“The United States won its record fourth Women’s World Cup title and second in a row, beating the Netherlands 2-0 Sunday night.” (AP News)

“Three months before beginning their defense of their Women’s World Cup title, American players escalated their legal dispute with the U.S. Soccer Federation over equal treatment and pay. Players filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the federation… alleging ongoing ‘institutionalized gender discrimination’ that includes unequal pay with their counterparts on the men’s national team.” (AP News)

The left finds the disparities in pay to be deeply problematic.

“The rallying cry has been ‘equal pay for equal work’ – but in fact the women have done more work. In a typical calendar year, they play more often than the men, to the point where [outside of the World Cup] the women bring in more money from games, the biggest single source of revenue for each team. That shoots a harpoon into the heart of the argument that the men should be paid more because they generate more money.” (Caitlin Murray, The Guardian)

The right argues that any disparities in pay are due to differences in popularity and thus not problematic.

“One of the major factors that separate men’s sports and women’s is a not so little thing called revenue… Last year, the men’s World Cup in Russia generated more than $6 billion in revenue; the participating teams shared about $400 million. That is less than 7 percent of overall revenue. Meanwhile, the 2019 Women’s World Cup made somewhere in the region of $131 million, doling out $30 million, well more than 20 percent of collected revenue, to the participating teams.” (John Glynn, The Federalist)