Over 10 months and more than 20 bargaining sessions, the National Women’s Soccer League and the NWSL Players Association have hammered out a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Bargaining committees from each group met in person in Philadelphia from July 8 through July 11 to finalize the deal.
It was supposed to be time off for players as the league took a break before the Olympics. But five athletes forewent vacation to join the PA’s bargaining committee in person: Brianna Pinto (North Carolina Courage), Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit), Dani Weatherholt (Courage), Haley Hopkins (Courage), and Nicole Barnhart (Spirit). Including those five, 43 players served on the bargaining committee, with those unable to make it to Philadelphia joining virtually. NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke, NWSLPA president Tori Huster, two labor counsels, Deborah Willig and Jessica Caggiano, and an economist, Dr. Beth Paulin from La Salle University rounded out the team.
“We had dozens more (players) on the Zoom dipping in and out at all hours of the day and night,” Burke told The Athletic. “We were working till 2 a.m. I think our bodies ascended to another plane at one point… caffeine was having no effect on me.”
Those caffeine-fueled marathon days were just the tip of the iceberg, the culmination of hundreds of hours of meetings. Huster told The Athletic that player prep calls conducted before each bargaining session lasted anywhere from 1.5 hours to five hours, depending on what they needed to discuss and what level of feedback was required.
The league’s first CBA was ratified in 2022 and was meant to run through 2026. But since 2022, the league has continued to see rapid success, from increasing expansion fees to the $240 million (£183 m) broadcast deal the league signed in 2023. That growth and increasing interest in moving towards how the rest of the world deals with player rights, contracts, and transfers, spurred early re-negotiation.
The new CBA took effect on July 30 of this year and will run through 2030, encompassing several major changes for the league, particularly around player movement, while expanding the salary cap and player benefits.
There were plenty of PA members who were preparing for the Olympics during this period, adding to the logistical balancing act of wanting informed input from members while respecting some players’ need to focus on the upcoming tournament.
“It was an honor to be at the table with them,” Huster said of the players who came to Philadelphia during their vacation period. “And it just speaks volumes to the level of responsibility that they feel to improving the league and to voicing things for their fellow teammates. That’s probably the most striking moment for me throughout this whole process.”
Burke said that while she and NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman had been informally discussing revisiting the CBA on particular issues, after the 2023 World Cup, the league was the one who came to the PA and invited them to engage in voluntary midterm bargaining.
Berman initiated the renegotiations after a lackluster showing for teams with NWSL players at the World Cup. (Photo by Ira L. Black, Getty Images)
“We saw an opportunity to invite players to the table and reconstruct the frameworks that underpin our league, all to support our vision to be the best league in the world. We worked feverishly behind the scenes to strike a deal that sets the league up for success, without the threat of impending expiration or pressure from external parties,” Berman said in an email to The Athletic.
“The resulting CBA gives us long-term labor peace, alignment with global standards, and control over our business, all of which will enable the NWSL and our players to work together to build the league for the future. We believe this incentive alignment will unlock incremental value for all.”
“Alignment with global standards” felt particularly relevant to NWSL after the World Cup last summer; the three countries with the most internationals in the league — the United States, Canada, and Brazil — were all eliminated before the quarterfinals. Burke said that it sharply highlighted to some stakeholders, players and owners alike, that the league was not keeping up with certain standard practices outside of the U.S, such as free agency and the ability to maximize the transfer market in accordance with FIFA’s regulations on the status and transfer of players.
The negotiation process began in earnest in September 2023 and continued through July 2024, culminating in the Philadelphia in-person meeting. NWSL’s bargaining committee in Philadelphia included Bay FC co-founder Aly Wagner, Chicago Red Stars owner Laura Ricketts, Kansas City Current co-owner Angie Long, chief sporting director Tatjana Haenni, director of player affairs Stephanie Lee, and chief legal officer Bill Ordower, with Berman joining virtually.
Burke said that she originally wanted to complete negotiations by Christmas of last year, but given the complexity of negotiations, the issues both sides wanted to address, and needing to work with numerous players on different schedules, bargaining went on longer than expected.
An overview of the CBA
Most notably, there will be no more drafts. The entry draft, used to draft players with no more college eligibility, and expansion drafts, used to populate the rosters of new teams from the existing pool of league players, were abolished immediately. Also eliminated is the discovery rule, which allowed clubs essentially to sit temporarily on some players’ rights without signing them.
NWSL players will now have unrestricted free agency, allowing all players to become free agents when their contracts expire. Another big development is the implementation of revenue sharing, in which the salary cap will now be tied to revenues so that if the league experiences a windfall, so do the players.
