On March 8th, International Women’s Day, the United States Women National Soccer Team filed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation, demanding equal pay between men and women in sports. Following the USWNT’s victory against the Netherlands in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, calls for equal pay in sports have never been louder.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by all 28 members of the current USWNT roster states that women of US soccer are paid less than men even though they outperform their male counterparts.

For example, in the 2014 men’s world cup, even though the men’s team exited the tournament in the round of 16, they received 5.4 million dollars as a bonus, while the women’s team, after winning the 2015 women’s world cup, only received 1.7 million dollars. The opposition claims that this disparity in pay stems from the revenue generated from the world cups. The 2018 men’s world cup generated 6 billion dollars and gave 7 percent to the participating teams.

The 2019 women’s world cup generated 131 million dollars and gave 20 percent to the participating teams. Thus, percentage-wise, women take a larger cut of the revenue than men. On this issue, Joshua Kim, a rising junior from St. Margaret’s Episcopal School, believes that “equal pay is a good thing, and your gender should not determine how much you are paid.

But let’s be honest, men’s soccer is more popular than women’s soccer. There isn’t as much interest in women’s soccer compared to men’s. The fact that soccer isn’t a popular sport in the US makes things worse.

Maybe the US Soccer Federation should increase soccer advertisement”. Joshua brings up an important point; the lawsuit claims that the US Soccer Federation does not promote domestic women’s soccer games as much as men’s soccer games. For example, women played 21 percent of their games on artificial turf from 2014-2017 compared to 2 percent for the men. The US Soccer Federation is accused of generating low interest and revenue for women’s soccer, through low ticket prices and less promotion.

However, the opposition claim that men’s sports, especially men’s team sports, are inherently more fun to watch than women’s team sports. In 2015, in an article for the Atlantic, Field Zhukov wrote: “Women’s sports that are identical to men’s sports-soccer and basketball, for example-will never be popular, because men are faster, stronger and more athletic. On the other hand, sports that highlight the different strengths of female athletes-tennis, gymnastics, ice skating-are popular. None of those are team sports, so there may be something there.”

Whether men’s sports are more exciting than women’s sports is subjective; however, the general consensus according to matches watched and revenue generated proves the point that more interest is shown toward men’s sports.

Overall, the issue in the pay gap between women and men in sports is getting a lot of attention from the media, as it should. Popular figures such as Snoop Dogg commented on this issue, stating that the “US women’s soccer team deserves same pay as ‘sorry ass’ men’s team”. The law will have to judge whether or not the US Soccer Federation is at fault. Until then, congratulations to the USWNT for winning the World Cup!

Sungjoon Chang/ Northwood HS 11th Grade

<Sungjoon Chang/ Northwood HS 11th Grade>