It is 4th, behind track, volleyball and basketball, all sports that the US women's teams tend to dominate. Volleyball is more popular world wide making it more difficult to win World or Olympic titles, although we are often in the hunt. We are more successful in basketball than soccer (7 out of last 10 world cups).

From the National Federation of High School Sports, fall of 2018:
"Outdoor track and field continues to lead the way for girls with 488,592 participants, followed by volleyball (446,583), basketball (412,407), soccer (390,482), fast-pitch softball (367,861), cross country (223,518), tennis (190,768), swimming/diving (175,594), competitive spirit (162,669) and lacrosse (96,904)".

Boys:
"With 1,036,842 participants, 11-player football remains the No. 1 participatory sport for boys in high school by a large margin. Outdoor track and field is No. 2 with 600,097 participants, followed by basketball (551,373), baseball (487,097), soccer (456,362), cross country (270,095), wrestling (245,564), tennis (158,151), golf (144,024) and swimming/diving (138,935)."

So boys soccer actually has 66,000 more participants than girls. Girls soccer is not an outlier of success.

This shows that the women have a less challenging path to world domination than the men due to other countries not keeping pace with opportunity. Particularly in track, basketball, softball, soccer and swimming.

So if they're going to pay soccer more, then pay the others as well.
[Post edited by The Midnight Toker at 07/11/2019 4:03PM]