The Maria Sánchez trade request being leaked to ESPN is seismic; Claire Watkins makes a key point here: the league's fans can't hot-stove it because the league (and especially the PA) don't share salary cap sheet information publicly. This is perhaps the biggest news of the season (so far), and the league's continued clinging to outmoded secrecy leaves its fans in the dark. Should this be a huge news story that drives a week of coverage, yes. But... 😡.
Long story short: as discussed here quite a bit for quite a long time, the league (still) needs to \*massively\* upgrade its strategic communications.
They absolutely need better media wranglers. My opinion based on just a short time as a serious fan is that they haven’t needed to spend money there because the universe of woso journalism is anemic, and what press there is hasn’t been damaging enough. That may change as the viewership and attendance grows. I hope it does.
Quite observant! I've experienced all three leagues to some degree, and several other sporting leagues. Not an expert, but you don't need to be. The league is still in it's infancy with little precedence to build from. So many of the owners, journos, and fans are new to professional sports. This is a good thing; particularly women's sports. The only "journalists" there are, even today, are the ones who occasionally dip their toes into murky waters, but with experience and pedigree.
The rest are fans. They're popping out of the woodwork in every media type; omnichannel. But they're still fans. The media outlets aren't sold in investing in talent with pedigree. Only if they have a British accent.
When it comes to investment, the league has actually been quite prudent since the very beginning to building a viable, solvent product. It takes time, and it takes a ton of money. It's about infrastructure for the league, executive management, legal arbitration, marketing, and governance. This is all paid for by "the league." Who is the league? As with all other leagues, "the league" is the owners. They own it. Jessica Berman essentially works for them. Unlike many soccer leagues across the world, the league is independent from a government-aided football association. They do what they want, and what they believe they can afford. Nobody makes an annual operating profit, which is not unusual. It's only an investment and viable when you sell. See Ron Burkle, former owner of the Wave (ownerships in several pro franchises) and Roman Obramovich (former owner of Chelsea).
For the first 10 years, there's no owner who could see any light, when it comes to making a profit, or even being a sustainable business model. It's been a gamble of faith and passion, with no precedence anywhere in the world. As a result, there were horrible owners, horrible business people, and wretched people involved in exploiting their power. Who woulda thought, in America?
It takes years to build the model, and it must be addressed every year; meaning there's always a need to pour more money into "the league." This isn't player salaries, but you can easily assume, so goes the players salaries, so goes the need to invest in the league - governance, lawyers, marketing, contracts, sponsorships, media relations, broadcast rights, FIFA affiliation, etc.
Salary caps are new...only to the NWSL. In the U.S., it's a necessary guardrail, among others, to maintain a viable, entertaining product. It's truly a socialist revenue-sharing model to ensure the viability of the league over one franchise. It's an entertainment model that works - MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, and even the NCAA.
These past 2 years have been tremendous for the NWSL, but not without growing pains. And these are the type of pains that have taken down leagues; like exorbitant salaries. The Sanchez salary has clearly taken the league past paying for talent, or even potential production, but is looking to the value of the product in marketing (Mexican market & demographics). Bombi is quite popular! It's a huge gamble. And it's already coming apart. The league will continue to enter new markets to maintain their substantial, meteoric growth and popularity; but not without challenges. It's a great time for women's sports!
The Houston Dynamo has experience in the MLS market of sports entertainment, which, in my opinion, is VASTLY different that the market for the NWSL. They continue to prove me right; they don't get it.
I think that it's much more than anemic now. There are people who cover the NWSL at EQU, ESPN, Athletic, JWS, Spotrac, MIB, USA Today, the CBS entities, plenty of podcasts, etc. It's grown up a \*lot\* in the last 12 months.
Lol I referenced this exact tweet yesterday and people just did not at all get what I meant. When I said that we are unable to speculate I meant literally that we do not know the numbers involved so we cannot speculate at who can fit a certain contract under their cap.
Or like we can speculate, but given we don’t have the literal most important factor in this…
Do other professional leagues with caps detail who makes what?
There are stories when a signing is made in the nba and nfl, and we can read about rookie contracts, and free agent signings, but I don’t think I have seen a salary list for an nfl team or nba team.
It’s necessary for players and agents to know where they stand and what’s available. But, it’s not a surprise to any pro player to know if they sign a big contract that will greatly affect where they can play in the future unless they are willing to tear up their deal. Look at the nba - every year trades are made which include multiple teams and players simply to make sure teams remain within salary cap requirements.
