Jeff KassoufNov 18, 2025, 08:00 AM ETCloseJeff Kassouf covers women’s soccer for ESPN, focusing on the USWNT and NWSL. In 2009, he founded The Equalizer, a women’s soccer news outlet, and he previously won a Sports Emmy at NBC Sports and Olympics.
1. “The salary cap — $3.5m per club for the 2025 season — is now set through 2030. Do you worry the cap will hold the league back from competing with European teams as those teams can pay players without such limits?”
2. “Now that players must consent to trades, how much has it changed the way deals work and in what ways?”
3. “In last year’s NWSL GM survey, almost every GM said that not every team follows the rules. The league said it would start cracking down on rule-breaking, fining Angel City $200,000 and docking the team points — the most severe punishment in league history — because the team violated the league’s salary cap rules. So, do you think teams are still breaking the rules?”
4. “On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 1 being very unhappy and 5 being extremely happy, how satisfied are you with NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman’s leadership? Why?”
5. “Do you agree with Berman’s stated goal to expand the NWSL from 16 teams to 32 teams at some point, and if not, what’s the best number of teams to have?”
7. “In last year’s survey, many GMs felt that coaches and staff were too vulnerable to player accusations and lacked the protections to do their jobs. Do you feel the league has adequately addressed those concerns?”
11. “With the elimination of the college draft, is there still a long-term place for the college pipeline in the NWSL?”
12. “Now that the USL Super League has played a full season as a first-division league, do you view it as a partner, competitor or something else?”
13. “On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 1 being very unhappy and 5 being extremely happy, how would you rate the job USWNT head coach Emma Hayes has done to collaborate with NWSL teams?”
14. “Do you feel the NWSL has enough star power to break into the mainstream, and which player should the league build around as the face of the NWSL?”
18. “If you were building a team from scratch and had first dibs on any NWSL player right now — imagine current contracts are torn up — who would you sign?”
Trinity Rodman on how she’s growing as a leader for USWNT (0:56)Trinity Rodman explains how she’s leading by example for the USWNT after a 2-0 win over Brazil. (0:56)
8. “Of the NWSL’s 14 active teams, which is the flagship team that is elevating the league most?”
9. “Which of the NWSL’s 14 active teams is holding the league back?”
10. “Do you think the NWSL’s plan to launch a second-division league is a good idea?”
16. “How would you rank the following leagues from best to worst?”
17. “Which player not in the NWSL would you most want to see play in the league?”
The NWSL has been one of the leaders in the women’s sports boom, but as great as the commercial gains have been, there are more challenges than ever facing the league in a rapidly evolving global market. How well positioned is the NWSL to handle the competition? And what are the biggest problems facing the league in the near future?
ESPN sought answers from general managers (or the equivalent highest-ranking soccer executives on each team) across the league in our second annual anonymous GM survey. These highest-ranking technical staff members from 15 of the 16 teams in the league (one had scheduling conflicts) participated in one-on-one surveys either over video calls or in person.
The NWSL imposes a hard salary cap on each of its teams, in stark contrast with top European leagues such as those in England, France and Spain. NWSL GMs are loud and clear here: The salary cap, even with built-in risers over the coming years, is a problem for the league.
Competition from abroad, the GMs surveyed said, is currently only from a handful of teams, led by Chelsea and OL Lyonnes. One GM summarized that group as the perennial UEFA Champions League quarterfinalists. But the recent losses of USWNT stalwarts Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson to Chelsea furthered their concerns. “I’m worried that more dominoes will fall,” one general manager said.
“Right now, top talent is going only one way,” another GM said. “We’re not seeing that the other way around. We’re not seeing players that are in top clubs in their prime coming this way. Yes, for now, it’s only a handful of players that have left, but if that becomes a trend, then that will be an issue.”
League leaders have long defended the salary cap as the reason for the league’s success, but one GM pushed back: “Why is parity the best? If you look at other American sports, sure, you see that. If you look at the global game of football, that is not what you see. If you want to be the best league in the world, anybody who knows soccer would say that’s the English Premier League in the men’s game — there’s no parity.”
