NYC honors Women's World Cup champs with ticker tape parades
NEW YORK - Adoring fans lined New York City's Canyon of Heroes on Wednesday to praise the World Cup-winning U.S. women's national soccer team as athletic leaders on the field - and as advocates for pay equity off it.
Construction workers sounded air horns above crowds chanting "USA! USA!" as the hourlong parade moved up a stretch of lower Broadway that has long hosted so-called ticker tape parades for world leaders, veterans and hometown sports stars.
Co-captain Megan Rapinoe and her teammates shared a float with Mayor Bill de Blasio and U.S. Soccer Federation president Carlos Cordeiro. Rapinoe struck her now-famous victory pose, took a swig of Champagne and handed the bottle to a fan. Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher held the World Cup trophy aloft.
The parade was so awesome. (Instagram)
Aly Hoover, 12, of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, stood at the sidelines with a poster of the face of Alex Morgan, another team star. "I just want to be like them," she said.
Garret Prather brought his newborn son "to celebrate how the American women made us proud on and off the field."
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The team sealed its second tournament win by beating the Netherlands 2-0 on Sunday. It will get $4 million for winning the World Cup from FIFA, the international soccer governing body. The men's French team got $38 million for winning last year.
The U.S. women's team has sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for gender and pay discrimination. The women will get bonuses about five times less from the USSF than the men would have earned for winning the World Cup. The case is currently in mediation.
Kate Lane, who watched the parade, called the pay gap "massive" for the soccer players and "across the board" for most women.
"Especially in male-dominated professions," said Lane, of Limerick, Ireland. "Women put just as much commitment into their work as their male counterparts."
She's hopeful the younger generation is soaking up the message from the women's team, noting a girl about 7 years old wearing an "Equal Pay" T-shirt.
Earlier Wednesday, team members joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, as he signed a law expanding gender pay equality in the state. He said women's soccer players should be paid the same as male players.
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, introduced a bill Tuesday that would bar federal funding for the men's 2026 World Cup until the U.S. Soccer Federation provides equal pay to the women's and men's teams.