The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team continues to face criticism for their politics, attitudes, and play after their loss against Sweden last week in the Women’s World Cup. On this week’s episode of Now & Then, “The Women’s World Cup, Title IX, and Power,” Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman explored the history of American women’s team sports and its critics, from the 1892 emergence of women’s basketball at Smith College to the iconic 1999 celebration by soccer star Brandi Chastain. Another moment of transition for women’s soccer came in 1995, when the team rose above sexist criticism after another disappointing World Cup.
As Summer 1995 approached, anticipation for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s performance at the June World Cup in Sweden was high.
After winning the inaugural 1991 tournament in China, the team had catapulted from obscurity to a growing position of prominence in the American press. In a June 5th, 1995 Newsweek article entitled “American Soccer’s Better Half,” journalist Martin Starr positioned the team as far more entertaining and aggressive than the men’s squad. “Though the men’s game has evolved (or degenerated, some would say) into a chess match between coaches, emphasizing defensive tactics and brute physical play, the women’s game still celebrates offense,” Starr wrote.
Starr also quoted the team’s highest scorer, the 28-year-old veteran Michelle Akers, who expressed disappointment that criticisms of the men’s team so often looped in the women. “To keep hearing people put down American soccer is really frustrating—and tees me off,” Akers admitted.
In Sweden, however, the team was unable to recapture the World Cup. They lost to the surging powerhouse Norway in the semifinals, with the high-scoring Akers largely neutralized by a concussion and a knee injury. In sharp contrast to their 1991 victory, also against Norway and before 65,000 spectators in China, fewer than 3,000 people were on hand to see the U.S. team’s defeat.
Before the World Cup disappointment, the United States Soccer Federation, the governing body of the men’s and women’s national teams, had invested some $3.5 million in the team, much of which was spent on a state-of-the-art training center in Chula Vista, California. Upon the team’s return home, they found that much of the good will from their victorious rise had dried up, particularly when it came to pay.
All eyes turned to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, which featured women’s soccer for the first time ever. The Olympics only further highlighted the disparities between men and women players. The men would receive a $250,000 bonus if they won any medal – Gold, Silver, or Bronze – at the Olympics. The women would receive the same bonus only if they won the Gold. The yearly contract range for women was between $28,000 to $42,000, while men made $50,000 to $75,000.
The inequality had long been building. Every male qualifier at the 1990 World Cup had received a $10,000 bonus. The following year – at their triumphant Women’s World Cup – the U.S. team got, according to goalie Briana Scurry, “a few t-shirts with a Budweiser logo.” The men’s team, which had been playing in World Cups since 1930, had never once won the tournament.
Team co-captain and midfielder Julie Foudy recounted the team’s growing frustration with their unequal compensation and treatment in ESPN soccer journalist Caitlin Murray’s 2019 The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer. “We’d joke in the beginning, ‘Oh, it builds character,’” Foudy recalled. “But by the end, it was like, ‘Okay, I am up to my fucking eyeballs in character.’”
While the team ramped up for Atlanta, they attended an event hosted by the Women’s Sport Foundation. The Foundation’s co-founder, tennis legend Billie Jean King, was in attendance. King, who rose to icon status after her 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition victory over male tennis icon Bobby Riggs and went on to win a staggering 39 Grand Slam titles, was also a longtime fighter for equal pay in tennis.
Foudy, who would eventually serve as president of the Women’s Sport Foundation herself, sat with King and discussed the team’s conundrum with the Federation. King recounted her battles to secure the same prize money as her male counterparts.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s us,’” Foudy recalled in The National Team. “We’re going through the same problems.”
Per Foudy’s recollection, King gave some pointed advice: “You just don’t play. That’s the only leverage you have. They depend on you, you’re representing them, you make them money, and you have to say no.”
Foudy elaborated on King’s advice in a 2019 WBUR interview, recalling that the elder athlete reminded Foudy that the women’s team would be setting the tone for the future of high-profile women’s sports: “[King] used to say, ‘You have this blank canvas. And it’s not what you’re building for you, it’s what are you building for the next generation. So think about how you want it to be for them.”
