Show ‘Em a Red Card: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and Their Fight for Pay Equity

Blog Post | 110 KY. L. J. ONLINE | July 12, 2021

Show ‘Em a Red Card: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and Their Fight for Pay Equity

By: Bailey Browning, Senior Staff Vol. 110

In just a few weeks, the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) will compete for its fifth Olympic gold medal. Ranking as the top team in the world, this pursuit comes on the heels of the team winning the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. An astonishing accomplishment, USWNT is now the second national team to win back-to-back tournaments and the only with four Women’s World Cup titles.[1]

In the United States, the championship game was watched by roughly 20 million individuals, becoming the most watched soccer game (men’s or women’s) in the country since the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup final (which the USWNT also won) with a 22% viewership boost in the U.S. from the 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup final.[2] Financial data also suggests that in the three years following the 2015 World Cup, “U.S. women’s games generated more total revenue than U.S. men’s games . . . .”[3]

Despite this unparalleled success on an off the field, the USWNT has long argued against the unequal pay and inequitable workplace conditions compared to the Men’s National Team (USMNT), due to treatment from the United States Soccer Federation (USSF).[4] On March 8, 2019, 28 members of the USWNT filed a civil lawsuit against USSF, claiming violations of the Equal Pay Act (“EPA”) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[5]

Discrimination claims against USSF by the USWNT stem back to the 1990s, when the 1991 team received only a $500 bonus for winning the World Cup.[6] Since, the question of unequal pay has been complicated by the USWNT and USMNT having different collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), resulting in differing pay structures. While the USWNT argued the USMNT are paid more in game bonuses related to “friendlies, World-Cup related matches, and other tournaments,”[7] the USSF contends the bonus differences are simply due to the USWNT having guaranteed salaries versus the USMNT pay-to-play structure.[8]

The USSF has also repeatedly held that any pay disparity results from the revenue gap from FIFA (the governing body of men’s and women’s football) and that “while women’s national team base pay and bonuses are lower than the men’s, the downside guarantees [salary and other CBA provisions exclusive to the WNT, such as paid maternity leave] pick up the slack.”[9]

A federal judge in California agreed with the USSF’s arguments and granted summary judgment in May 2020 on the EPA claim, citing that the USWNT had failed to establish a prima facie case of wage discrimination under the EPA because they could not demonstrate that the men’s players were paid more.[10] A seemingly determinative factor was that the two teams had agreed to different USSF pay structures, with Judge R. Gary Klausner stating that the USWNT “cannot now retroactively deem their CBA worse than the MNT CBA by reference to what they would have made had they been paid under the MNT’s pay-to-play structure when they themselves rejected such a structure.”[11]

Despite this setback in the fight for equal pay, some of the Title VII claims regarding discriminatory working conditions were permitted to continue on in court.[12] In December 2020, the two sides reached a settlement agreement with new arrangements regarding an equal number of charter flights for the men’s and women’s teams, comparable hotel budgets, an equal amount of support staff for the two teams, and new guidelines on venue selection and playing surfaces.[13]

A federal judge approved the settlement in April 2021.[14] This is seen as the first step in a new relationship between the USWNT and the USSF, following the appointment of a new USSF President, former USWNT player Cindy Parlow Cone.[15] Importantly, the settlement paves the way for the women to begin the appeal’s process regarding “the ‘central fact’ in their fight for equality – compensation.”[16]

Even with the recent decision against the USWNT’s equal pay pursuit, it is evident that change is needed and discrimination remains, as demonstrated by a court document submitted by the USSF in March 2020 chronicling how women’s soccer requires less skill, is less challenging than men’s, and how the men’s team carries more responsibility and faces tougher competition.[17] There is also pressure for the USSF to step up in light of both the Brazilian and English football associations recently announcing that their men’s and women’s teams would receive equal pay for match fees and bonuses.[18]

The USWNT lawsuit must also be viewed in light of the broader gender disparities in workplaces. Nearly 58 years after the EPA was signed into law, women still only make 82% of what men make, with projections for pay parity not being reached until 2059.[19] The USWNT’s fight has garnered much media attention, even leading to partnership deals for the team, and has brought attention to a long-standing, multifaceted issue.[20] In a much greater sense, however, the team has inspired countless. A symbol for challenging the systemic inequalities related to equal pay, the USWNT’s now lets their performance and repeated success demonstrate the value of women, and women’s sports.

[1] Rachel E. Greenspan, All the Records the 2019 U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Broke in This Year’s World Cup, Time (last updated July 8, 2019, 1:05 PM), https://time.com/5621639/team-usa-2019-world-cup-records/.

[2] Abigail Johnson Hess, US Viewership of the 2019 Women’s World Cup final was 22% Higher than the 2018 Men’s Final, CNBC (last updated July 10, 2019, 3:26 PM), https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/us-viewership-of-the-womens-world-cup-final-was-higher-than-the-mens.html.

[3] Rachel Bachman, U.S. Women’s Soccer Games Outearned Men’s Games, The Wall Street Journal (June 17, 2019, 6:00AM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-womens-soccer-games-out-earned-mens-games-11560765600.

[4] Morgan v. United States Soccer Fed’n., Inc., 445 F.Supp.3d 635, 640–41 (C.D. Cal. 2020).

[5] Id.

[6] See Andrew J. Haile, An Even Playing Field: The Goal of Gender Equity in World Cup Soccer, 98 Or. L. Rev. 427, 432–37 (2020).

[7] Morgan, 445 F.Supp.3d at 652.

[8] Id. at 653.

[9] Bridget Gordan, The USWNT’s Equal Pay Lawsuit is a Fight for all of Women’s Sports, SBNation (June 7, 2019, 3:01PM), https://www.sbnation.com/2019/6/7/18653950/uswnt-pay-equality-lawsuit-gender-discrimination-us-soccer.

[10] Morgan, 445 F.Supp.3d at 656.

[11] Id. at 655.

[12] Id. at 665.

[13] Meg Linehan, What the USWNT Lawsuit Settlement Means for the Ongoing Equal Pay Fight, The Athletic (Dec. 1, 2020), https://theathletic.com/2233201/2020/12/01/uswnt-lawsuit-settlement/.

[14] Jeff Carlisle, Judge Grants USWNT Unequal Working Conditions Settlement, ESPN (April 12, 2021), https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usaw/story/4358330/judge-grants-uswnt-unequal-working-conditions-settlement.

[15] Linehan, supra note 12.

[16] Michael McCann & Eben Novy-Williams, USWNT Partial Settlement Sets Up Appeal Which May Be Years Away, Sportico (Dec. 1, 2020, 5:37PM), https://www.sportico.com/law/analysis/2020/uswnt-us-womens-soccer-team-settlement-1234617521/; See also Andrew Das, U.S. Women’s Team Clears Hurdle to Reviving Equal Pay Fight, N.Y. Times (April 12, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/sports/soccer/us-womens-soccer-equal-pay.html.

[17] See Defendant’s Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment at 11–14, Morgan v. United States Soccer Fed’n, Inc., 445 F.Supp.3d 635 (C.D. Cal. 2020).

[18] Reuters, Brazil, England Announce Equal Pay for Men’s and Women’s National Teams, ESPN (Sept. 3, 2020), https://www.espn.com/soccer/brazil-braw/story/4171989/brazil-announces-equal-pay-for-mens-and-womens-national-teams.

[19] Fact Sheet: Same Gap, Different Year The Gender Wage Gap: 2019 Earnings Differences by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity, Inst. for Women’s Pol’y Rsch. (Sept. 2020), https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gender-Wage-Gap-Fact-Sheet-2.pdf.

[20] Bachman, supra note 3.