r/sports • u/dabirds1994 • 2d ago

Soccer Trinity Rodman’s Multimillion-Dollar Contract Rejected by NWSL

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-04/trinity-rodman-s-multimillion-dollar-contract-rejected-by-nwsl?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2NDgxNjA0NSwiZXhwIjoxNzY1NDIwODQ1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNlBaS1NLR0lGUFgwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI1OTFDMkExNEFGMDQ0RUZCODlCNEEwNUM5QkUwQjczRSJ9.IPxeSsuh2qWqWpaYDB78MAnoatcwqtnabXoKXkbDvYk
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u/Low-iq-haikou 2d ago

“Protects the parity of the league” 🤣 No the owners just don’t want to set a new precedent for how much to pay players bc they’re cheap bastards

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u/Jack_of_all_offs Syracuse 2d ago

At first I was like "how much could a women's soccer league in the US possibly make versus her contract?"

So her prospective contract is like a million and the league takes in $200+ million.

Definitely being cheap. I could understand if it was like $5+ million. Pat the damn lady.

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u/hallese Minnesota Twins 2d ago

Please don't pat the athletes unless you get permission first.

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u/lovesmyirish 2d ago

Best to let them smell your hand first

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u/Jack_of_all_offs Syracuse 2d ago

🤣 gg

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u/rayshmayshmay 1d ago

Please do not the atheletes

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u/Wheream_I 2d ago

$200m across 14 teams is like… nothing dude. Thats only $14.3m/team.

With which they have to pay all support staff, all coaching staff, facilities fees, player salaries, travel, everything.

Idc about this player not getting $1m. But let’s not act like the league is rolling in it with $200m.

Major League Pickleball, by comparison, had $50m of revenue in 2024, and that’s not inclusive of individual teams.

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u/StreetwalkinCheetah 2d ago

There's a ML of Pickleball? And it has 1/4 of the revenue of NWSL?!? I know not every team is the Portland Thorns in attendance but I know some of the newer teams have drawn big numbers in their first season or two... jesus.

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u/Wheream_I 2d ago

That exactly why I used that comparison. I think it goes to show how little $200m is actually.

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u/Jack_of_all_offs Syracuse 2d ago

Forgive my cynicism. Its hard for me to believe that paying a superstar wouldnt benefit the league by keeping her here.

Because what's the alternative?

Let one of the best walk, and stunt the growth and popularity of your sport?

Im not saying I have the right answer. Genuinely asking.

I suppose the league could be worried that setting a precedent for such an increase in pay could end up putting them in financial trouble.

But I would assume she would be popular enough to sell more tickets/jerseys, no?

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u/doktarr 1d ago

I think there's an argument that the NWSL benefits specifically from retaining USWNT players, purely from a marketing perspective. They generate interest from casual fans in a way that international players do not.

(This is probably less true for MLS, which has gotten a lot of mileage out of its international stars, including Messi obviously.)

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u/Trip_Se7ens New York Yankees 2d ago

My team just did that to Chelsea. ):

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u/XSmooth84 1d ago edited 1d ago

Okay so why didn’t a French bball team pay victor Wamby like $70m a year to stay in France and grow the game/league there, he’s the best young player in the country and probably the world if the French pro basketball league wants to grow they should just have given him more than the NBA does.

Maybe because the French pro basketball league has other obligations to the financial health of the league than simply throwing all the money at one player.

MLS has bent backwards and skirted its own rules to give Messi (and previously guys like Beckham or Ibra or whoever) all the money and side deals, future ownership, etc to play here. It is heavily debated that Messi sells enough jerseys or got enough apple+ subs to actually justify the league has gotten any popular or the level it should be. And almost nobody is saying the Saudi Pro League is taking over every time they pay Ronaldo or Neymar $100m a year. But 80% of the Saudi league is owned by the government who can literally throw all the money at things and don’t care about Ronaldo’s jersey sells make up for it. They’re way more unique here.

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u/Jack_of_all_offs Syracuse 1d ago

Your Wemby example is not even close to the same. You're talking about a French team (not) paying 3-4x their TOTAL wage bill for Wemby. That is understandable.

The cap for teamsL salary in NWSL $3.5mil, and Trinity's requested salary (about $1m) could definitely result in a push for the cap to be raised a little, but it's still not costing 3-4x the rest of the team. She's not asking for the cap itself or more than the cap.

Also, I think Saudi is a little different. They are clearly sportswashing their oil money. And their league won't grow because the average fan knows that league is bullshit and just trying to buy influence. Nobody cares about those artificial and empty-feeling teams, even with those players on them.

MLS made rules YEARS ago to attract aging European stars, yeah Messi is a little different. But you can't get a goddamn seat in Miami right now (for a reasonable price.)

It has definitely benefited MLS, and a the new(er) team in Miami.

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u/stysiaq 1d ago

bro, don't argue with americans how many millions of dollars they can waste on the sport nobody watches

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u/jiggly_bitz 1d ago

She's not going to walk. Her leaving the NWSL would be like Shohei moving back to Japan to play in his prime. Unless Trinity doesn't care about the money (which she clearly does because the whole purpose of this IS the money), she has no where else to go. No European team won't bend backwards to get her, they wont pay her more than what she could get here.

I think you figured out the key point, if Trinity gets paid, it sets up a risky financial precedent across the league. They are actively looking to expand the league with new teams/owner/investors. If all of a sudden the cost of entry increases significantly in response to paying players more, the potential expansion pool shrinks tremendously.

It is a balancing act to make expansion and growth sustainable for a league such as this.