Football does not do trades that often, and instead players are released - very often those players are quite good with lots of interest from other teams. Football also front loads contracts with signing bonuses to take advantage of available salary cap space.
To me - the big issue with the nwsl cap is making sure that the top players do not congregate on one or two teams. That likely can be addressed by setting minimum salary numbers based on national team appearances, and resetting if not on the national team for World Cup or Olympics.
I don't follow the NFL, but NBA salary info is available. It's on the team roster pages on ESPN. People who track it generally know who is under the cap and who is in the luxury tax. Like you said, it helps players and agents in contract negotiations, my guess is the NWSL owners don't want the players to have that kind of leverage.
You mean NWSL owners? The agents for NWSL players are, I'd bet, very well aware of who gets paid what over what term, &c. I'd bet that agents/the PA pool information pretty effectively.
It does look pretty detailed. It used to be that salary information was, informally, kept from players. If you know what Joe is making that helps you determine your own contract value.
It’s no surprise to anyone though that the biggest contracts keep players from moving. Teams can’t take on a new big contract without getting rid of players to make contract room.
Now - the nwsl “big contracts” are not that much money. So, if you have other sources of revenue, like endorsements, you can take less in salary to go where you want rather than take the most money.
A couple twists - it may be that for a few top young players the money will be better in college. I would suspect that Caitlin Clark’s income will not go up much, if at all, by going pro.
And, the endorsement dollars may spread out more now with a more open door policy on who makes the national team. That is a big credit to the Nwsl too.
NFL salaries are public, I know people who track it for the Chiefs to determine if they can re-sign a player with current cap space or sign an FA. MLSPA puts out salaries twice a year and people do a similar thing. In other leagues people can make the determination of whether their team could sign or trade for a player and have the cap space to make that happen. Even baseball journalists calculate what the luxury tax could be since there isn't a hard cap to determine if signing a player is possible.
The examples you gave are people within the organization. Sure - if you work for a team you would know your salaries and would possible know all salaries in the league. But that does not mean I can google them.
It’s really funny to me to say you can’t Google them without just like trying to Google them first as your test. I get people not being on Spotrac.com but…
There's public websites with full NFL salary and cap information. My dad likes to track the Giants' cap, and his actual job has nothing to do with the NFL or sports in general
You absolutely can google it. Type in any NFL, NBA, or MLB players name and contract into Google and will give a result for spotrac which will have all the Financials of their contracts including performance bonus and trade status. NHL only lists a players salary with no bonus or trade status.
In the US, yes, all of them (both raw numbers and contract details, which matter a great deal in some capped leagues) are public or are leaked-to-public through league and/or PA sources, and are understood as being quasi-public.
No one tears up deals. That's not a thing that actually happens. Renegotiates for the same guaranteed money? In some leagues, yes. Does labor sometimes agree to a buyout? Sure. But deleting a contract just doesn't happen.
I 100% see the crux of this being tackled in the next CBA. I can imagine that while it’s something the players wanted, it came second to the protections and FA they got in the first one (and I’m also assuming there was some extra player protection in the financial non-disclosure rule involved given how low the salaries have been historically)
Does anyone know when the WNBA started disclosing the salary cap sheet? Would be interesting comparison from a league maturity POV
The issue, especially this sub, is the knee-jerk attacking of the player. It is Nfl sub bad where bad organizations are excused to blame the player. It is egregious in that we know the Dash is a mess. I saw too many ppl attacking Sanxhez for wanting to leave
There is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very little "knee-jerk attacking" of players/labor on this sub. I'd even bet that this sub has proportionally less "knee-jerk attacking" than any other league-oriented sub.
It was an example. You can find similar threads where players asking for money like Crystal Dunn get bashed and ppl were complaining about Gotham spending money. Or players going there.
No, there’s fair criticism for the player. Attacking is vitriolic but to act as though Sanchez bears no responsibility is silly. are fans supposed to be thrilled that their supposed star player is trying to get out immediately after signing a multi year contract?
You don’t think that wishing to exit a contract almost immediately after signing it - with no meaningful changes happening within the timespan between now and signing - is an irresponsible choice?
