Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,
America’s fleeting interest in soccer may once again have abated following a humiliating World Cup defeat to Belgium last Monday, in a game that saw President Donald Trump become personally involved over a red-card dispute.
But the high-profile flop in the first elimination round was not the only indignity that the U.S. athletes must endure.
A collective bargaining agreement means that the team will have to share its $16 million prize pot (minus a 20% cut for the U.S. Men’s Soccer organization) with the U.S. women’s team.
“The remaining 80 percent is split evenly between the men’s and women’s player pools, meaning each team is set to receive $6.4 million from the USMNT’s run,” the New York Post reported.
That puts the estimated takeaway for each player on the two teams’ 26-man -person rosters at $246,153. However, since there is no finalized roster for the women’s team, which will vie for its fifth World Cup championship next year in Brazil, those payouts will remain in escrow for now.
The women’s success in the quadrennial tournament gave them extra leverage to demand the pay gap be closed after their 2019 championship title. By contrast, the men’s team has never won the tournament and last made it to the round of 16 in 2002.
But the men’s matches historically have drawn greater viewership. The loss to Belgium saw a U.S. television audience exceeding 45 million viewers, while the highest-rated women’s game, the 2015 World Cup final, saw the audience peak at just 26.7 million.
For winning the entire tournament in 2019, the women’s team received a total of $4 million from the $30 million overall that the league took in.
Despite the attempt at pay parity, critics such as The Spectator’s Melissa Chen noted that the agreement flies in the face of one of capitalism’s central tenets — the importance of market value.
The US men's national soccer team is being subjected to the same kind of legalized plunder that defines too many divorce proceedings in this country.
After grinding through qualifiers, earning their spot in the World Cup, and generating the massive FIFA payout that only the… https://t.co/ZnSJjDHcbD
“It disincentivizes excellence on the men’s side (why push harder if your windfall gets redistributed?) and removes pressure on the women’s side to grow their own commercial appeal,” Chen wrote. “Like divorce settlements that trap high-earners in perpetual support roles, this policy treats men’s soccer as a piggy bank for ‘fairness,’ not a business rewarding what fans and sponsors actually value."
Tyler Durden Sun, 07/12/2026 - 19:50While the Trump administration keeps pushing domestic energy addition through funding vehicles and executive orders aimed at grid reliability and AI-driven demand growth, two next-generation geothermal developers just posted updates that move past announcements and into measurable progress on drilling and capital formation.
Fervo announced that its third-generation well design at Cape Station in Utah has lifted drilling rates by 143% compared with the first Cape well.
The latest well, Sawtooth 7, reached 19,448 feet measured depth, including a 7,500-foot lateral, in just 21 days. That’s a 70% reduction in drilling time versus the prior design generation, even as the team targets hotter rock at 460 degrees Fahrenheit and larger casing diameters for higher output per well.
Phase I at Cape Station remains on track for first power later this year, with Phase II targeting 400 MW online in 2028. Faster wells directly compress costs and timelines for the kind of repeatable deployment investors have been waiting to see.
Fervo’s Cape Phase II is tracking toward roughly $5,500/kW installed, with a longer-term target of $3,000/kW as the drilling learning curve keeps compounding. That remains well below the Georgia Vogtle nuclear units, which ultimately landed somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000/kW after years of delays and overruns.
As we reported back in February when the DOE released its $171.5 million Notice of Funding Opportunity for EGS field tests and resource confirmation drilling, the policy environment has turned supportive for technologies that can deliver firm, 24/7 carbon-free power without weather dependence.
Quaise Energy moved in parallel with the initial close of a $134 million Series B round, bringing total funding to roughly $230 million. Prelude Ventures led, with strategic participation from JERA and Idemitsu Kosan of Japan.
The proceeds target Project Obsidian, the company’s planned first commercial superhot geothermal plant on federal leases in central Oregon near Newberry Volcano. Quaise’s millimeter-wave drilling technology is approaching one kilometer of depth in Texas test wells after penetrating more than 100 meters of granite.
The goal remains first electrons to the grid by 2030 from a facility with long-term gigawatt-scale potential once superhot rock above 300 degrees Celsius is routinely accessed.
Both moves align with the administration’s emphasis on unleashing American energy dominance and securing reliable power for data centers that cannot tolerate intermittency. Geothermal’s baseload profile makes it a natural complement to the nuclear builds that remain frustratingly slow on actual construction despite regulatory tailwinds.
Tyler Durden Sun, 07/12/2026 - 19:15