National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women’s soccer league with fourteen teams in the United States as of 2025 and sixteen teams as of 2026. Founded in 2013, the NWSL was the third attempt to establish a women’s professional soccer league in the United States. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) folded in 2003 and the subsequent Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) ceased operations in 2012. In addition to outlasting those leagues, the NWSL has also had more financial and organizational success. It has been managed through the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and the Canadian Soccer Association rather than through independent financial channels. The NWSL has been regarded as the most competitive women’s soccer league in the world.

Background

Women’s soccer has one of the highest rates of participation of any sport in the United States. In 2025, girls’ high school soccer had the third highest number of participants behind girls’ track and field and volleyball. Nearly 384,000 girls were recorded as participating in high school soccer for the 2023–2024 school year. Much of the popularity for soccer and other girls’ sports have been attributed to the passage of the Title IX civil rights law in 1972.

This federal legislation made it illegal to exclude any person from any publicly-funded activity on the basis of sex. Practically, this meant that all publicly funded schools, at the high school and university level, had to provide the same sports opportunities for women that they did for men. This helped boost the rise of women’s amateur sports in the United States. On an international level, the United States became one of the dominant nations in a number of sports, including basketball, ice hockey, and soccer.

The American women’s soccer team in particular became an international force. The team played its first international match in 1985. Between 1985 and the end of the 2024 season, the American women’s national soccer team won 84.5 percent of its matches over 756 games. During that span, the team won four World Cups (beginning with the first ever Women’s World Cup in 1991) and five Olympic gold medals. The team has never been ranked worse than second in the world since the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) began making rankings.

Perhaps the most famous victory of the US women’s soccer team came in 1999. In that year, the United States was hosting the Women’s World Cup for the first time. Several of the players had been playing together at various levels for as many as seventeen years by the time the World Cup rolled around. The US team was coming off of a gold medal performance at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and many of the same players were playing in the tournament—some for the last time. Against this setting, the Americans advanced to the final against China. Although the Americans were favored, the game’s regular time and overtime periods ended in a scoreless tie, meaning that penalty kicks would determine the winner. After four rounds of penalty kicks, the United States was ahead 4-3. When the Chinese scored on their fourth kick, it was up to Brandi Chastain to secure the victory. After she successfully knocked her shot past the Chinese goalkeeper, Chastain’s exuberant celebration became one of the most iconic images in American sports history.

The final was played in front of more than 90,000 people—a record for any women’s sporting event. An additional 17.9 million Americans viewed the game live on television, leading to hopes that the United States could build upon the popularity of the tournament and establish its own professional women’s soccer league. Though there were several successful pro-am leagues in the United States and abroad at the time, leagues such as the Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) and the W-League include both professional and amateur players on their rosters. The WUSA was the first attempt to develop a professional women’s league in the United States, and the first fully professional league in the world.

Funding for the league was provided through several corporate sponsors, including Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications. Major stars from around the world, many of whom had become familiar names in the United States in the wake of the 1999 World Cup, were recruited to play. Eight teams mostly clustered in the Northeast, the Southeast, and in California were established. However, attendance and television audiences were below expectations, a fact that was attributed in part to the delay between the start of the league in 2001 and the end of the 1999 soccer season. After the conclusion of the third league season in 2003, WUSA announced that it had been unable to agree to a national television contract for 2004. In addition, it had used the entirety of its initial $40-million start-up investment—an amount that was supposed to last five seasons—even though players had agreed to thirty percent pay cuts from their already modest salaries in its last season. In total, WUSA was estimated to have lost $100 million. The league announced that it was ending all operations only five days before the start of the 2003 World Cup.

Nonetheless, the success of the American women’s national team continued to promote participation in the sport by young players. College soccer quickly grew in size and prominence in the early 2000s. Although the 2003 and 2007 American teams failed to win World Cup titles, another attempt at a women’s league was discussed, leading to the creation of the WPS in 2009.

Like the WUSA, the new league relied on private funding and combined rosters filled with American and international stars. The league’s initial season suffered from limited sponsorships and organizational confusion. One of the eight named teams was unable to secure a home stadium, forcing the WPS to begin with only seven teams. They added two new expansions teams for 2010, but also lost two previous teams. The WPS was never able to gain secure footing. With several of the teams losing more money than anticipated, the league struggled through a third season in 2011. Though attendance figures were higher than in 2010, the league was left with only five functioning teams by November of 2011. An ongoing lawsuit with the owner of one of the remaining teams and continued organizational dysfunction forced the league to announce it was ceasing operations in January of 2012.

Sunil Gupta, the head of the US Soccer Federation decided to try to revive a professional women’s league. As opposed to previous attempts, Gupta tried to recruit Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs to sponsor affiliated women’s teams. However, only the Portland franchise of the MLS agreed, though some later teams were born from their connections to other MLS teams. Gupta also approached the other major national soccer federations in North America and found greater support. Together, the American and Canadian federations agreed to subsidize the salaries of its national team players in the NWSL. This included twenty-four players from the United States national team and sixteen from the Canadian team. These salaries would not count against the salary caps of individual teams, allowing them to recruit better players.

League salaries were generally lower than in previous leagues, which was a deliberate strategy of the NWSL in order to allow the league to develop more slowly than previous women’s leagues. In the debut season, each team had a salary cap of $200,000. The league minimum salary was $6,000, with elite players paid a up to $30,000. By 2019, the league cap had grown to $421,500 per team, with the minimum growing to $16,538 and top players earning up to $46,200. As a result of the low wages, most players were forced to take a second job or rely on additional family income in order to play. By comparison, MLS’s league minimum in 2018 was $50,000. On average, women in the NWSL earned 38 percent of the salaries of their counterparts in the MLS in 2018. In 2016, NWSL players filed a wage discrimination complaint that ended with an agreement by NWSL to commit more money to players’ salaries and improve housing. In 2022, an agreement was reached between the league and its players for $24 million that also provided improved salaries, insurance, and paid maternal leave for players, among other benefits.

