Avi Creditor, Senior Editor for Sports Illustrated, explains how the deal came together to provide equal pay to the USWNT, especially given the squad's on-field dominance over the past three decades. U.S. soccer will implement the deal for the upcoming men's and women's World Cup tournaments, taking place in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Closing Bell

U.S. Women's National Teams Wins Equal Pay Ahead of World Cup

Alright, let's turn to the business of sports. The U. S. Women's national soccer team has dominated international competition for three decades and now has scored another major goal that's equal pay. And a deal announced earlier this week. Players representing the United States men's and women's national soccer teams will receive the same pay when competing in international matches and competitions, including the upcoming World cup tournaments. Joining me now is Avi creditor. Senior editor for Sports Illustrated. Avi thanks for coming on the show. The U. S. Women's national team has been chasing this for years. How did it finally come together? Yeah, it's been a long time coming. There have been a lot of lawsuits, A lot of just really bad pr it's it's been a big fight but ultimately uh USAC was able to get the men's national team, the women's national team to the negotiating table at the same time. Um And you know, the big sticking point in all of this was was the World Cup prize money that U. S. Soccer doesn't control. That's set by FIFA. There's a massive discrepancy between the two. But the U. S. Women are fighting for a bigger percentage basically saying that FIFA might control what the federation gets, but the federation can control what it doles out and the men came to the table with the women and they agreed and it is from now on until through 2028 as this new deal runs, it will be in an equal split. And that is a massive concession by the men. It's a massive win for the women and it's it's a win for everyone really that, you know, there's been so many caveats along the way with with any Yeah, go ahead. Is it really equal Avi? Because history would tell us that oftentimes the women outperform the men in the World Cup? Uh Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, you're you're talking about, you know, all along this way, that that's that's been one of the the big talking points as the success of the men versus women and and that's another rabbit hole to go down. The women's national team for the U. S. Has been at the forefront of international women's soccer. Whereas US men uh, you know, has been coming along a lot more slowly compared to, you know, it's european and South american counterparts and things like that. That's that's a whole other discussion. But you know what I was just gonna say was there been caveats along the way this whole time? You know, every step of progress has come with some kind of fine print. And this for the first time actually seems on the surface equal like it's good like the US women, We'll get at least $5 million dollars from the men's participation in the World Cup this fall. We gotta give it up for the women. They have been extremely successful even amid this year's long fight for equal pay are still performing when they're on the field avi? What's next in this fight, does it stop here? or is there more to come? I don't think the fight ever stops. This is just a massive landmark, right? And I think the next step for them is is making sure that this runs beyond 2028 when these two Cbs expire ah and that it inspires change around the world and at FIFA where maybe FIFA can can change some of its own ways and and cut down that gap in the prize money. It really is kind of uh it's I mean it is downright insulting how different the prize money is the U. S. Men had they qualified for the World Cup in 2018 would have gotten $8 million for showing up the U. S. Women won it in 2019. They got four million for winning it. And so obviously that's on FIFA defects and so that's kind of the next frontier. There is a big disparity there. Um Well hopefully this will help fix it. But certainly we know the women have been very outspoken about this. It did come obviously with concessions from the men's team as well. What sort of concessions did they need to make? How crucial were they in this victory for the women? Well, they didn't need to give up any of their World Cup prize money. Right? And I mean this is their their achievement is making the men's World Cup and it's not their fault that FIFA sets the money at at what it is. And so they are giving up, you know, a portion of what they could get from from performing a guitar this fall. Um You know, it's it's not to say that the women don't concede stuff as well. They had a salary structure that was guaranteed for a select group of players and now that's that's gone. They've changed their salary structure. They've changed to be aligned more along the lines of what the men were doing. And so things are way more on parallel paths now between the two teams and I think the players have gone together and seeing how they can all benefit from them. All right, ivy creditors, Senior editor for Sports Illustrated, Avi thanks for coming on the show.