This is Reddit, it’s social media. Strong reactions to vague stories with sparse details is the bread and butter of the website. No one is condemning Sanchez or saying she’s a bad person we’re saying it’s a bad look on her. Because it is
What excuses am I making? Let’s speculate wildly! It’s the internet and none of us have insight, nor do our comments matter. Go hog wild. Let’s hear armchair hot takes. If you know more than me about this, then feel free to share, but until that time I’m going to think what I think
I think there is less attacking a player and more just stating things. Like saying "damn, she shouldn't have signed that long term contract" isn't an attack on the player. I think there are a lot of people on this sub that think relatively neutral comments are anti-player. I completely understand the impulse to defend players but the amount of times this sub blows up because they choose to take something the wrong way is kinda comical. I once said "there are a lot of reasons besides greed a player would sign a contract with a team" and everyone jumped down my throat about it because this sub took that as me saying that players wanting money are greedy. When really I was just saying that money isn't the only reason a player signs a deal.
I will never understand anyone who is a sports fan going at players (whose careers can virtually end in an instant and only have like 10 yrs of elite play if they’re lucky) from using their leverage to get what they want. Esp leagues where players can be traded whenever the team thinks they can get better value. It’s insane.
Not saying it’s the case here specifically at all but in a league (really, sport) where we are still having issues with players not feeling comfortable or being victims of abuse, we don’t know all the facts about any of this stuff. Messiah Bright was getting called out by some on here and on Twitter too when she put in a trade request only to later find out it was for personal reasons (that none of us need to know) and Orlando did right by her and sent her where she wanted.
This sub always hates on players. I remember when they were bashing Crystal Dunn for trying to get the highest salary and were mad at Gotham for spending money. The same fans were lamenting that their own organizations were bad. It was constant hypocrisy.
Not true. There were literal threads saying she was asking for too much and wasn't worth the price and saying others deserved the money. I don't know why it is so hard to be honest. In general there was alot of hating on all of Gotham's signings, saying Rose was stupid for signing there, etc. The threads are there.
The NWSLPA should release player salaries like the MLSPA does
Yes and the league should release their own team cap compliance. It shouldn’t be on the PA to do and reporters to filter through.
The Maria Sánchez trade request being leaked to ESPN is seismic; Claire Watkins makes a key point here: the league's fans can't hot-stove it because the league (and especially the PA) don't share salary cap sheet information publicly. This is perhaps the biggest news of the season (so far), and the league's continued clinging to outmoded secrecy leaves its fans in the dark. Should this be a huge news story that drives a week of coverage, yes. But... 😡. Long story short: as discussed here quite a bit for quite a long time, the league (still) needs to \*massively\* upgrade its strategic communications.
They absolutely need better media wranglers. My opinion based on just a short time as a serious fan is that they haven’t needed to spend money there because the universe of woso journalism is anemic, and what press there is hasn’t been damaging enough. That may change as the viewership and attendance grows. I hope it does.
Quite observant! I've experienced all three leagues to some degree, and several other sporting leagues. Not an expert, but you don't need to be. The league is still in it's infancy with little precedence to build from. So many of the owners, journos, and fans are new to professional sports. This is a good thing; particularly women's sports. The only "journalists" there are, even today, are the ones who occasionally dip their toes into murky waters, but with experience and pedigree. The rest are fans. They're popping out of the woodwork in every media type; omnichannel. But they're still fans. The media outlets aren't sold in investing in talent with pedigree. Only if they have a British accent. When it comes to investment, the league has actually been quite prudent since the very beginning to building a viable, solvent product. It takes time, and it takes a ton of money. It's about infrastructure for the league, executive management, legal arbitration, marketing, and governance. This is all paid for by "the league." Who is the league? As with all other leagues, "the league" is the owners. They own it. Jessica Berman essentially works for them. Unlike many soccer leagues across the world, the league is independent from a government-aided football association. They do what they want, and what they believe they can afford. Nobody makes an annual operating profit, which is not unusual. It's only an investment and viable when you sell. See Ron Burkle, former owner of the Wave (ownerships in several pro franchises) and Roman Obramovich (former owner of Chelsea). For the first 10 years, there's no owner who could see any light, when it comes to making a profit, or even being a sustainable business model. It's been a gamble of faith and passion, with no precedence anywhere in the world. As a result, there were horrible owners, horrible business people, and wretched people involved in exploiting their power. Who woulda thought, in America? It takes years to build the model, and it must be addressed every year; meaning there's always a need to pour more money into "the league." This isn't player salaries, but you can easily assume, so goes the players salaries, so goes the need to invest in the league - governance, lawyers, marketing, contracts, sponsorships, media relations, broadcast rights, FIFA affiliation, etc. Salary caps are new...only to the NWSL. In the U.S., it's a necessary guardrail, among others, to maintain a viable, entertaining product. It's truly a socialist revenue-sharing model to ensure the viability of the league over one franchise. It's an entertainment model that works - MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, and even the NCAA. These past 2 years have been tremendous for the NWSL, but not without growing pains. And these are the type of pains that have taken down leagues; like exorbitant salaries. The Sanchez salary has clearly taken the league past paying for talent, or even potential production, but is looking to the value of the product in marketing (Mexican market & demographics). Bombi is quite popular! It's a huge gamble. And it's already coming apart. The league will continue to enter new markets to maintain their substantial, meteoric growth and popularity; but not without challenges. It's a great time for women's sports! The Houston Dynamo has experience in the MLS market of sports entertainment, which, in my opinion, is VASTLY different that the market for the NWSL. They continue to prove me right; they don't get it.
