USWNT’s elimination from World Cup leaves plenty of questions

The USWNT suffered their earliest exit ever from the Women’s World Cup after being eliminated by Sweden on Sunday.

New VAR technology at this year’s tournament was needed to confirm the Swedes’ game-winning penalty kick that ended the shootout after 120 scoreless minutes of play and sealed their ticket to the quarterfinals. 

After a disappointing group stage that brought two draws and one win, the USWNT — pre-tournament favorites to hoist a third-straight World Cup — are headed home with plenty of questions surrounding the star-studded team. 

USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski’s contract is expiring at the end of this year, and has paid him 73% less than the men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter. Andonovski has a base salary of around $400,000 and Berhalter’s is $1.3 million.

While USWNT matches averaged their best viewership numbers ever for a Women’s World Cup during the group stage, the overall tournament audience was actually down 37% from the 2019 World Cup, with the vast majority of matches in Australia and New Zealand taking place in less-than-ideal viewing hours for Americans.

Fox was already facing the prospect of hoping fans would tune into remaining USWNT games in the early morning hours on match days — and now has no home country to showcase for viewers in the States.

USWNT players made up 11 of the 15 highest-paid women at this World Cup, and each team member will take home $60,000 each for reaching the Round of 16. Another World Cup victory would have netted $270,000 per player.