Alex Morgan made less than $300 per match during her first 22-game season in the NWSL.
The two-time FIFA World Cup winner revealed that her first season in the nascent soccer league saw her earn a grand total of $6,000 to play for the Portland Thorns.
“Not a month. For the season,” she said on a Wednesday, September 3, appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “$6,000 to play in the NWSL for the season.”
Morgan’s revelation came in a conversation with podcast host Alex Cooper about her role in advancing the NWSL and the rights for women’s soccer players throughout her 16-year pro career.
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“I look at these young players coming into the NWSL, and I’m like, ‘Yeah you have that confidence. You walk in there proudly and you ask for what you deserve,’ because in a lot of ways, that’s what we fought for,” said Morgan, 36. “Players are getting over $500,000 now to play, and maybe in three years, a million. And maybe in three more years, $5 million. Who knows?”
Morgan has long been an advocate for pay equity in soccer, even joining with her U.S. Women’s National Team teammates in 2022 in a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The resulting settlement gave women’s soccer players $24 million and ensured men’s and women’s Team USA members would receive equal pay moving forward.
While both Cooper, 31, and Morgan acknowledged that progress is often much slower, it is tangible in the NWSL. As of the league’s 2024 collective bargaining agreement, the new minimum salary is $48,500, which will grow to $82,500 by 2030. The CBA also began to relax the rules on teams taking charter flights and eliminated the draft and free agency restrictions.
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“Holding yourself accountable and knowing we all have a part to play and also we likely won’t reap the benefits of what we’re fighting for, but the hope is that our kids will,” Morgan added. “My hope is my daughter knows nothing other than equal; she knows nothing other than having as much access to a soccer field, to the best coaches, to the best opportunities because I played some small part in it.”
Morgan announced her retirement from professional soccer in September 2024 at the same time she announced her second pregnancy.
“I’m retiring and I have so much clarity about this decision and I’m so happy to be able to finally tell you,” she said at the time in an Instagram video. “It has been a long time coming and this decision wasn’t easy but at the beginning of 2024, I felt in my heart and soul that this was the last season that I would play soccer.”
Morgan and husband Servando Carrasco welcomed son Enzo in March 2025. They also share daughter Charlie, 5.
