World Cup money? The lads received multiple times more even when, as the ladies often noted, the ladies won championships and the boys struggled to make it out of the primary round.
The issue with different pay structures, in fact, was that they led to different payments. And the boys almost at all times wound up with more.
So what has modified?
The brand new contracts announced this week will end the ladies’s guaranteed-salary system and put each senior teams on the pay-for-play model.
The choice to pursue guaranteed salaries had at all times been a strategic calculation by the ladies: While the boys traditionally earn the majority of their income from their club salaries, the nascent women’s skilled game — far behind in its development — offered much lower salaries, even to its stars. Guaranteed incomes from U.S. Soccer, then, offered the safety of a consistent wage, and ensured that a female player who got injured, or pregnant, wouldn’t lose her house or her automobile.
Switching to the pay-for-play model carries some risk for some women: A player who falls out of favor, and off the U.S. Soccer payroll, could tumble out of the game with no consistent income beyond her club salary. But for the highest players — who now earn larger salaries from their club teams — the prospect of upper match payments, shared World Cup payouts with the boys and revenue-sharing splits with U.S. Soccer was clearly price it.
What type of money are we talking about?
Under the terms of the brand new deals, which run through 2028, each men and ladies will receive $8,000 only for being called right into a camp for many games, and a $10,000 bonus for every one they win. For the ladies, meaning a doubling of match fees, for greater than a dozen games a yr.
What’s the underside line? Projections shown to the ladies’s team, and shared with The Recent York Times, estimated annual payments from U.S. Soccer of as much as $450,000 a yr, and potentially double that — or more — after a superb World Cup cycle. Those figures needs to be similar for top men’s players.
