Women's National Team

WNT, the acronym for "Women's National Team," applies to all sports and is used by a number of English speaking countries (e.g.: Canada, England, New Zealand, USA). The term is used within a sport's community when there is only reference to that specific sport (e.g.: "We got tickets for the WNT's next home game!"). When clarifying which sport or which country's team, the reference might be, "the US Basketball WNT" or "the Soccer Germany WNT."

Not all WNTs are paid (professional) or have a women's national league from which to draw new players. When women professional athletes are able to dedicate themselves full-time to developing their skills, they raise the level of play in a sport and provide much higher caliber Women's National Team players. Most top women athletes must work full-time jobs, in addition to their training, practice and competition schedules.

In the United States, women's pro sports teams and leagues are still relatively new and athletes under-paid as of 2005. In America for instance, 51 years after inception of the men's NBA, the WNBA began its first season in 1997. Salaries are surprisingly low for such highly skilled athletes. The 2005 WNBA team salary cap was $0.673 million. The men's NBA cap was over 60 times higher, at $43.87 million. The WUSA became the first American women's pro soccer league in 2001. Fans enjoyed women's pro soccer for three seasons before executives announced suspension of the league for lack of financial sponsorship and in spite of the fact that the US Soccer WNT was rated one of the world's top teams. Absence of a women's pro soccer league in the United States makes it difficult for the Soccer WNT to find new players who are ready for international competition. A 2004 effort to revive the WUSA was launched. In 2008, an organization called Women's Professional Soccer was formed and began playing pro soccer in 2009. The WNBA enjoys financial backing via the NBA and supplies a stream of professional players to the US Basketball WNT.