One GM who expressed concern that the salary cap could hold the league back also worried that abolishing it would create “a bubble that could be dangerous for all of us.” This GM did note that the NWSL must compete better “against that handful of teams in Europe that right now could pretty much pick any player they want and offer an amount that it would be crazy for us to offer.”
The natural question is: How does the NWSL solve this problem, when the salary cap is written into a binding CBA? One GM said the league needs to “find a solution to paying top talent with the least amount of damage to the rest of the ecosystem,” potentially a version of the designated player rule in Major League Soccer that allows teams to pay top players outside of the cap.
“I’m not in favor of abolishing it,” another GM said, adding that instead, there should be regular reevaluation of the cap every 18-24 months. “It shouldn’t be knee-jerk reactions — every time a player leaves we say we have to look at the cap.”
For much of the league’s history NWSL teams could — and, in plenty of cases, did — trade players within the league without consent. The NWSL’s new CBA ratified last year changed that: It brought full free agency to the league and required all trades to be approved by the players involved.
“I actually think it’s better. It’s healthier for everybody,” one GM said. Several GMs also pointed out that it brings the NWSL in line with the global norm where players approve transfers. “I think any human should have a voice on where they’re going to play and live,” another GM said.
“It’s the way it should have been a long time ago,” added another. The flip side is, a different GM said, is that “We also get forced as GMs to move players who are under contract on our team. That, I think, is more prevalent now.” That same GM noted that if a player wants out, the club is frequently in a bind. “That has been a factor on multiple occasions in multiple deals,” they said.
Clubs are further hamstrung in those situations, a different GM said, because “We’ve lost a lot of trade capital. No draft picks available, allocation money phasing out — when you have fewer things to trade, all of that impacts the ability to make these deals.” The result is more traditional transfers for cash within the league.
Four GMs said that teams are not breaking rules — up from just one saying it last year. The majority still said that the practice continues. As one GM put it: “Would I bet my annual salary that no one is breaking the rules? Not at all.”
Another GM said rule-breaking can be relatively minor: “The league has a couple rules where you say, why does it matter? They still have a lot of those types of rules where they say you need to disclose that [small amount of money] and it goes on the salary cap. Those are the types of rules where we know factually people are breaking the rules and it doesn’t sound right, but I’m not going to turn a club in because they are buying dinner for people.”
Others, however, claim more egregious rule-breaking is happening. One GM added “there’s a lot of questions around how some teams are bringing in the players that they have or are bringing in.”
“I speak to agents trying to sign players. I can’t sign them because clubs are willing to break the rules and I’m not,” a different GM said.
Still some GMs noted better compliance, with one adding: “The league’s interventions have been helpful. Before, I was very convinced that people were actively cheating. I feel like that has decreased significantly or potentially kind of gone away for the most part. I can’t say 100%.”
Jessica Berman became NWSL commissioner in early 2022, taking over in the wake of the league’s abuse scandal. Under Berman’s leadership, valuations of NWSL clubs have gone up from $35m to over $250m, and the league signed a $240 million media rights deal (which includes ESPN). The league also ratified a new, long-term CBA last year ahead of schedule.
The league’s upward trajectory commercially is undeniable, and many of the sweeping reforms that followed the league’s abuse scandal were implemented during Berman’s tenure.
On the field, however, the NWSL faces increasing global competition and in the opinion of one general manager, is “really slow to react” to the rapidly changing landscape. That business vs. sporting dichotomy led to wide-ranging opinions in our survey.
“There is a tremendous amount of focus on the commercial side and less focus on the sporting side,” one GM said. “If we want the commercial piece to continue to excel, we need the best product on the field.”
Another GM said Berman’s “intention and motivation and ambition for the league is absolutely right,” but that they want to see more of “her openness and willingness to look at the league a little different from a sporting aspect.” A different GM wants to see more collaborative decision-making.
One general manager acknowledged the growth of the league’s front office but still wanted to see more employees hired around Berman, including on the sporting side. The NWSL’s front office lost multiple executives this year, including the departure of chief sporting director Tatjana Haenni and chief marketing and commercial officer Julie Haddon.