Yes, it is justified, but we will get to the exact ‘why’ of that shortly.

When the tennis powers-that-be announced that Grand Slam tournaments would carry equal prize money for men and women, the usual grumbling occurred.

‘But men play best out of five sets and women only play best out of three’ is still the most popular, along with the fact that the men’s final often draws a larger TV viewing audience.

Sorry, equal pay it is, so deal with it. But that’s tennis, and this is football, or soccer if you happen to live in the US.

With the US defending their World Cup crown yesterday, beating the Dutch 2-0 in the final (cue their supporters grabbing headlines for ruining a live Fox News report), attention has once again been drawn to the massive pay gap between the men’s and women’s teams.

When asked about it yesterday, President Donald Trump gave a simple answer:

So, how about those numbers? Let’s get stuck in with the help of the Huffington Post:

Trump’s comments insinuate that the women’s soccer team doesn’t bring in as much revenue as the men’s soccer team. But in the three years after the women’s team won the World Cup in 2015, their games generated more total revenue than men’s games, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The 2015 Women’s World Cup final also had more views than any soccer match in U.S. history, men’s or women’s, at that time.

Recently, Nike announced that the U.S. women’s team’s jersey is now the soccer jersey with the highest sales on its website in one season.

How about those numbers, hey?

Let’s also remember that the women just landed their second successive World Cup, whereas the men’s team failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

They also lost to Mexico in the Concacaf Gold Cup final yesterday, which will sting quite a bit.

Equal pay is what the world champions want, and they’re going in hard:

In March, all 28 players of the U.S. women’s team filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit alleging the U.S. Soccer Federation has paid them less than the men’s team, and denied them equal playing, training and travel conditions while not promoting their games as much as men’s games. U.S. Soccer’s legal response said any alleged pay difference between the teams is “based on differences in aggregated revenue.”

The crowd at yesterday’s final were sure as hell on board with the idea of equal pay. I mean, they chanted it after the final whistle:

EQUAL PAY #USWNT pic.twitter.com/hQMGz6q54H

— Mina Park (@minapark) July 7, 2019

For more numbers, we go to Business Insider:

According to Darren Rovell of The Action Network, the members of the U.S. Women’s National team will make about $250,000 each in prize money. The U.S. Men’s National Team — which did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup — would make a little over $1.1 million each if they had won the World Cup.

The Guardian broke down the contracts of the U.S. women’s team. Players make a $37,500 bonus for making the World Cup roster, $3,000 for each qualification game they win (they made $15,000 for winning all five in the tournament), $37,500 for making the World Cup Final, then $110,000 for winning the World Cup.

There is also a giant gap between the total prize money in the Women’s World Cup vs. the Men’s. According to The New York Times, there is $30 million in prize money for the 2019 Women’s World Cup. The 2018 Men’s World Cup had $400 million in prize money.

The difference in prize money at the men’s and women’s tournaments will probably never reach parity, for far too many reasons to list. The payment each team receives in terms of wages, and playing, training and travel conditions, from the US Soccer Federation (USSF) itself is entirely separate from that.

That’s the exact point the players are making:

There’s no bigger statement about equal pay than winning the World Cup twice in succession, so you would imagine the women’s hand at the bargaining table just became a whole lot stronger.

Pay the world champions what they deserve, and then get around to fixing the gender pay gap in general.

If you want to go really in-depth, the Washington Post has more details.

[sources:huffpost&businsider]