photo by Emily Anderson
A commissioner for a women’s sports league speaking at an event hosted in Dubai and funded by the United Arab Emirates’ Crown Prince, while wearing a blazer that costs nearly $2500, probably makes everything that follows rather redundant. But over the course of the 2025 season, and current offseason, NWSL owners and NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman have revealed a glimpse of their vision for the future of the league. The picture they’ve painted is bleak, because no one seems to be caring about the soccer.
During the 2025 season there were several incidents that suggested the league’s primary product—soccer games—was becoming, at best, an afterthought. First was the early-season embarrassment of Unwell FC, an idea surely cooked up in a boardroom by a handful of the league’s cringiest executives. The belief that soccer isn’t enough is the only explanation for a commissioner using the star power of hundreds of athletes, including dozens of superstar talents, as background for an activation to promote a podcaster’s branded hydration drink. The partnership included a shallow co-opting of supporters’ groups, even selling tickets at actual games for fans (or, “fans”) to sit in a section that would provide mid-game advertising opportunities for the podcaster’s brand. The idea managed to betray the league’s players and most passionate fans, and reveal league leadership’s priorities, placing smiles and handshakes in suites and boardrooms above women’s soccer as a sport and community.
Later in the season, during a particularly sweltering day in the Midwest, Jessica Berman threatened to fine Kansas City’s owners if they refused to play in unsafe conditions, all because kickoff was scheduled during a prime CBS window. The match was delayed while medical professionals monitored the level of threat the conditions posed to the athletes. Eventually, the game kicked off, and with the heat very much still a factor, it ended 0-0. In the aftermath, the league even went so far as to quietly update its policy regarding extreme heat, removing a clause that allowed for collaboration with the home club’s team physician with feedback from visiting team medical personnel. This time, not only had league leadership ignored how the decision would impact the product on the field, but there appeared to be little regard for player safety.
This refusal to allow soccer to influence decisions continued into the offseason, seeping into the league’s attempts to combat the sudden bleeding of star talents. Even more accurate framing, though, is that the impetus wasn’t to stem the losses of talents like Emily Fox, Naomi Girma, Phallon Tullis-Joyce and most recently Alyssa Thompson, but that Trinity Rodman wants to stay in the NWSL. Not only was the league unprepared for Rodman to want to stay, it also seems they never had any intention of figuring out how to put forth a competitive offer to keep her had she been undecided. (The Washington Spirit proposed a contract within the current rules, but it was vetoed by the $2,500 sport coat-wearing Jessica Berman.)
Instead, Berman and a group of owners in the league came up with and approved a half-baked, comically absurd High Impact Player Rule. The entire rules reads like a skills assessment submission for a junior marketing position. Instead, it was presented as a competent solution by a room of adults supposedly responsible for delivering upon the constant boast of being the best women’s league in the world. Rather than simply raising the salary cap by $1-million, the “HIP” rule creates a separate fund of up to $1-million that’s only available to players who meet a set of criteria established by a smorgasbord of popularity contests.
Only one aspect of the criteria is somewhat merit-based (top 11 minutes played for the USWNT in a calendar year), with everything else compiled through votes from journalists (some of whom may watch the NWSL, and certainly several who do not), coaches, general managers and/or fans. The largest pool of eligible players will come from top 30 in Ballon d’Or voting, top 40 from The Guardian’s list of op 100 players, the top 40 from ESPNFC’s Top 50 list (sorry to 41-50, maybe next time), finalists for NWSL MVP and NWSL end of year Best XI, and something called the SportsPro Media’s Top 150 Most Marketable Athletes—which currently places Beth Mead ninety-two (92!) spots above Sophia Wilson.
All this would be embarrassing for any league, but the embarrassment is exponentially worse from a league that tells us that it is, and wants to be, the best in the world. The criteria is a laughable creation that prioritizes marketability above anything else, and does so at the expense of allowing sporting directors and general managers to identify and pay talent specific to their club’s approach. I’m sure whoever came up with it had one hell of a PowerPoint presentation, but apart from the frustration of all this, it’s just a truly stupid time to be doing stupid things.
Simply caring about the soccer can set the league up to capitalize on a bevy of soccer-specific events occurring in the near future. The men’s World Cup being hosted in the United States this year provides an opportunity to ride a wave of heightened awareness of soccer in this country. Brazil hosts the Women’s World Cup in 2027, and Emma Hayes will steer the USWNT through their attempt to make up for a disappointing 2023 tournament. The following year the Olympics come to Los Angeles, and in 2031, the Women’s World Cup will be hosted jointly by the United States, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Mexico.
Even domestic club competitions are ramping up. This spring, Concacaf will crown its second W Champions Cup winner and kick off the competition’s third iteration, which will likely include teams from Canada’s newly formed Northern Super League. In January of 2028, women’s domestic clubs will get the competition we’ve all been waiting for: a Club World Cup. Given the talent spread, this tournament has a chance to be the most intriguing and globally relevant club competition in the world—men’s competitions included. Also, and oh by the way, the NWSL’s current broadcast deal expires at the end of the 2027 season.
Currently, the NWSL is whiffing when other leagues are capitalizing on this moment. The WSL broke away from the England Football Association to independently negotiate broadcast and sponsorship deals. Last month the Frauen Bundesliga did the same, splitting from the German Football Association and stating that, unlike the Premier League—which is miles ahead of the Bundesliga—the WSL isn’t that far ahead, and they intend to compete in talent acquisition and on-pitch entertainment.
Meanwhile, no one on the league’s leadership team listed on their website has a title that focuses on its soccer product. Instead, Berman and enough owners to control voting outcomes seem more willing to pay lawyers than players, and appear to intentionally have no space for anyone with enough influence to focus on what actually makes a great soccer league (hint: the soccer). Players don’t deserve to have their efforts cheapened by clout-chasing leadership, and despite what culturally detached executives in boardrooms may say, women’s soccer fans care about the sport. It is, and always will be, the soccer that matters. ◼︎