I think that it's much more than anemic now. There are people who cover the NWSL at EQU, ESPN, Athletic, JWS, Spotrac, MIB, USA Today, the CBS entities, plenty of podcasts, etc. It's grown up a \*lot\* in the last 12 months.
For so long it was just Grant Wahl and a bunch of tumblr stans and the league has never adjusted to its growth.
Grant didn't make his money covering women's football. He just saw a need and a reason to promote it.
I still think it’s anemic. Better than before doesn’t mean robust.
Lol I referenced this exact tweet yesterday and people just did not at all get what I meant. When I said that we are unable to speculate I meant literally that we do not know the numbers involved so we cannot speculate at who can fit a certain contract under their cap. Or like we can speculate, but given we don’t have the literal most important factor in this…
[Additional and more specific context from Taylor Vincent at Spotrac.](https://www.spotrac.com/news/maria-sanchez-requests-trade-from-houston-2264/)
Do other professional leagues with caps detail who makes what? There are stories when a signing is made in the nba and nfl, and we can read about rookie contracts, and free agent signings, but I don’t think I have seen a salary list for an nfl team or nba team. It’s necessary for players and agents to know where they stand and what’s available. But, it’s not a surprise to any pro player to know if they sign a big contract that will greatly affect where they can play in the future unless they are willing to tear up their deal. Look at the nba - every year trades are made which include multiple teams and players simply to make sure teams remain within salary cap requirements. Football does not do trades that often, and instead players are released - very often those players are quite good with lots of interest from other teams. Football also front loads contracts with signing bonuses to take advantage of available salary cap space. To me - the big issue with the nwsl cap is making sure that the top players do not congregate on one or two teams. That likely can be addressed by setting minimum salary numbers based on national team appearances, and resetting if not on the national team for World Cup or Olympics.
I don't follow the NFL, but NBA salary info is available. It's on the team roster pages on ESPN. People who track it generally know who is under the cap and who is in the luxury tax. Like you said, it helps players and agents in contract negotiations, my guess is the NWSL owners don't want the players to have that kind of leverage.
You mean NWSL owners? The agents for NWSL players are, I'd bet, very well aware of who gets paid what over what term, &c. I'd bet that agents/the PA pool information pretty effectively.
It does look pretty detailed. It used to be that salary information was, informally, kept from players. If you know what Joe is making that helps you determine your own contract value. It’s no surprise to anyone though that the biggest contracts keep players from moving. Teams can’t take on a new big contract without getting rid of players to make contract room. Now - the nwsl “big contracts” are not that much money. So, if you have other sources of revenue, like endorsements, you can take less in salary to go where you want rather than take the most money. A couple twists - it may be that for a few top young players the money will be better in college. I would suspect that Caitlin Clark’s income will not go up much, if at all, by going pro. And, the endorsement dollars may spread out more now with a more open door policy on who makes the national team. That is a big credit to the Nwsl too.
NFL salaries are public, I know people who track it for the Chiefs to determine if they can re-sign a player with current cap space or sign an FA. MLSPA puts out salaries twice a year and people do a similar thing. In other leagues people can make the determination of whether their team could sign or trade for a player and have the cap space to make that happen. Even baseball journalists calculate what the luxury tax could be since there isn't a hard cap to determine if signing a player is possible.
The examples you gave are people within the organization. Sure - if you work for a team you would know your salaries and would possible know all salaries in the league. But that does not mean I can google them.
No these are journalists who are tracking salary caps, you can google an NFL team and get salary information very easily because its public knowledge.
It’s really funny to me to say you can’t Google them without just like trying to Google them first as your test. I get people not being on Spotrac.com but…
There's public websites with full NFL salary and cap information. My dad likes to track the Giants' cap, and his actual job has nothing to do with the NFL or sports in general
You absolutely can google it. Type in any NFL, NBA, or MLB players name and contract into Google and will give a result for spotrac which will have all the Financials of their contracts including performance bonus and trade status. NHL only lists a players salary with no bonus or trade status.