Buoyed by King, in early December 1995 nine of the team’s members rejected their U.S. Soccer contract offers. They asked to be given a bonus for any medal and also advocated additional benefits, including paid pregnancy leave and severance pay.
The protesting group included some of the biggest names in American soccer, including Foudy, the other captain Carla Overbeck, Akers, goalie Scurry, 1991 World Cup MVP forward and Navy women’s soccer coach Carin Jennings-Gabarra, and star striker Mia Hamm.
In response to the rejection, U.S. Soccer Executive Director Hank Steinbrecher canceled the protesting team members’ plane tickets to the Olympic training camp in Chula Vista.
Steinbrecher, a long-time men’s college coach and head of sports marketing at Quaker Oats, coupled his hardball plane ticket tactic with a rhetorical bluster. The executive sounded off to the Los Angeles Times and other journalists on December 5th: “We cannot reward mediocrity. It seems some players are more concerned about how green their shoes are, instead of bringing home the gold.”
After a reporter asked for clarification, Steinbrcher continued, “Bonuses are paid for superior performance. Our expectation is to be playing for the gold and winning it. That’s where the bonus should go.”
Steinbrecher kept up his tone in follow-up interviews. In what may have been an oblique dig at the World Cup performance, he declared, “I can’t believe that our women are even thinking about finishing third.”
The team, understandably, was not amused by Steinbrecher’s tone. Asked about the “mediocrity” comment on December 6th, Gabarra shot back, “Don’t even ask me about that. I don’t want to talk about that.”
Akers was slightly more verbose in her response to press questions about Steinbrecher’s posturing, arguing that any Olympic medal deserved serious recognition. “Hank says we’re settling for mediocrity, but I wouldn’t call winning a silver or bronze medal in the Olympics being mediocre,” Akers clarified, “In fact, I’d call it quite an accomplishment.”
Akers also offered a clear-eyed vision of what would happen if the Federation did not budge. “The worst-case scenario is we won’t get to play in the Olympics,” she told the press. “Sometimes trailblazers get beat up in the process of helping their sport grow. That has to be some consolation.”
She also spoke of the team’s leverage and potential impact on the sport. “If we medal or win, the opportunities for our sport will be wide open,” she predicted. “We understand how big the Olympics are. We hope the federation keeps that in mind.”
Following the war of words in the press, the two sides went into a media blackout to negotiate. The team members were represented by super-lawyer Ellen Zavian, the first woman attorney to ever represent National Football League players in contract disputes.
Steinbrecher emerged briefly on December 12th to announce some progress. “It’s resolving. It’s not resolved,” he said of the negotiations.
Finally, in early January 1996, the Federation and the players settled. The team would get the bonus regardless of medal color, and they would also get many of the additional benefits they had fought for.
“Thank God,” Akers told the press upon the deal’s announcement.
When all was said and done, the bonus distinction did not matter in 1996. Before a crowd of over 78,000 in Atlanta, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team took the Gold Medal, defeating China 2-1. As Akers predicted, the game had a ripple effect – some 40 million TV spectators watched the iconic U.S. championship victory in the 1999 Women’s World Cup in Pasadena, which became the most-viewed women’s sporting event in history.
Now, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team again faces a post-defeat avalanche of criticism. The 1995 post-World Cup moment of disappointment and the resultant triumph provides a reminder of the team’s resilience – and perhaps an optimistic vision of what could emerge in coming years.
For more on the rise of U.S. women’s soccer, check out both Caitlan Murray’s aforementioned The National Team and Rob Goldman’s 2021 The Sisterhood: The 99ers and the Rise of U. S. Women’s Soccer.
And head to the Twitter account of Now & Then Editorial Producer David Kurlander for supplemental archival threads on each Time Machine piece: @DavidKurlander.
To receive Time Machine articles in your inbox, sign up to receive the CAFE Brief newsletter sent every Friday.
Catch up on some recent Time Machine deep dives into history:
