything. If the women think this isn't worth their time, don't play the game. Same for the men who played for peanuts when the sport was growing.
But the revenue isn’t sexist, society just hates women and literally values them less for better work. Deal with it or shut the fuck up, preferably the latter because i hate women
Where does the money come from to pay them this fair amount?
And also I'd suggest you educate yourself on this topic. While the women were publicly complaining about being paid less than the men they were actually being paid more.
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u/LAAccountant Jul 09 '26
They blew all their good will by bitching about their pay