Lindsey Horan has never been one for the status quo. The co-captain of the U.S. women’s national team didn’t didn’t even play high school soccer. Instead she chose to play for her local club team in Golden, Colorado. But that didn’t keep Parade magazine from naming Horan to its All-America High School Soccer Team in 2012. That same year, she turned down a scholarship to play at the University of North Carolina—one of the nation’s premier programs—opting to join French professional club Paris-St. Germain FC right out of high school.
Since being called up to the USWNT in 2013, Horan has won an NWSL MVP, a World Cup title, and was named U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year in 2021. In yesterday’s World Cup match against the Netherlands, she scored a clutch tying goal. And through it all, she has been front and center for what has been a defining decade thus far in the growth and visibility of women’s sports, especially soccer, with her U.S. women’s team fighting for equal pay, and winning.
Now, the 29-year-old midfielder is preparing for her second World Cup (group stage play begins July 20), looking to help her team win its third-consecutive title and fifth overall.
Horan recently talked to Fast Company about the seismic shifts in the visibility of women’s sports over the past decade, how she balances being an elite athlete and an investor/businesswoman, and why there’s much more room for the growth of women’s sports, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Fast Company: Your career spans a time during which the scope of being a female athlete has changed so much. How would you describe the changes for female athletes, particularly in soccer?
Lindsey Horan: When I first joined the national team in 2013, for me, it was amazing. Like, I thought I was getting paid well because I had nothing to compare it to. We were getting a decent amount of fans, and I was playing for the women’s national team, one of the most popular teams in the world. But I came into a team where the veterans weren’t happy with where everything stood. So it was eye-opening for me. So when I think back to 2013, it’s incredible how far we’ve come. I’m obviously referring to women’s soccer, especially in the U.S., but I think, even globally and in women’s sports in general, there’s been such an incredible change. I think the biggest thing is the visibility. Getting people to look at women athletes in a different way and actually getting to know them.
FC: What have been some of the catalysts for change in both visibility and the financial viability of being a female professional athlete?