Members of the USMNT aren’t the only ones elated by advancing to the Round of 16 at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Thanks to the collective bargaining agreement signed between the USMNT and the U.S. women’s national team (USWNT), the female soccer players that are currently watching the World Cup from home just earned a 50/50 share of the prize money allotted to the USMNT for reaching the Round of 16.
How exactly did this happen?
The USWNT argued with the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) for six years that because their side was far more successful than the men’s side, they should be getting more pay for their tournament success -- because they were the better team, they deserved more money. To be fair, if you simply look at the results, they are far and away the better squad.
Since the program started in 1985, the USWNT has won four World Cups, while the men have only reached a semifinal once - back in 1930. But there's a lot more prize money allocated for the men's World Cup than the than the women's tournament, something the women pointed out as gender discrimination in their lawsuit.
But the pay each side receives is not indicative of results, but of worldwide marketability for the product.
Related: Now That’s a Darned Shame: Kneeling USWNT Owned by Sweden
In 2018, the men’s World Cup garnered 3.6 billion viewers worldwide and earned $6 billion in profit for FIFA, the tournament organizer. By contrast, the 2019 women’s World Cup managed to get 1.12 billion, which was the first time that tournament cracked 1 billion viewers. Because of this viewership gap alone the men’s side will usually earn more regardless of how they do at a tournament, meaning that the women’s argument was based on a false premise from the beginning.
But that didn’t matter to the USWNT, and thanks to USSF caving to pressure from woke brats like Megan Rapinoe, they signed a new collective bargaining agreement in February, ensuring that the women now get to benefit from a tournament they aren’t playing in.
The USWNT will earn $6.5 just by virtue of the men getting out of Group B. You can bet - no pun intended - your bottom dollar that the women will be the men’s biggest supporters on Saturday when they face the Netherlands at 10 a.m., as the payday will increase to $8.5 million if they upset the Dutch.
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