U.S. women’s soccer team gets $2 million for World Cup win; German men got $35 million in 2014

In a record-shattering World Cup final, the U.S. Women’s soccer team beat Japan 5-2. For their win, the U.S. team will earn $2 million.

By comparison, Germany received $35 million in 2014 after winning the Men’s World Cup Final in Brazil. And the U.S. Men’s team won $8 million after losing in Round 16. Last year, $576 million was set aside for Men’s World Cup rewards. This year, a total of $15 million in prizes was available for the Women’s World Cup.

Why the paltry sum for FIFA’s female champions?

FIFA has argued that the the Women’s World Cup doesn’t pull in as much revenue as the Men’s World Cup. In December, the soccer organization’s secretary general Jerome Valcke told The Guardian:

“We played the [20th] men’s World Cup in 2014, when we are now playing the seventh women’s World Cup. We have still another [13] World Cups before potentially women should receive the same amount as men. The men waited until 2014 to receive as much money as they received.”

But this reality comes on the heels of several reports of gender disparities within FIFA. Most widely covered was that the women’s teams played on artificial turf during the World Cup, despite the fact that the grass seed exported to Brazil for the Men’s World Cup final came from Canada. And as PBS NewsHour’s Vanessa Dennis pointed out, it was nearly impossible to figure out the Women’s World Cup schedule ahead of its start. Days before, FIFA featured information about the 2018 Men’s World Cup in Russia, rather than highlighting the Women’s World Cup.

According to preliminary numbers from FOX, Sunday’s night game broke soccer viewing records in the U.S.

Watch tonight’s PBS NewsHour for more.