NWSL Final tonight!
The match is on CBS at 8 p.m. ET tonight. The final’s continued placement on network TV speaks to the NWSL’s growth over the past handful of years. But there are also reasons for concern, especially about the league’s ability to hang on to star players. Consider these mixed indicators:
Mixed signals for America’s biggest women’s soccer league
The ever-expanding NWSL finishes its 13th season tonight, with a championship match in San Jose, Calif., between the No. 2-seeded Washington Spirit and No. 8 Gotham FC. The Spirit have Trinity Rodman, a huge star whose future is the subject of infinite speculation and consternation around the league right now. (More on her shortly.) Gotham, meanwhile, has a team of destiny feel. The last team in the field, Gotham started its postseason by stunning the league’s best team and heavy title favorite, the Kansas City Current, in the quarterfinals. Gotham then beat last year’s champion, the Orlando Pride, to book its ticket to the title game. An underdog? Not exactly, but this team is a good story.
- Good sign: Valuations. In 2022, as the NWSL expanded from 10 to 12 teams, owners of new clubs in Los Angeles and San Diego each had to pay a roughly $2 million expansion fee. That fee has multiplied by an eye-watering 82 times since then. The owners of an Atlanta team joining the league in 2028 are paying $165 million. The NWSL has generated bigger and better media deals, and sponsors are bullish on the league as a place to spend their dollars. No wonder that when Los Angeles’ Angel City FC sold in 2024, the club’s $250 million valuation was the biggest in women’s sports history. It’s now valued even more highly, at a reported $280 million.
- Bad sign: Talent exodus. The NWSL is having a very hard time keeping marketable players from leaving the league for greener pastures — specifically, European leagues, which pay more and have a longer tradition. It’s really just a few European teams doing most of this poaching, but that doesn’t make the problem any less acute for the NWSL.
- Good sign: An aggressive new CBA. The talent retention problem isn’t new, and it’s not like the NWSL has sat on its hands. In 2024, the league and its players’ union came to an agreement geared toward making the NWSL a talent magnet. Salaries went up. The draft system went away, affording American college stars a chance to pick their own destination, as they could do if they were in Europe. Travel accommodations improved. The league did away with an individual player maximum salary, though a team salary cap of $3.5 million this year still set a limit.
- Bad sign: Maybe the biggest star exit yet. Speaking of that salary cap, the NWSL is going to have to decide what it cares about more: the cap or keeping Trinity Rodman. As The Athletic explains this week, one of the faces of the next generation of American soccer — who’s about to play in the championship game for the second year in a row — is poised to cross the ocean. There’s some chance Rodman sticks around a bit longer anyway without the NWSL changing its rules to get her paid, but hoping for that isn’t a strategy. Rodman even has a domestic offer to leave that no NWSL team can match under the current rules.
Where does all of this leave the NWSL? How should we be feeling about the trajectory of the league? I asked The Athletic’s women’s sports lead, Meg Linehan, to help me sort through it: On a scale of 1 to 10, where 5 is “treading water” and 10 is “on the path to becoming the best, most lucrative league in the world,” how do you rate the state of the league?
The NWSL is probably hanging on around a 6 or 7. Yes, there’s plenty of solid news happening on the business side, and the league’s growth is undeniable from even five years ago. It’s essentially unrecognizable from when the league started. There’s still a massive project ahead when it comes to cultural relevance and creating the next generation of stars who break through to the general public. The ceiling is high, but sometimes the NWSL can get in its own way.
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NWSL Final tonight!
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