Overview

The league began its first season with eight teams in 2013. Although two teams folded in 2017, they were replaced with expansion teams in other cities. As of the 2024 season, the NWSL had fourteen total teams throughout Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, Kentucky, Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, North Carolina, Orlando, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, DC, Utah, and San Francisco. League offices were headquartered in Chicago.

League games are played between February and October, with all teams playing in a single division. For the 2024 season, all teams played twenty-six games. The NWSL largely follows most international soccer rules and conventions. Teams receive three points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss. Games last ninety minutes plus injury (or stoppage) time, even if the score is tied at the end of regulation. The top eight teams qualify for the playoffs, where the rules are the same except for the introduction of extra time in the event of ties. If the game is tied, teams play up to two extra periods of fifteen minutes. If one team scores during extra time, the game ends. If a game remains tied after two extra periods, the teams move to a penalty shootout to determine the winner. The two winners of the semifinal games play in the league championship, with the winning team winning the league title and the NWSL Major Trophy.

A league-wide scandal involving the NWSL emerged in 2021 after sports journalism website The Athletic released an investigation it conducted on North Carolina Courage coach Paul Riley after more than one dozen players that Riley had previously coached came forward with reports of alleged sexual coercion and verbal abuse. Riley was fired in the wake of the allegations, and league commissioner Lisa Baird later resigned after the report alleged that the NWSL failed to act on previous reports against Riley. Subsequently, in October 2021, the National Women's Soccer League Player's Association (NWSLPA), which was founded in 2017, called for further investigations into each individual team in the NWSL. Following the investigations, five of the ten NWSL head coaches had either been fired or resigned.

An independent report conducted by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on behalf of the USSF into the reports of abuse in the NWSL was published in October 2022 and found that officials within the USSF, NWSL, and the NWSL teams themselves had all ignored multiple reports of abuse over a multi-year period. The report also found the abuse within the NWSL and USSF to be systemic. In the wake of the report, the USSF announced it would begin to implement immediate reforms.

In January 2022, the NWSL and the NWSL Players Association agreed to their first ever collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which set minimum salaries and established free agency for players after five years. In 2024, the CBA was ratified to add a salary cap, eliminate the league draft, and provide further salary and negotiation enhancements. The elimination of the draft grants potential and current players choice over where they play as well as negotiating power. The 2024 agreement also extended the players' current contract until 2030.

Bibliography

Draper, Kevin. “Report Details 'Systemic' Abuse of Players in Women's Soccer.” The New York Times, 3 Oct. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/sports/soccer/us-soccer-abuse-nwsl.html. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Foudy, Julie. “Will the NWSL Be a Success? Well....” ESPNW, 13 Apr. 2013, www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/9161421/espnw-latest-women-professional-soccer-league-success. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Herrera, Sandra. “NWSL Players Make History with First-Ever Collective Bargaining Agreement ahead of 2022 Preseason.” CBS, 1 Feb. 2022, www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/nwsl-players-make-history-with-first-ever-collective-bargaining-agreement-ahead-of-2022-preseason/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Linehan, Meg. “'This Guy Has a Pattern': Amid Institutional Failure, Former NWSL Players Accuse Prominent Coach of Sexual Coercion.” The Athletic, 30 Sept. 2021, theathletic.com/2857633/2021/09/30/this-guy-has-a-pattern-amid-institutional-failure-former-nwsl-players-accuse-prominent-coach-of-sexual-coercion/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Marthaler, Jon. US Women’s Professional Soccer. Abdo, 2019.

McCauley, Kim. “NWSL Has Survived Longer Than Any Other Women’s Soccer League. When Do Players Get Paid?” SBNation, 15 Apr. 2016, www.sbnation.com/soccer/2016/4/15/11409908/nwsl-2016-season-wages-cap-salary-minimum. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Miller, Gretchen, Jonathan Scheyer, and Emily Sherrard. “The Aftermath of the 1999 Success.” Soccer Politics, Duke University, 2013, sites.duke.edu/wcwp/research-projects/womens-soccer-in-the-u-s/womens-soccer-after-1999/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Murray, Caitlin. “As NWSL Embarks on a New Year, Can It Ride the Women’s Soccer Wave?” Yahoo Sports, 10 Apr. 2019, sports.yahoo.com/as-nwsl-embarks-on-a-new-year-can-it-ride-the-womens-soccer-wave-231955205.html. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

“NWSL and NWSLPA Agree to Historic Collective Bargaining Agreement Two Years ahead of Expiration.” NWSL, 22 Aug. 2024, www.nwslsoccer.com/news/nwsl-and-nwslpa-agree-to-historic-collective-bargaining-agreement. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

“NWSL Investigation Finds Systemic Emotional Abuse, Sexual Misconduct on Multiple Teams.” NBC Sports, 3 Oct. 2022, soccer.nbcsports.com/2022/10/03/nwsl-investigation-finds-systemic-emotional-abuse-sexual-misconduct-on-multiple-teams/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

“NWSL Rules and Policies.” NWSL, 2025, www.nwslsoccer.com/rules-and-policies. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Pingue, Frank. “Women’s Soccer League Gaining Foothold in U.S.” Reuters, 22 Mar. 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-women-usa/womens-soccer-league-gaining-foothold-in-u-s-idUSKBN1GY2OE. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.

Withiam, Hannah. “How Women’s Soccer Is Trying to Make the Revolution Last.” New York Post, 28 Mar. 2018, nypost.com/2018/03/28/how-us-womens-soccer-is-trying-to-make-this-revolution-last/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2025.