The SheBelieves Cup marks a milestone in U.S. Soccer’s new equal-pay deals with its players

ORLANDO, Fla. — Every time there’s a SheBelieves Cup in a World Cup year, it marks the unofficial start of the countdown to showtime for the U.S. women’s soccer team.

This year, however, the tournament that starts Thursday with U.S.-Canada (7 p.m., Universo, HBO Max, Peacock) and Brazil-Japan (4 p.m., same outlets) marks something more. It brings the first U.S. women’s team home games since the men’s team’s contributed to the new shared pot of World Cup prize money for both squads.

The women’s team’s years of fighting for equal pay initially focused on dollars that came from U.S. Soccer: game checks and bonuses, air travel and hotels, staffing, and such. It took a long time to get that stuff settled, but doing so proved possible once all sides committed to it.

Fixing the big gap in World Cup prize money was harder, because that money comes from FIFA, which often resists change. The prize pool for last year’s men’s tournament in Qatar was $440 million, whereas the pool for this year’s women’s tournament in New Zealand and Australia is expected to be $60 million.

It took bargaining, intelligence, and some elbow grease to find a way to get the American women a more equitable share. But U.S. Soccer president Cindy Cone, a former women’s team star, got a historic deal for the U.S. teams done last spring.

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“We fought really hard for this, to be paid what we feel like we deserve, or getting closer to it,” U.S. women’s team star Megan Rapinoe told The Inquirer. “It’s a big incentive for everyone.”

And as U.S. men’s team centerback and labor leader Walker Zimmerman made clear when the deal was announced last May, the men wanted this setup, too.

“We also believe so much in the women’s team; we believe in the whole premise of equal pay, and ultimately, that was a big driving force for us,” he said. “They said equal pay for men and women was not possible, but that did not stop us and we went ahead and achieved it.”

Here’s how the math works on the new deal.

Once the FIFA prize money goes into the pot, the U.S. Soccer Federation takes its 10% first. The remaining 90% is split evenly between the men’s and women’s unions. Half is distributed to the players of the 2022 men’s World Cup squad, and half will be distributed to the players of the 2023 women’s World Cup squad after their tournament.

The U.S. men’s team’s run to the round of 16 in Qatar earned $13 million in prize money. U.S. Soccer’s 10% portion of that is $1.3 million, putting $11.7 million into the players’ shared pot.

Half of that is $5,850,000. The women’s World Cup squad will be 23 players, so divide $5.85 million by 23 and the end result is $254,000 per player.

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In 2019, the bonus payout for each player on the women’s World Cup team was just under $187,000. In 2015, it was around $75,000.

The 26 players who made last year’s U.S. men’s World Cup team have already been paid the portion of their share that was generated by their World Cup run. They’ll get a second check after the women’s World Cup, with their portion generated by the U.S. women’s team’s run.

The 23 players who make this year’s women’s World Cup team will get one combined check after their tournament this year, instead of two.

As usual, there are likely to be critics of the setup. But something for those to keep in mind while judging the numbers is that if the shared-prize pot structure had been in effect for 2018 and ‘19, the men would have contributed zero.

Failing to qualify for the World Cup means no World Cup prize money. So in that scenario, the women’s team would have put all the money in the pot, and the men would have taken a portion of it.

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Some may have noticed the difference in the sizes between the men’s and women’s World Cup rosters. Women’s national teams around the world have complained loudly to FIFA about the inequality, with U.S. manager Vlatko Andonovski leading the chorus. Earlier this month, he said that many World Cup team coaches “expressed disappointment in FIFA” at the draw ceremony in New Zealand last October.

But the governing body has refused to budge, claiming the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift of Qatar’s tournament to the northern winter made it an exception.

If women’s World Cup rosters stay at 23 players, the 26 players of the U.S. men’s team will individually net a little less money from the prize pot than the U.S. women’s players will. Each men’s player netted $225,000 from the men’s World Cup prize pot instead of the women’s players’ $254,000.

That wasn’t the point of this, multiple sources assured The Inquirer. The point was to get the biggest checks possible for all players, and to break down some of the walls between the men’s and women’s programs.

“We all are collectively incentivized to push FIFA to increase the World Cup prize money for the Women’s World Cup in 2023,” U.S. women’s players’ union chief Becca Roux said.

Perhaps down the road, the U.S. men’s and women’s teams will also do more things together: appearances, marketing, maybe even joint offseason practices for domestic-based players.

“I do think there should be more crossover, and that we all should be equally invested in the success of both programs,” said former U.S. women’s star Julie Foudy, an analyst for U.S. women’s and men’s games on HBO Max. “Now they’re supporting each other in a lot of different ways that we just never had before.”

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