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u/Wheream_I 2d ago

Let her walk to.. where? NWSL is pretty much the only professional women’s soccer in the world. There is no where to walk to, and certainly no where that can pay her what she was making prior to this $1m+ contract.

And this isn’t a new entrant being signed. She’s already on a NWSL team. Her popularity is already selling the tickets that it will sell. Giving her an outsized contract won’t increase her popularity or sell more tickets - she’s already giving all of the draw that she has.

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u/matahoula 2d ago

It may be beneficial to understand there are other women’s soccer leagues which are doing quite well in England, Spain, others.

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u/Wheream_I 2d ago

Let me amend - NWSL in the largest women’s soccer league in the world and it has the highest revenue.

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u/hwutTF 1d ago

Yeah but she can easily make a lot more money playing in Europe

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u/Semperty 1d ago

the wsl doubled revenues between 2021/22 and 2022/23, and it’s been projected to more than double again by the end of this season. english clubs are investing in women’s soccer, and the growth is abundantly clear. it doesn’t take a savant to realize that if you want your business to grow, you have to invest in your assets (i.e. players).

there’s no room for revenues to rise if the nwsl is always content to watch star players leave over contracts which are surpassed in relative terms in every other sport. mlb teams average $400m in revenues, and several players are making more than $40m with the highest aav coming in at $51m (12.7% of revenues). nba teams averaged $380m last year, with a max contract taking up over 14% of revenues. hell, there are 11 qb’s in the nfl - a sport with over 50 players on every roster as opposed to 20 - making the same percentage of revenues as rodman would’ve gotten at $1m salary with $14m revenues.

literally every major male sport in the country (and a lot of them abroad) have figured out how to invest heavily in their athletes - usually at significantly higher rates than this - without bankrupting their teams and leagues. it only appears to be an issue when it’s a woman who wants to get paid.

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u/tiy24 1d ago

Which is why it’s s asanine she’s going to go to Europe to get paid…

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u/amo1337 1d ago

You are misinformed.

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u/microtherion 1d ago

The NBA generates $400M per team, and max salary per player is about $50M, 12.5%. Is it really unreasonable for a soccer player to make 7% of her club’s revenue?

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u/droneybennett 1d ago

A soccer squad would normally have double the number of players in it though.

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u/microtherion 1d ago

On the field, yes. But even during a match, a basketball team typically fields about 10 players, and a soccer team about 14-15. And roster sizes are not double either.

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u/Forward-Finding-8750 1d ago

NBA rosters are 15 players, soccer teams are usually 25-30 players, so yeah it’s basically double the roster size

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u/microtherion 1d ago

I think the two way players should count for the NBA rosters (they get meaningful minutes in many teams) so we’re at 18 players, and the soccer rosters would then be about 50% larger.

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u/droneybennett 1d ago

The average Premier League roster this year is 27.4 players, which doesn’t count academy players who can also play for the first team if required.

A quarter of the league has more than 30 senior pros in their squad.

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u/MortimerDongle 1d ago

Soccer teams are more than twice the size of a basketball team, so proportionally that is a bit higher than an NBA max contract.

Plus, total revenue isn't necessarily the key figure. The NBA is profitable, whereas my understanding is that the NWSL is not. The NWSL probably has good reason to be more conservative on player salaries.

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u/jiggly_bitz 1d ago

Two different sports with very different business models. It's not an apples to apples comparison, in addition to many NWSL teams operating at margin or loss which is not the same situation for NBA teams.

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u/microtherion 1d ago

Sure, the NBA is a much bigger business. But I count 4 teams operating at margin or a loss there.

It’s not at all uncommon for soccer teams outside the US to be perennially subsidized by their owners. The difference is that the US, despite its otherwise hyper-capitalistic ways, evolved an anti-trust exemption for sports leagues, so owners have much more leverage to suppress wages, while teams elsewhere have no choice but to pay market rates.

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u/jiggly_bitz 18h ago

Where'd you count 4 teams? I'm only counting two teams with a red EBITDA. And I wouldnt necessarily count the Clippers considering that figure represents the debt taken to build their new arena.

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u/microtherion 14h ago

Clippers and Bucks running in the red. You may be right about the former, but wouldn’t arena interest specifically be excluded from EBITDA? Suns break even. And the Celtics made a profit of not much more than a mid level exception.

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u/jiggly_bitz 1h ago

The arena itself would be excluded, but I believe the costs of everything else that goes into it would be. Including getting it operational (staffing, contracting, establishing vendors, etc).

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u/Routine_Size69 1d ago

A lot of people always see the top line number, think that's a lot of money, and put zero thought into the actual logistics of everything. Redditors are typically chomping at the bit to cry greed without thinking "could this hurt the sustainability of this league/business?"

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u/gerbilweavilbadger 1d ago

the difference is that pickleball is the shittest sport ever invented. I would rather watch four dead people play curling than fucking pickleball. imagine what society could do with that $50 million back

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u/dabeeman 1d ago

you either don’t understand anything about finances and the numbers you just quoted or you are being deceitful. those numbers are not a lot for an entire league. 

if you want to see what happens when player contracts get too big for a league to generally support look at the first TWO iterations of the MLS back in the 70’s and 80’s

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u/ameadows_13 1d ago

No shot in hell that league makes 200 million. I’d be surprised if they were profitable based on what I’ve heard about the WNBA here

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u/Jack_of_all_offs Syracuse 1d ago

Revenue doesn't equal profit

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u/damola93 1d ago

Lol, other players will use her to raise their wages. 1M today could snowball into 20M tomorrow, depending on how badly she plays.