Interesting. Per that article, in the last 5 years, "cited as undisputed fact that from 2015 to 2019, the women's national team averaged $220,747 per game in total payments (for a total of $24.5 million), while the men's national team averaged $212,639 per game in total payments (for a total of $18.5 million).
Those figures do not include compensation women's players receive from U.S. Soccer for play in the National Women's Soccer League."
I did not know that and if that's true, then I don't see what the argument is in terms of compensation.
So the hypothetical that the USWNT presented about 20 friendlies...how can that be true if they got paid more per game in the last 5 years? I don't know.
Also, ChickenSandwhich hit the nail on the head. In the article, there's a video interview with Julie Foudy (https://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=29125706) where she states that back in her day, they negotiated the CBAs to include guaranteed salaries in order to provide protections from injury, maternity, severance pay etc since women didn't have the massive club contracts that men do to fall back on. The federal judge ruled against them partly because of these extra protections and guarantees and the value that they add. "Therefore, while the women's players argued that, after winning the World Cup in 2015 and 2019, they would have made more money under the terms of a men's CBA, which offered higher game bonuses, the court noted that there was "indisputably economic value" to the guarantees included only in the women's CBA.
"Merely comparing what WNT players received under their own CBA with what they would have received under the MNT CBA discounts the value that the team placed on the guaranteed benefits they received under their agreement," the ruling stated, "Which they opted for at the expense of higher performance-based bonuses."
Also interesting to note: "Klausner (judge) noted that representatives of the players rejected a pay-for-play model identical to the men early in those negotiations in 2016. In later negotiations, the players offered a counterproposal with lesser bonuses than the federation's offer in exchange for more contracted players and higher base salaries -- benefits not part of the CBA between U.S. Soccer and the men's union."
The only thing the court left unsettled was "the plaintiffs' Title VII claims regarding discrimination in charter flights and hotel accommodations and medical and training support" which I suppose would be much simpler to prove one way or the other.