In the Women’s World Cup, the USA soccer team took the championship against Japan on Sunday—just not with their pocketbooks. In fact, they are being paid 40 times less than their male counterparts.
In a Politico piece, Mary Pilon points out that the National Women’s Soccer League salaries range from $6,000 to $30,000 and teams often have a salary cap of $200,000. The Men’s League Soccer league salary cap clocked in at $3.1 million last year, and the total payout for the women’s World Cup will be just $15 million compared to the men’s $576 million sum.
Women’s soccer isn’t the only sport underpaying players according to gender. In golf, the PGA tournament prize money, $250 million, is five times the amount of the women’s LPGA, $50 million. In 2013 the WNBA’s salary minimum was just under $38,000, and the team’s salary cap was $913,000. On the other hand, the NBA salary minimum was $490,180, the team salary cap was $58.7 million, and players like Kobe Bryant alone make $25 million per year.
Add this information to the ridiculous tweet and article from the English Football Twitter account referring to their players as “Lionesses” returning to their roles as “mothers, partners and daughters”—the tweet has since been deleted and the article amended—and you might want to yell at a stranger before noon.
It is simultaneously too early and too late for such stark gender disparities in sports. We gotta do better.
Contact the author at Hillary@jezebel.com.
Image via AP.