Will USWNT & US Soccer's Historic Equal Pay Deal Prompt A Review of Disparity in Division I MSOC & WSOC Scholarship Limits?
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Will US Soccer's Historic Equal Pay Deal Prompt a Review of Disparity between Division I MSOC & WSOC Scholarship Limits -- and other Sports Sponsored for Males and Females with Differing Team Scholarship Limits?
Executive Summary
The U.S. Soccer Federation and the women’s and men’s national teams recently agreed to an historic collective bargaining agreement driven by equal pay measures and distributions from World Cup prize money and other revenue streams.
The NCAA Division I Transformation Committee is considering landmark legislative concepts including potential deregulation in the area of team financial aid limits.
U.S. Soccer’s landmark action provides an interesting template for legislative concepts impacting athletics aid and support for student-athletes in sports like soccer, basketball, and swimming and diving, which are offered as both men’s and women’s sports
A Division I men’s soccer program, for example, is currently permitted 9.9 equivalency team scholarships to distribute to its roster while a Division I women’s soccer program is currently permitted 14 equivalency team scholarships to distribute to its roster– a roughly 40% delta when comparing these two sports side by side.
Athletics aid is one of the three primary categories considered when assessing a university and its athletics program’s compliance with gender equity laws under Title IX.
History was made in mid-May when U.S. Soccer and the men’s and women’s national teams announced a collective bargaining agreement that will see the teams’ athletes receive equal pay.
The agreement, which began last week on June 1 and runs through 2028, will see World Cup prize money pooled between both teams and split equally.
Despite participating in nearly every World Cup since 1990, the U.S. men’s team has never won the tournament. The national women's team has, but players haven't been paid nearly as much as men’s winners.
France’s men’s team received $38 million after winning the 2018 World Cup.
The USWNT, which won one year later, only took home $4 million.
The women will have the same pay-to-play payment structure as the men— not all women’s players will have guaranteed salaries. The teams will also split revenue made commercially (10% of revenue between $55 million and $75 million and 15% above $75 million) and at events.
ESPN reported that players will receive the same amounts for the U.S. Soccer Federation-controlled matches: $18,000 for a win, $12,000 for a draw, and $8,000 for a loss if the opposing team is ranked in the top 25. The announcement outlined other benefits including equality of venues, accommodations, and team staffing.
The agreement also finalizes the USWNT’s February equal pay settlement, in which the USSF will pay $22 million to the players.
Under the terms, World Cup Prize money will be pooled between the men’s and women’s teams and split equally among all players— a first in the soccer federation world.
“There’s equalization of World Cup prize money, identical financial terms, including identical game payments, identical revenue sharing for both teams, so identical in every aspect on that front,” U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone said on the terms.
In terms of college athletics, athletes aren’t agreeing to collective bargaining agreements as part of unions to-date. From an athletics compensation standpoint, college athletes receive financial compensation in the form of athletic scholarships.
Since this historic agreement involved men’s and women’s soccer players representing USA soccer, would this type of agreement spur on a renewed look at scholarship limits? One of the concepts being floated around nationally, including with the Division I Transformation Committee, is eliminating team scholarship limits in favor of allowing institutions to provide full athletic scholarships to each student-athlete on its respective rosters, regardless of the sport.
As it stands today, collegiate men’s and women’s soccer have their respective team equivalency scholarship limits outlined in Division I Bylaw 15. Specifically, Division I men’s soccer programs are allowed to award up to a maximum of 9.9 full athletic scholarships for distribution across the entire men’s soccer team whereas women’s soccer programs have a maximum of 14 full athletic scholarships.
Although institutional financial aid regulations, the infusion of exempted merit and need based aid, and other variables such as resident versus non-resident status all factor in to a student-athlete’s scholarship package, in theory, if a university defined its full, non-resident cost of attendance at $50,000 (using round number for simplicity)– in theory, a Division I men’s soccer program could award $495,000 in athletics aid across its roster while a Division I women’s soccer team at the same university could award $700,000 across its roster– roughly 40% more in athletics aid.
According to a 2018 sports participation study published by the NCAA, the average Division I women’s soccer team roster size in 2017-18 was 28.2 while Division I men’s soccer team average roster size for the same year was 29.3. In that year, there were 333 Division I women’s soccer programs in comparison to 205 Division I men’s soccer programs.
The Transformation Committee may be inclined to recommend removal of all team equivalency limits in Division I sports in favor of deferring to NCAA schools to decide at the campus level (or their Conferences deciding for conference members) a different scholarship limit approach, including removing team limits altogether that potentially benefits student-athletes in a way to receive more athletics aid to cover their cost of attendance if the athletics department has the funding to allocate more.
In the meantime, the landmark equal pay accord reached by both the U.S. men’s and women’s soccer national teams’ unions prompts an interesting question about the current Division I scholarship limits in comparable sports sponsored as men’s and women’s sports. Similarly, it presents an interesting question on equality and equity within the athletics scholarship realm for sports like Division I men’s and women’s soccer’s, men’s and women’s basketball (13 v 15 full counter scholarships), and men’s and women’s swimming and diving (9.9 vs 14 equivalency scholarships) that may have fairly similar roster sizes but different team athletics scholarship limits.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
