The United States women’s national team sued U.S. Soccer for gender discrimination in federal court in March 2019, citing what the players said were pervasive inequalities in the treatment of their team and the men’s national team. On Friday, a judge dismissed the players’ equal pay claims. This primer, from 2016, explains in broad terms (and using numbers from that time) the differing pay structures under which the teams are paid by U.S. Soccer.

The core fact is not in dispute: The players on the World Cup-winning United States women’s national soccer team earn less money than their counterparts on the men’s national team. After that truth, things are muddier. How much less? How can that be fair? And most important: What is being done about it?

U.S. Soccer and the union representing the players on the women’s team have traded court filings and accusations — in a lawsuit filed by U.S. Soccer over the validity of the team’s collective bargaining agreement and in a wage-discrimination complaint filed by five top players last month. Amid all of this, we gave both sides the opportunity to make their case using U.S. Soccer’s public (and private) financial data. What we found suggests a complicated battlefield.