NWSL ends college draft with new CBA: What’s next and what does it mean for prospects?

The NWSL and the NWSL Players Association have announced a new collective bargaining agreement that eliminates the college draft and other drafts. The decision makes the NWSL the first major American professional sports league to end its draft. The deal was negotiated two years ahead of the original CBA that expires in 2026 and sees a number of changes for players in a league that is growing by the day.

The new CBA includes PA wins that eliminate all draft events, and it introduces free agency for all. League wins include staffing investments, the use of select charter flights, and the space for the league to create a year-round schedule. An increased salary cap and salaries are also key features in another historic contract.

Following the Olympic break, the NWSL regular season resumes on Friday, and fans will be able to watch select NWSL matches on CBS platforms, including CBS, CBS Sports Network, Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo Network.

The first CBA between PA and NWSL was ratified in 2022. It set a number of minimum standards, including salary and free housing, parental leave, mental health leave, and protocols for starting free agency. Now this 2.0 version of the CBA includes all of the previous wins for NWSL players and more.

The NWSLPA can now cross another historic milestone — the elimination of the NWSL Draft, and all other draft events, including the Expansion Draft, and the absence of the NWSL Discovery Rule. Additionally, all future trades, intra-league or intra-league transfers will require player consent.

“Given our vision to be the best league in the world, we decided it was the right time to align with global standards and achieve long-term labor peace. This CBA gives us agency over our business and gives the players agency over their careers,” said NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman. “Our new agreement revolutionizes the game, raises standards, and innovates the business. On behalf of our Board of Governors, I want to thank our players and their representative leadership in the NWSLPA for working together to make this possible.”

Some of the key points of the new CBA are:

CBA highlights

Free Agency and Guaranteed Contracts: In an increased effort to level the league in line with FIFA rules, unrestricted free agency and guaranteed contracts will now be open to all players. The previous CBA announced free agency with a tiered roll-out over four years. Now the amount of time played in the league will not matter and contracts expiring for the upcoming season mean the player will be eligible to negotiate new contracts with clubs.

This helps align the league with other global football markets where free agency and player transfers are common. Guaranteed contracts will help provide a sense of security to players who can deal with injury events while on a club contract.

Elimination of all drafts and changes in trade protocols: All trades and transfers will require the consent of the players. The draft and all other draft events will be eliminated effective immediately. This also puts the NWSL on equal footing with other leagues because draft events are a uniquely “American” concept.

“The draft is an outdated model that allows teams to make decisions for players, rather than players making those decisions for themselves,” NWSLPA president Tori Huster said in a release. “Now, players can choose the team environment that best suits their needs and maximizes their opportunities. Teams will need to take steps to create an environment that attracts players.”

Pathways to entry into the league were primarily through the NWSL Draft, and later, through the Under-18 mechanism. The Under-18 mechanism is still in place, and the pathway to the league will now have one less threshold for players. Expansion drafts have also been canceled, the previous way of building rosters for new teams will mean different methods of roster construction.

Often a sore spot for players across the league, the expansion draft often comes with anxious uncertainty over whether or not a player’s life will be uprooted. Unlike men’s pro sports leagues, the pay gap in women’s leagues is enormous, and while asking anyone to uproot their life at a moment’s notice is a major inconvenience, there’s no added safety net of multi-million contracts to help ease the process.

Better travel policies and workload management: The new deal covers travel conditions and frequency of games. Travel accommodation protocols have been adjusted to allow for selective use of charter flights. Charter flights are now permitted for up to six legs of travel (three round trips) during the league season and additional charter travel is required for some mid-week matches.

Workload management will be improved by addressing game frequency, including mid-season breaks and at least 28 days off during the off-season. The number of annual games to be played has been revised from 38 to 42 (with conditions) and game frequency limits have been implemented.

revenue sharing: In another historic initiative, the newly bargained salary cap is tied to revenue sharing in addition to a minimum base salary cap. Clubs will be held to a “minimum expenditure” to ensure that shareable revenue is spent on compensation. The NWSLPA has also secured auditing rights to determine compliance with the provision.