Other notable items from the CBA, which the PA intends to publish in full on their website:
- No maximum salary
- Minimum salary in 2025 will be $48.5k, rising to $82.5k by 2030
- Players cannot be traded without their consent
- Every team is entitled to charter six flight legs (essentially three round trips) without needing approval
- Clubs are required to charter for certain midweek games
- Clubs will phase out team-provided housing as part of player compensation
More player protections and benefits
One of the most difficult issues to untangle during bargaining was around the economics of the salary cap and revenue sharing.
Revenue sharing is practiced in other leagues. In the NBA, players get a cut of “basketball-related income,” so if the league does well, then so do the players. NWSL has now tied the salary cap to revenue sharing, with a guaranteed minimum base salary cap to ensure players get paid even if revenue drops off or something unforeseen happens, like a global pandemic.
Over the next six years, barring re-negotiation, the cap of how much teams can spend on player salaries will rise incrementally from $2.75 million in 2024 to at least $5.1 million in 2030. The PA also has audit rights to enforce these financial provisions.
New base salary cap by year
| Year | Salary Cap |
|---|---|
|
2025 |
$3.3M |
|
2026 |
$3.5M |
|
2027 |
$4.4M |
|
2028 |
$4.7M |
|
2029 |
$4.9M |
|
2030 |
$5.1M |
There are other financial provisions, such as increased end-of-season competition bonuses paid out for NWSL Shield and Rookie of the Year, among others. Players who have been in the league for 10 years or more when they retire will get a lump sum payment of $5,000, a small but earnest attempt at thanks for helping to build NWSL into what it is today.
Players added in other protections that increase stability for players and add to their quality of life. Every contract is now guaranteed, as opposed to allowing semi-guaranteed contracts, preventing early termination of contracts. Players get expanded parental leave and childcare benefits; clubs have increased staff requirements including field maintenance and medical personnel; and injured players have longer health insurance coverage.
Changes to player housing
Players also wanted to phase out the use of team housing as a benefit — which is taxed as part of their income. That meant asking for compensation that wouldn’t leave players housing insecure, which includes things like having to spend a disproportionate amount of their monthly income on rent, overcrowding and moving frequently. With at least 20 percent of their players making under $40,000 per year, the PA wanted players to spend no more than 30 percent of their gross income on rent and utilities to be considered housing secure. Now players should be able to choose a supplemental housing stipend if they don’t want to go through the team for housing.
This is where the PA’s economist came in. With 14 teams in 14 different markets and expansion to 16 coming in the next couple of years, setting a salary cap that accounted for the cost of living in those disparate markets was no mean feat. Dr. Paulin helped them study and measure the issue to help guide bargaining on compensation.
“One dollar in Louisville is not the same as one dollar in LA, and we know that because a lot of our players are living closer to the margins than a lot of other professional athletes,” said Burke.
A 2023 NWSL Championship between the OL Reign and NJ/NY Gotham at Snapdragon Stadium (Photo by Katharine Lotze, Getty Images)
Huster said it was important to players to not be locked into team housing, which has evolved alongside the league.
In 2013, team housing was a way to help make up for a $6,000 minimum salary. That housing included anything from an apartment shared with two or three other players to a host family. In 2024, host families are a thing of the past, but housing is still an issue, especially when player housing needs vary from a freshly-signed 15-year-old who still needs to live with a guardian to a married 30-year-old with children and a live-in grandparent.
“If team-provided housing is nice and you want to stay in those apartments, then great,” said Huster. “If you are wanting to live on your own away from team-provided housing and those apartments, then opting for the (housing) stipend might be better if you have a partner in the market with you. There are all different kinds of factors that go into a decision like that. And we wanted players to be able to choose.”
Many negotiation points were agreed upon earlier in the process, including total free agency. The housing issue, and by extension the salary cap, was one of the major factors in pushing bargaining deep into 2024.
“This is what took us so long,” said Burke. “We found a way to phase out team-provided housing while making sure every player is housing secure, and also making sure that as it’s phased out, no player is worse off year over year of their contract because it’s such a significant benefit. So this CBA is certainly more complicated than the first one.”
Though this deal runs through 2030, there are provisions in this CBA that allow early re-negotiation, what Huster called a “safety net.” The economics of women’s soccer in the U.S. has shifted so rapidly that there’s no telling where the league will be in 2030. Their broadcast deal, which ends in 2028, is up for renegotiation in 2027, following a 2026 home men’s World Cup. For now, the new CBA appears to help further align NWSL with the global standard in terms of player rights and trades while increasing player choice.
“I’m hopeful now that in this new world, players can really be at the center of their own careers and be in charge of their own careers,” said Huster.
(Top photo: Tim Nwachukwu, Rich Graessle, Randy Litzinger, Katharine Lotze/Getty Images, iStock; Design: Dan Goldfarb)
