Last week, news broke from a women’s sports league which has done something revolutionary — not only for its sport, but for all of professional sports in North America.
The National Women’s Soccer League, and the union of players who are on the team rosters of the 12 sides, signed an agreement out to 2030 which completely inverts the relationship of labor and management for North American sports.
In every professional team sport on this continent — everything from football and baseball to the Premier Lacrosse League and the WNBA — new players who come into the league do not choose where they go, but are subject to an annual entry draft that gives the worst team in the league (i.e., the top draft choice every season) the first choice of the new player pool.
Gone is the NWSL draft; and in comes an era of complete free agency, where players coming out of college, or high school, or from Europe, can choose which NWSL team to go to.
Now, I understand many of the arguments for this kind of system. Players are the main drivers of value of a sports team, and the players should be paid accordingly. In addition, if situations arise around management and coaches (see: the Yates Report), having free agency gives players not only complete control over their careers, but allows players to, for lack of a better term, “vote with their feet.”
I’m seeing something very much like this in college sports with the transfer portal. I’m seeing a lot of players choosing to move over to certain teams, but, at the same time, people seemingly abandoning other programs in large numbers.
I think the new labor agreement could lead to major, major problems. When I see this kind of free agency, I fear that the NWSL will engage in the kind of profligate spending that led to the folding of the North American Soccer League in the 1980s.
Why? As much money as some of the wealthy owners and backers of soccer teams have, that money is not unlimited. Money is a finite resource, and I think it will take only one owner, assembling a dream roster of domestic and foreign players, to create an imbalance between that team and everyone else. This would especially be a problem in a large media market like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Teams from smaller communities would have no chance to compete (see: London and Manchester vs. Luton and Ipswich).
While it is laudable to give freedom of players to shop their labor to the 12 NWSL teams, I’m not sure this is good for the game in the long term.