Increase in Salary and Pay Ceiling: The new agreement will increase the current minimum salary and place no limit on any player’s maximum annual salary. The league minimum salary is planned to double throughout the CBA, rising from $48,500 in 2025 to $82,500 in 2030.

The base salary cap will increase year over year as the cap is negotiated with two components — a base cap at predetermined levels and an additive based on the previous year’s sponsorship and media revenue. The salary cap for the league will increase over the term of the agreement from $3.3 million (2025) to $5.1 million (2030), with the door open for further increases thanks to a future revenue-sharing model.

The league will retain the ability to increase the base salary cap at its discretion. The previous year’s NWSL media and sponsorship shareable revenue will add at least $200,000 to the base salary cap each year.

The base salary range each year will be as follows:

• 2025: $3.3 million
• 2026: $3.5 million
• 2027: $4.4 million
• 2028: $4.7 million
• 2029: $4.9 million
• 2030: $5.1 million

How did the new CBA come into being?

Initial negotiations for the next CBA began in the fall of 2023. In an effort to avoid labor disputes in future media rights negotiation windows, the league proposed to renegotiate quickly. The NWSLPA first had to weigh whether to accept the invitation in good faith or stick with its current CBA that originally ran through 2026.

“We signed our CBA in 2022, the last year was 2023, so we are still following the first CBA, addressing the shortcomings and learning from the things we can improve upon in the next negotiations,” NWSLPA vice president Simone Charley told CBS Sports.

“I think for us, that was also another reservation of, ‘Well, like, are we well equipped? Are we fully aware of what we need to improve on?’ But I think for us, it was very clear that the pros outweighed the cons. At the end of the day, we had nothing to lose, because if we didn’t reach an agreement, we would be moving forward with our 2026 CBA. So for us, it was very clear to us that it was worth the risk.”

The first CBA set several historic milestones for the players. It was the first CBA for a Division I women’s pro soccer league in the United States. It provided minimum standards, expanded benefits to include parental or mental health leave, and provided a sense of relief that a labor contract existed between employer and employee. Although only two seasons into their CBA, there were already different things to bring up during future negotiations.

“I think the first CBA did a good job of setting minimum standards. I think that was something that was lacking. As a player, you will have completely different experiences at different clubs and that shouldn’t be the case. We should have minimum standards for the treatment of players, standards of players, minimum standards for player welfare. I think that’s the exciting thing about the next CBA, that we’ve made it even better,” Charlie said.

“That’s what we want. I think for me, the biggest thing, of course, is free agency for everybody, because as a player, you get control of your career, and you’re in a place where you can determine what’s the best fit for you … Personally, as a guy who’s experienced season-ending injuries, I think workload management was something that was really important to me.”

Workload management and free agency for all are some of the “wins” that Charlie, a forward with the Orlando Pride, is most proud of achieving in this next CBA for players. The different areas of being a female professional athlete are often intertwined, and the CBA win for travel conditions is tied to recovery for Charlie who is currently battling a season-ending Achilles tendon injury.

“Unfortunately, you see a lot of major injuries to players in the women’s game, and it’s very important that we look after players, not just in the daily treatment but also in how often we play games. If we’re playing in the middle of the week, can you charter a plane rather than walking around the airport? It’s going to be an all-day affair and so it affects your recovery. It affects your body’s ability to play at the highest level.”

What will happen next?

Eliminating the draft and providing free agency for all are historic wins for the NWSLPA and the league, but it’s also uncharted territory for the players’ union. These are processes that exist now for players and future players, but how will they approach free agency and pathways to entry into the league in 2025 and beyond?

Charlie said: “As a players union we’ve been thinking a lot about this, because players have so much more power now, how do we educate players so they can make quality choices and understand everything the club has to offer?”

Charlie says the association is working on expanded resources for current and future players so they can make the best decisions for themselves. The biggest and most important are the report cards for NWSL clubs. To date, most players already gain knowledge by sharing information and experiences, and now they are cataloging data for players to help them make any future decisions for the club.

“We’ve started implementing things like club report cards, so players can fill out, ‘How is the training facility?’ and ‘How was your experience with the staff?’ and every player has to fill that out. Giving every club a report card and giving all the players all that information, so when you’re a free agent, you really know, ‘What am I really getting into?’”