Even World Cup Winners Are Not Immune to the Gender Pay Gap

By Nina Zipkin Apr 01, 2016
Reuters | Andrew Kelly

Last summer, the U.S. women’s national soccer team took home its first World Cup win since 1999, a 5-2 match up against Japan that brought in a total of 26.7 million viewers and broke records as the most watched soccer game in U.S. history.

This week, five high profile members of that winning team — co-captains Carli Lloyd (World Cup MVP) and Becky Sauerbrunn, forward Alex Morgan, midfielder Megan Rapinoe and goalkeeper Hope Solo — filed a wage discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming that the sport’s national governing body, U.S. Soccer Federation, pays female players 40 percent of what their male counterparts earn.

Related: U.S. Is No. 1 for Women Entrepreneurs, But There’s Still Room for Improvement

Solo said the men’s players “get paid more to just show up than we get paid to win major championships,” according to The New York Times.

The filing follows legal action taken by U.S. Soccer last month against the union that represents the women’s team around a disagreement regarding its collective bargaining agreement.

As a basis of comparison, for a World Cup victory, the members of the women’s team get paid $75,000 each, while the men’s team members each get about $335,000, according to the filing. And unfortunately, these accomplished athletes are far from alone in their battle for equal compensation. Nationally, women are paid 79 cents per one dollar that men earn.

Related: New Data Confirms Again That Women Make Less Than Men in the Same Roles

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Last summer, the U.S. women’s national soccer team took home its first World Cup win since 1999, a 5-2 match up against Japan that brought in a total of 26.7 million viewers and broke records as the most watched soccer game in U.S. history.

This week, five high profile members of that winning team — co-captains Carli Lloyd (World Cup MVP) and Becky Sauerbrunn, forward Alex Morgan, midfielder Megan Rapinoe and goalkeeper Hope Solo — filed a wage discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming that the sport’s national governing body, U.S. Soccer Federation, pays female players 40 percent of what their male counterparts earn.

Related: U.S. Is No. 1 for Women Entrepreneurs, But There’s Still Room for Improvement

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Nina Zipkin

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture. at Entrepreneur Media
Entrepreneur Staff
Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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