Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl has a good breakdown of the bonus money players get for making the U.S. World Cup team.
The 23 players that make the final World Cup team will get $76,000 each from U.S. Soccer, and more as they advance further in the tournament (Wahl reports that they'd get $400,000 each for a quarterfinal run).
Is that a lot or a little?
It depends on the player.
There are 15 MLS players on the U.S. preliminary 30-man World Cup roster. Because of MLS's salary structure - where a handful of "designated players" make seven-figure salaries and everyone else makes much less - the World Cup bonus money means different things to different players.
The highest-paid MLS player on the team, Clint Dempsey, makes $6.7 million per year from the Seattle Sounders. That World Cup bonus money isn't a life-changer.
The lowest-paid MLS player on the team, DeAndre Yedlin, makes $92,000 a year from the same team. If he makes the World Cup team, that bonus would nearly double his annual income.
Take a look at the inequality among the MLS players on the current U.S. men's national team roster:
World Cup bonus money is nothing to Dempsey, Michael Bradley, and Landon Donovan:
It's everything to Nick Rimando, Matt Besler, and Yedlin:
