The 30-year-old co-captain of the U.S. Women\u2019s National Team is gearing up for her third Olympics this summer after helping her team earn a bronze medal<\/a> at the 2020 Tokyo Games.<\/p>\n Now in her third Olympics, Horan will lead the 18-player roster, announced<\/a> just last week, in Paris as the team aims to recapture a gold medal, one the U.S. has not seen since 2012.\u00a0<\/p>\n Photo by Laurence Griffiths via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n The call-up to the Olympic roster \u201cstill makes me super, super emotional,\u201d the veteran tells Fortune<\/em>, and while she describes the process as \u201cexhausting,\u201d it also comes with lucrative\u00a0financial opportunities for the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of our success in partnerships and brands always comes around major tournaments,\u201d explained Horan.\u00a0<\/p>\n But while investment in women\u2019s sports is growing, \u201cthere\u2019s still a massive difference\u201d between men\u2019s and women\u2019s contracts, admits Horan, whose status as the most expensive<\/a> USWNT player nets her just $1.5 million in off- and on-field earnings, according to Forbes.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou look at contracts for teams in Europe for men\u2019s soccer compared to women\u2019s and it\u2019s insane,\u201d the midfielder, who also plays for French club Olympique Lyonnais F\u00e9minin said. \u201cThat\u2019s millions and millions per week that you\u2019re looking at.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2022, five players from the USWNT reached an agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation over an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint they filed, which cited unequal pay and treatment.<\/p>\n Still, female soccer players at the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup, on average, earned just 25 cents for every dollar earned by men at their World Cup, a CNN<\/em> analysis<\/a> found.<\/p>\n According to Forbes\u2019<\/em> 2023 list<\/a> of the world\u2019s highest-paid athletes, the top three players Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 each made $120 million that year. In comparison, the top 15 highest-paid women in the 2023 World Cup ranking collectively made less than a third<\/a> of any of those individual players.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so crazy to look at some of these contracts and look at the investment in the men\u2019s game,\u201d Horan says. But she\u2019s still optimistic that the rise in interest in women\u2019s sports will enable a change.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what Caitlin Clark was going to be making for her team in the [WNBA],\u201d Horan says, referring to Clark\u2019s starting pay of only $76,000<\/a> compared to the millions made by NBA rookies like San Antonio Spurs\u2019 Victor Wembanyama, who earned<\/a> nearly $12.2 million in his first year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut then you look at the sponsorship deals that are overriding that.\u201d To wit: the Indiana Fever rookie has booked multi-million dollar deals, including a rumored $28 million Nike deal<\/a>, the richest sponsorship contract<\/a> for a women\u2019s basketball player in history.<\/p>\n The No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft has helped push the league to new highs, including a June 23 match-up against the Chicago Sky\u2019s Angel Reese that marked the most expensive WNBA game on record<\/a>, reporting a $271 average ticket price\u2014more than three times higher than Sky\u2019s average home game sale of $88, according to online ticketing platform TickPick.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an investment that we\u2019ve talked about before, it just needs to keep growing and growing, which I think it will because you see the way that women\u2019s sports is moving,\u201d Horan says.<\/p>\n Sponsorships as a saving grace<\/strong><\/p>\n Soccer is big business, and as the USWNT and its players continue to succeed on and off the pitch, brands are taking notice.<\/p>\n A prominent sign of the USWNT\u2019s popularity is the record sales of their home jersey, Nike<\/a> chief Mark Parker told The Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a> in 2019. It\u2019s \u201cthe number one soccer jersey, men\u2019s or women\u2019s, ever sold on Nike.com in one season.\u201d<\/p>\n Women\u2019s soccer is also growing without the Olympic stage. In November 2023, Yahoo<\/a> Sports<\/em> reported NWSL\u2019s four-year \u201crecord-breaking\u201d broadcast deal<\/a> worth $240 million with coverage across CBS, ESPN, Scripps Sports, and Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, research firm SponsorUnited<\/a> found last year that the number of brands buying sponsorships or media in the NWSL since 2019 was growing at four times the rate of Major League Soccer.<\/p>\n COURTESY OF COPPOLA WINES<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \u201cA lot of brands are\u2026putting more and more investment which has always been the goal. So that\u2019s really exciting,\u201d says Horan, who endorses eight major brands, including cherry juice brand Cheribundi, Microsoft\u2019s Xbox, and most recently, famed film director Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s winery.<\/a><\/p>\n On her latest brand deal, Horan says, \u201cSoccer is the love of my life, but those moments I get with my family having a glass of wine\u2026I cherish them so much. I usually go for partnerships that I truly believe in\u2026so it\u2019s a really exciting partnership for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead at the 2024 Olympics<\/strong><\/p>\n As Horan sets her sights on this month\u2019s Olympic Games, she\u2019s leading the youngest U.S. women\u2019s team since the 2008 Beijing Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n With newcomers like 19-year-old Jaedyn Shaw, the average age of this year\u2019s team is 26.8 years, four years younger than the 2020 Tokyo Olympic team. Half the players included are also first-time Olympians according to U.S. Soccer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Horan, who boasts the longest streak of scoring for the national team every year since 2015, says she has \u201cfull faith\u201d in the young players.<\/p>\n Her secret sauce for a winning mindset?<\/p>\n \u201cTo always exude confidence,\u201d she told Fortune<\/em>, crediting four years of work with her sports psychologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy main mentality, especially in the Olympics is you go out and win the game,\u201d she said. It\u2019s game by game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Lindsey](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/GettyImages-1331450079.jpg?w=1440&q=75\"\/)
![\"Lindsey](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/CoppolaWines_LindseyHoran_ffc118.jpg?w=1440&q=75\"\/)
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