In the year of 2022 new contracts for the men’s and women’s US soccer teams were put into place. 

With new revenue sharing agreements, new pre-game payments, and the ending of the women’s guaranteed-salary system for the pay for play model, both senior teams are now seeing equal pay especially pertaining to World Cup play. 

Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, a two time World Cup champion as well as a Golden Ball recipient in 2019 strived for change in 2019 as she saw how her and her soccer companions’ efforts were not adding up to their salary. 

The USWNT having a total of four World Cup wins while the USMNT still stand at zero was one of the striking calls for action as to why equal pay was not being distributed. 

The USWNT players going as far as to sue the US Soccer Federation, claiming that it is discriminating against the women’s team by paying them less than members of the men’s team, was a jump start to getting what they thought they deserved. 

Rapinoe and members of the US women’s team were resilient in their fight for equal pay, giving speeches, going to the government, holding spaces in the media to really voice their concerns. 

Although the media continued to voice how viewership, sponsorship and overall skill was less of their male counterparts, numbers presented continued to speak for themselves. 

Rapinoe and her team’s effort definitely caused a lot of controversy, even opening up talks of all women sports like basketball, tennis and others. The discussion of women’s pay overall in these areas was questioned.

Topics like proper promotion and overall misogyny in the realm of sports was a hot topic after the 2019 World Cup came to a close and even now. 

As women’s basketball, especially college women’s basketball, becomes bigger than ever in recent years we see just how vital things like social media can come into play. 

As women start to make their mark and continue to overhead the numbers brought in by men, topics like equal pay will continue to be brought up in these different areas.