A Victory Greater than the World Cup
On July 7, 2019, I sat in the mess hall with 400 other girls as our camp made an exception to its no screen policy to let us watch the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team play in the World Cup Final. As Megan Rapinoe scored a goal in the second half to give the United States a commanding lead, the mess hall erupted in cheers and screams of pride. The women were the best in the world and stood together on the highest podium for the whole world to see.
A second exception was made on July 10, 2019, when our camp let us watch the women celebrate in a ticker-tape parade in New York City. When the U.S. Soccer Federation President walked to the stage, we could hear the crowd chanting “pay them,” and “equal pay,” as he began to speak. This was the first time I realized that women weren’t paid the same as men in professional sports, and I started to notice the other inequalities in sports even at my own school.
This past season, my High School’s Varsity Girls Tennis Team won the New York State Championship. Not many students were aware that they had made it that far, and their victory was celebrated with a simple email to the school. Yet when the boys’ lacrosse team went to the state tournament (losing in the semi-finals), all games were live-streamed and buses were provided to bring students to the games to support the players. While pay wasn’t a factor, I was stricken by the imbalance in treatment of male and female athletes right in my own backyard.
When I dove in to learn more, I discovered that for years, gender inequality in professional sports has been an area where the pay gap between men and women has increased, rather than decreased. For example, in basketball the average NBA salary for the 2021-2022 season was $5.3 million, while the WNBA had an average salary of $130,000 per year. You read that correctly – the average NBA player makes more than FORTY times the average WNBA player.
Therefore, I was ecstatic when in May 2022, the U.S. Soccer Federation made history, announcing a first of its kind agreement that gave the U.S Women’s National Team equal pay to the U.S. Men’s National Team. As part of the agreement, not only will the Women’s Team get paid the same for international matches, but they will also receive the same prize money from the World Cup competitions as well as money generated from broadcast rights, partnerships, and sponsorships. In addition, the team will get matching training facilities and travel experiences, making it truly a level playing field. “It’s really what we set out to do, equalize on all fronts, and we’ve been able to achieve that,” said Women’s soccer star Alex Morgan, “it’s a really proud moment for all of us.”
The journey towards equal pay began six years ago, when five of the most popular players on the Women’s team – Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Becky Sauerbrunn and Hope Solo – filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing the Soccer Federation of wage discrimination. Then, on International Women’s Day in 2019, 28 members of the Women’s team filed a lawsuit against the Soccer Federation claiming gender discrimination specifically focused on the unequal pay between the men’s and women’s teams.
In March 2021, Rapinoe and fellow U.S. women’s soccer star Margaret Purce joined President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden at an event to recognize Equal Pay Day. Rapinoe discussed the inequality of pay in sports, saying “I’ve been devalued, I’ve been disrespected and dismissed because I am a woman. I’ve been told that I don’t deserve any more than less because I am a woman. Despite all the wins, I’m still paid less than men that do the same job that I do. For each trophy, of which there are many, and for each win, for each tie and each time that we play, it’s less.”
The heroic stand taken by these women is hopefully a breakthrough for women’s rights across all sports. While equal pay in soccer represents the biggest milestone since Title IX was passed in 1972, which banned discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs, there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure that the entire next generation of professional female athletes is both paid and treated the same as their male counterparts.
But this deal has given women – including me – hope that gender equality can be achieved on a broader scale, starting at the youth level. Rapinoe said, “I just think we are in the middle of an incredible turning point in women’s sports. I think we are all going to look back on this moment with incredible pride.If you’re not paying attention to this right now and what’s happening in women’s sports, you’re sleeping on this whole thing.”
Next Fall, when my High School’s Girls’ tennis team hopefully competes for the State Championship, I know that I will not be sleeping and will lobby my school’s athletic department to ensure all sports achievements are celebrated equally.