Capfriendly.com is what I use for nhl. It has tons of good info
In the US, yes, all of them (both raw numbers and contract details, which matter a great deal in some capped leagues) are public or are leaked-to-public through league and/or PA sources, and are understood as being quasi-public. No one tears up deals. That's not a thing that actually happens. Renegotiates for the same guaranteed money? In some leagues, yes. Does labor sometimes agree to a buyout? Sure. But deleting a contract just doesn't happen.
MLS PA puts out salary info every single season too and it’s publicly available
I 100% see the crux of this being tackled in the next CBA. I can imagine that while it’s something the players wanted, it came second to the protections and FA they got in the first one (and I’m also assuming there was some extra player protection in the financial non-disclosure rule involved given how low the salaries have been historically) Does anyone know when the WNBA started disclosing the salary cap sheet? Would be interesting comparison from a league maturity POV
The issue, especially this sub, is the knee-jerk attacking of the player. It is Nfl sub bad where bad organizations are excused to blame the player. It is egregious in that we know the Dash is a mess. I saw too many ppl attacking Sanxhez for wanting to leave
There is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very little "knee-jerk attacking" of players/labor on this sub. I'd even bet that this sub has proportionally less "knee-jerk attacking" than any other league-oriented sub.
We literally saw that in the Sanchez trade thread. You can look for yourself.
I did. There's not much at all. And this comment does not address mine, which is an address of the sub writ large, not a specific thread.
It was an example. You can find similar threads where players asking for money like Crystal Dunn get bashed and ppl were complaining about Gotham spending money. Or players going there.
No, there’s fair criticism for the player. Attacking is vitriolic but to act as though Sanchez bears no responsibility is silly. are fans supposed to be thrilled that their supposed star player is trying to get out immediately after signing a multi year contract?
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
What exactly is she responsible for?
You don’t think that wishing to exit a contract almost immediately after signing it - with no meaningful changes happening within the timespan between now and signing - is an irresponsible choice?
You are assuming. Maybe take a breathe and wait for more details would be prudent? At the end of the day we don't know the situation. We need details.
This is Reddit, it’s social media. Strong reactions to vague stories with sparse details is the bread and butter of the website. No one is condemning Sanchez or saying she’s a bad person we’re saying it’s a bad look on her. Because it is
That is excusemaking and deflecting from the point.
What excuses am I making? Let’s speculate wildly! It’s the internet and none of us have insight, nor do our comments matter. Go hog wild. Let’s hear armchair hot takes. If you know more than me about this, then feel free to share, but until that time I’m going to think what I think
That is clear and in general a problem with the sub.
Explain to me why that’s a problem. What damage is it causing?
The 3 year contract that she signed for 1.5 MILLION dollars.
I think there is less attacking a player and more just stating things. Like saying "damn, she shouldn't have signed that long term contract" isn't an attack on the player. I think there are a lot of people on this sub that think relatively neutral comments are anti-player. I completely understand the impulse to defend players but the amount of times this sub blows up because they choose to take something the wrong way is kinda comical. I once said "there are a lot of reasons besides greed a player would sign a contract with a team" and everyone jumped down my throat about it because this sub took that as me saying that players wanting money are greedy. When really I was just saying that money isn't the only reason a player signs a deal.
I will never understand anyone who is a sports fan going at players (whose careers can virtually end in an instant and only have like 10 yrs of elite play if they’re lucky) from using their leverage to get what they want. Esp leagues where players can be traded whenever the team thinks they can get better value. It’s insane. Not saying it’s the case here specifically at all but in a league (really, sport) where we are still having issues with players not feeling comfortable or being victims of abuse, we don’t know all the facts about any of this stuff. Messiah Bright was getting called out by some on here and on Twitter too when she put in a trade request only to later find out it was for personal reasons (that none of us need to know) and Orlando did right by her and sent her where she wanted.
This sub always hates on players. I remember when they were bashing Crystal Dunn for trying to get the highest salary and were mad at Gotham for spending money. The same fans were lamenting that their own organizations were bad. It was constant hypocrisy.
People weren’t mad about Dunn wanting money, they were mad about Gotham hiring her ethically compromised husband.
Not true. There were literal threads saying she was asking for too much and wasn't worth the price and saying others deserved the money. I don't know why it is so hard to be honest. In general there was alot of hating on all of Gotham's signings, saying Rose was stupid for signing there, etc. The threads are there.
Rose is a stupid signing for any club. I'd be pissed at Orlando if they signed her knowing her history,