13Top right: Francisco Seco/Associated Press. Bottom right:
Jamie Sabau/Getty Images. Opposite page: From Megan Rapinoe.
It’s like, I’d known things before, but
they’d never been named.
For people who may not have been follow-
ing your team’s lawsuit against the U.S.
Soccer Federation, can you explain some
of the changes you want to see in addition
to gender pay equity? The lawsuit covers a
lot. In a broad sense, it’s about equal invest-
ment and equal care of both the men’s and
women’s sides. Whether it’s youth team
programs, marketing, the branding of
the team, how they sell tickets, what they
spend advertising money on, what they
pay each side, what they spend on support
staff , what they spend on coaching, what’s
the travel budget — it’s all of that. The com-
pensation is sort of the last big part. With-
out having everything else equal, it’s hard
to have a conversation about how much
is each team worth, because each team’s
value and potential isn’t being reached. At
least ours is not. I don’t know exactly what
they’re doing on the men’s side, but I sus-
pect they deserve more pay as well. Both
of us are cash cows for the federation, and
they’re certainly making a ton of money.
I’m not sure that we’re sharing in that.
Why has women’s professional soccer
in the United States struggled to get
to a healthier place? I’m at a loss for
why there’s not more investment.^5 The
national team is wildly popular, making
tons of money, growing exponentially, so
do you have an idea other than sexism as
to why people aren’t investing in women’s
sports in a huge way right now? Probably
75 percent of the people going to Major
League Soccer games — are they going
because they’re hard-core soccer fans or
because it’s a cool experience? The M.L.S.
marketing is great, the branding is great,
and it’s a fun atmosphere to be a part of.
I feel like women could have the exact
same thing, but for some reason people
aren’t investing in it.
I bet that plenty of people who started
paying attention to you over the last
month or so may not know that not long
ago, there were questions about whether
you had a future with the national team.
What changed for you as a player and
person to get from there to here? Quite
a bit. Physically, as an athlete, you can
do whatever until you’re in your late 20s.
When you turn 30, you evolve your style
of play and how you take care of yourself
physically, or you just get old and retire.
I feel incredibly lucky that I met my girl-
friend, Sue,^6 right around that time. It was2016, after the Olympics. I’d made it back
to the Olympics but probably shouldn’t
have been on the roster. I wasn’t ready. I
was just coming off this ACL injury, I was
31, I was clearly not what I was before. And
in meeting Sue,^ she’d had knee injuries,
and she changed her diet, her workouts,
and she’s been able to have an incredi-
bly long career. I intentionally did that
change and started focusing a lot more
on recovery and rest and taking care of
myself, getting superfi t. So meeting Sue
was fortuitous for me, in many senses.
You and Sue are among a handful of star
female athletes who are publicly out.
There are zero men in that position in
the four major American professional
sports leagues. What might account
for that, and what might cause things
to open up? I think homophobia in sports
accounts for that, but it’s also more than
just homophobic culture. Life-changing,
generational wealth is at stake for these
guys. I think they’re scared to death to
lose that. You’ve made it this far, no one in
your family has ever done something like
this, you and your family have the oppor-
tunity to live a completely diff erent life
for years and years, and you don’t wantto risk that. But obviously there must be
so many gay male athletes, and it’s prob-
ably an open secret with a lot of them. It
seems crazy, though, that not one major
star has ever been out.
What can you share with me about how
you celebrated winning the World Cup?
Well, I live my best life in celebration
mode. My performance in the World Cup
was good, but I was thinking all along, Just
wait until I get to the celebrations. I love
celebrating. We’d been cooped up for 50
days together. To be a team that is expected
to win all the time — it’s exciting when you
do, but it’s also this massive relief because
it would be a huge letdown if you didn’t.
Then to win in such spectacular fashion!
You get to revel in it for days. You get to do
whatever the [expletive] you want. That’s
what I was telling the girls, especially the
fi rst days that we were back after winning:
‘‘This is the time that nobody cares what
you do. You can ask for anything, you can
do anything. Live it up. You’re never going
to have this time again.’’ It’s so special and
crazy and so much fun.Th is interview has been edited and condensed
from two conversations.1 In 2016, following
Colin Kaepernick’s
example, Rapinoe
began kneeling
during the national
anthem. She
explained at the
time that she was
protesting ‘‘the
kind of oppression
this country is
allowing against
its own people.’’
Subsequently, the
U.S. Soccer
Federation instituted
a bylaw mandating
that players stand,
which Rapinoe now
does — but she
remains silent and
doesn’t place her
hand over her heart.2 In tweets
responding to
Rapinoe’s statement
that she was
‘‘not going to the
[expletive] White
House,” President
Trump said,
“I am a big fan of
the American
Team, and Women’s
Soccer, but Megan
should WIN first
before she TALKS!”3 Rapinoe attended
the University
of Portland on a full
soccer scholarship.4 Rapinoe and her
four siblings were
raised by Jim and
Denise Rapinoe
in Redding, Calif.,
a small city
not far from the
Oregon border.5 Rapinoe plays
for Reign F.C.,
in Tacoma, Wash.,
of the nine-team
National Women’s
Soccer League,
which is in its
seventh season
of operation.
Despite increased
attention for
women’s soccer,
teams are still
folding, and the
league’s player
minimum salary is
less than $17,000.6 Rapinoe’s
girlfriend is the
veteran W.N.B.A.
star Sue Bird.