Four Women’s World Cup trophies, four Olympic gold medals, nine CONCACAF Championship and Gold Cups, six SheBelieves Cups. The list of accolades goes on and on. Armed with an illustrious trophy cabinet, the U.S. Women’s Soccer National Team has established itself as the most dominant dynasty in the world of women’s soccer.
Their accomplishments beyond the soccer pitch are just as worthy of discussion. Although the history books might remember the team for their unprecedented, on-field success, the USWNT’s off-field advocacy cements their place as the most influential women’s soccer team of all time.
The team’s fight for equal pay lies at the forefront of their impressive and influential record of athlete activism. Although the USWNT was consistently more successful and popular than the Men’s National Team, the women were paid significantly less. In March 2019, four months before winning their fourth Women’s World Cup trophy, the USWNT sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for gender discrimination. The team accused the federation of systematically paying lower salaries to female players — the U.S. Men’s National Team earned 38% more per game than the women despite large disparities in on-field success and viewership revenue. One startling example in the lawsuit revealed that the men’s team earned three times more for their early loss in the 2014 World Cup than what the women’s team received for their 2015 victory.
Ultimately, the USWNT announced in February 2022 that they had reached a $24 million settlement with the federation. The agreement allocated $22 million in compensation to the 28 USWNT players behind the suit and established a $2 million fund for women’s soccer across the nation. It also guaranteed equal pay for male and female soccer players moving forward, especially for participation in the World Cup.
The USWNT’s equal pay victory was truly groundbreaking: The case is believed to be the first time U.S. women athletes sued their employer for gender discrimination and succeeded. Likewise, in June 2023, the International Federation of Association Football declared that it would give $49 million of the $110 million Women’s World Cup prize money directly to individual players, which was the first time such a policy was implemented. As such, the USWNT’s equal pay lawsuit set in motion a wave for greater investment in global women’s soccer.
However, there is still a long way to go in order to fully achieve equal pay for female soccer players across the world. At the 2023 Women’s World Cup, women players earned on average 25 cents for every dollar earned by the mens’ teams at the 2022 World Cup. And while the numbers are an improvement from 2019 when female athletes were paid less than eight cents per dollar earned by the men, there is still a lot of work left to do.
What the USWNT’s legal achievements have done, nevertheless, is motivate other international teams — including Canada, England, South Africa, Nigeria, Colombia, Spain, and France — to increase the ferocity and urgency of their demands for equal pay. In an interview with the HPR, Henry Bushnell, a senior soccer reporter for Yahoo Sports, commented on the truly global impact of the USWNT’s equal pay lawsuit: “It totally inspires players from other nations to fight for more.” He explained the USWNT’s fight for equal pay provides both motivational and logistical inspiration: The lawsuit pushed other teams to “take a stand” while also providing key insight on the “nuts and bolts” of how collective bargaining agreements and player associations are structured. The USWNT was the first team to truly achieve equal pay, but they will certainly not be the last.
Alongside its advocacy for equal pay, the USWNT has long been a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. With a number of players on the squad identifying as members of the queer community, the USWNT has a tremendous record of celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusivity and visibility. For many queer Americans, the women’s soccer team is a source of pride. In a statement to NBC, Matilda Young, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Campaign, declared, “Young LGBTQ athletes, who all too frequently are made to feel unwelcome, have seen themselves reflected in these history-making champions.” The team’s outspoken support of queer rights has encouraged other women’s athletes to be more comfortable with expressing their sexuality and being who they truly are — on and off the field.
The USWNT has also championed other social justice issues such as speaking out against racial inequities. Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the USWNT players took to the field for an international friendly match against the Netherlands in November wearing training jackets with “Black Lives Matter.” Members of the team, including Alex Morgan and Kelly O’Hara, posted statements on social media stating that they wore the shirts to protest against systemic racial inequalities that hinder opportunities for people of color. Most players also kneeled during the national anthem before games in 2020 and 2021.
Given their long-standing history of political advocacy, the USWNT is certainly no stranger to controversy. When Megan Rapione took the knee in 2016 in solidarity with Colin Kapernick, U.S. soccer banned players from kneeling during the national anthem. The ban attracted sharp criticism from the USWNT players themselves and other player organizations such as the U.S. Soccer Athlete Council that called for an admission of wrongdoing from the federation for failing to support Black players and supporters. In June 2020, the federation repealed the ban and asserted its commitment to supporting their players in any social justice initiatives.
Dr. Keating McKeon, who teaches a writing course on sports and politics at Harvard, talked to the HPR about the controversies that arise when athletes are political: “The idea that they can somehow be kept in two sort of airtight compartments just isn’t realistic.” He argues that “the expectation imposed on athletes” is that “they exist as entertainers alone.” From this perspective, athletes who discuss politics deviate from their role as “entertainers” and subsequently receive backlash.
These days, many Americans, particularly conservatives, attack the USWNT for their athlete activism. During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, a majority of the team garnered criticism from conservative figures for not singing the anthem. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, for instance, condemned the players for disrespecting the flag and the armed forces who serve it. What’s more, their early Round of 16 exit this summer was seized by critics as an opportunity to claim that the USWNT lost because they were too occupied with woke and progressive political issues. Former President Donald Trump strongly criticized the team: “Many of our players were openly hostile to America – No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!!’”
Megan Rapinoe has long been villainized for her unapologetic political advocacy and equally staunch opposition to Trump. In addition to championing racial justice, Rapinoe spearheaded the USWNT’s fight for equal pay and also worked tirelessly for the inclusion of the transgender community in sports.
In an interview with the HPR, Lindsay Schnell, an award-winning sports reporter at USA TODAY, discussed the long-standing impact of Rapinoe’s activism: “She has not only set a standard for activism, for being unspoken and for being an ally but done so with so much grace.” Schnell further applauds Rapinoe for continuing to push for social justice issues in the face of scalding criticism. To that end, Rapinoe’s lasting impact on the team’s culture is profound. Schnell notes that the USWNT legend has shown younger players that “you can stand up for things, you can fight for yourself, and you can fight for other people” without losing love for either the sport or the platform.
Thus, the underlying intentions of the USWNT’s activism have always been simple: Fight for the causes you believe in and pave the way for other women around the world. Former USWNT captain and longtime defender Becky Sauerbrunn said it best, “There’s never going to be a day that we can just show up and focus on soccer.” She added, “We know that we never would have been at this spot had it not been for all the work all these other generations of women have done. And our job is to do all the work and let the next generation stand on our shoulders so that they can see further.” Schnell also expanded upon the long-standing impact of the USWNT: “I think that the USWNT has shown every young girl that they belong in any and every arena that they want to be in … I just hope that all those little things make people understand that they belong.”
The USWNT have done just that, propelling themselves from obscurity in the late 1980s to worldwide stardom today, all while fighting for political, social and economic equality in soccer, sports, and the world beyond. And although the continued on-field success of the USWNT is not guaranteed, Bushnell is confident the team’s activism is here to stay: “The ‘what’ of what they’re standing up for and their advocacy will probably evolve over time, but there is just a legacy of the team that they will speak about things beyond soccer … So, maybe it won’t be as fierce and as outspoken as it has been over the past half-decade, but to some extent, it’s always going to be there, for sure.”
Put frankly, the team owes their success and fame to no one but themselves — the USWNT’s legacy of athlete activism will continue to evolve long after dust covers their trophy cabinet.
Correction (Jan. 2, 2024): An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Lindsay Schnell.
