USWNT

It’s with great sadness that our summer of soccer 2019 draws to a close. The USWNT lifted the World Cup, Brazil triumphed on home soil at the Copa América, Mexico reclaimed the Gold Cup and we’re into the final week of the Africa Cup of Nations. Unless you’re eagerly anticipating the ICC, our glorious summer is at an end.

Let’s face it, women have faced inequality for as long as we have written history. Women’s soccer players are no exception. 

Today, the U.S. women’s soccer team — the No. 1 women’s soccer team in the world — has to deal with the reality that if both the men and women’s teams played 20 friendlies a year, the women would earn, at most, $99,000 while the men would earn an average of $263,320. That’s just ridiculous. It seems like some kind of sick joke, but I can assure you, it’s not. 

There’s perhaps no greater testament to the strength, drive, togetherness and badassery of the USWNT than the whirlwind tour they’ve been on since Sunday night.

Mere mortals like you and I would probably like nothing more than to curl up under a blanket and nurse a week-long hangover while regaining some sort of feeling in our legs after a month of heinous physical exertion, but the USWNT knows no chill.

The ratings are coming in from Sunday’s World Cup final between the USWNT and the Netherlands, and yup, they’re really impressive. Over on Telemundo, the game was the most-watched women’s match in Spanish-language history. The average total audience delivery was 1.6 million viewers, up 22 percent on the 2015 final despite the earlier start time. The game peaked at 2.03 million TV-only viewers towards the end.