What to know for the Women's World Cup

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.

Here are a few things to know as women's soccer's most prestigious event gets set to open Thursday in Australia and New Zealand:

It's bigger than ever.

What started as a 12-team tournament in 1991 before expanding to 16 teams in 1999 and 24 in 2015 has now grown to 32. They've been divided into eight groups of four for round-robin play. The top two in each group advance to the knockout stage, starting Aug. 5. The final goes Aug. 20 in Sydney.

The group stage kicks off Thursday at 3 a.m. ET with co-host New Zealand facing Norway in Auckland. The other co-host, Australia, will take on Ireland at 6 a.m. ET in front of an expected crowd of more than 80,000 in Sydney. Then Canada meets Nigeria at 10:30 p.m. ET in Melbourne to complete day 1.

The prize money has expanded too.

A player-led push for FIFA to equalize payments for the men's and women's World Cups didn't achieve that lofty goal. But soccer's global governing body still increased its Women's World Cup fund — covering prize money, team preparation and compensation to players' clubs — from a total of $40 million US in 2019 to $152 million.

FIFA also met the players' demand for a portion of the prize money to be paid directly to them, rather than all going to their national federations to dole out. Each of the 732 players in the tournament will receive at least $30,000, with the opportunity to earn more based on how far their teams advance. For example, players reaching the quarterfinals will be paid $90,000, semifinalists $165,000 and the champions $270,000.

WATCH | CBC Sports' Shireen Ahmed explores journey of