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Women's National Team Fights Wage Discrimination

What if I told you that the http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/womens-world-cup-final-beats-nba-finals-world-series-and-much-more.html">2015 Women’s World Cup Final on television drew more viewers than game six of the 2015 NBA Finals, game seven of the 2014 World Series and game six of the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals?

The U.S. Women’s National Team were ratings gold with 26.67 million viewers on Fox and Telemundo for the World Cup Final agianst Japan. That was bigger than the 2015 Final Four Kentucky v. Wisconsin game, the final round of the 2015 Masters, a Triple Crown winning horse (American Pharoah) in the Belmont Stakes and more.

In fact, only a few NFL and college games surpassed the http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2016/01/most-watched-sporting-events-2015-nfl-college-football-basketball-nba-womens-world-cup-viewership/">2015 Women’s World Cup Final. The USWNT v. Japan was the 26th-most watched sporting event in 2015.

While the USWNT is breaking television records for women’s sports, the team isn't cashing record-breaking checks for its work. http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/2015worldcup/article/13217275/not-even-world-cup-champs-avoid-pay-gap">FIFA awarded the USWNT $2 million for winning the 2015 Women’s World Cup. For winning the 2014 Men's World Cup,

FIFA awarded Germany $35 million, so the German men earned $33 million more for winning the same amount of games as the U.S. women.

Germany also got to play all of its World Cup games on grass, and the US women tried to fight to get their game switched from artificial turf. The women’s players ultimately pulled their lawsuit before the World Cup and played on artificial turf.

You would be wrong if you thought that the http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2016/03/31/uswnt-eeoc-wage-discrimination-equal-pay">USWNT would make more for winning the World Cup than the USMNT did for getting knocked out of the Round of 16.

The USMNT earned $9 million for the 2014 World Cup, so the men didn’t even win their group, much less the whole damn tournament, and made $7 million more than the women.

Last year, the http://espn.go.com/espnw/sports/article/15102506/women-national-team-files-wage-discrimination-action-vs-us-soccer-federation">USWNT generated more than $20 million in revenue than the USMNT. Yet the women get paid $1,350 win, lose or draw on friendly matches, and the men get paid $5,000 even if they lose, and can make a maximum of $17,625 for friendly match wins against teams ranked in the top 10, and Mexico, who is the main rival to the US.

This wage gap has caused the USWNT and the U.S. Soccer Federation to go to court after the http://www.espnfc.us/united-states/story/2800680/us-soccer-files-lawsuit-womens-national-team-over-cba">USSF filed a lawsuit to stop any potential strike from the USWNT before the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At issue is the USSF saying that both sides have an agreement until Dec. 31 of this year, but the USWNT says a memorandum of understanding that both sides signed in 2013 can be voided at any time. A court will have to sort out which team is right.

Five of the current stars for the USWNT, including Hope Solo, Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd, have filed a wage-discrimination action against the USSF with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This is the right time for the USWNT to act, with its victory in the 2015 World Cup and defending its gold medal this August.

It is hard to argue that the women shouldn’t get paid more than the men.

The women are more successful—they own three World Cup titles to the men’s none.

USWNT can draw a crowd on television. The Women’s World Cup Final outdrew the Men’s World Cup Final in 2014 with the men getting 26.50 million viewers. The http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2015/01/most-watched-sporting-events-2014-nfl-super-bowl-world-cup-olympics-bcs-nba-finals-world-series/">best the men drew was 24.76 million viewers in its match against Portugal.

Most of the arguments for why men should get paid more in sports actually in this case go in favor of the women. So it is no surprise that the women believe they should rightly make more money.

The real question is, will the USSF wise up and pay these champions what they're worth?

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