The NWSL agreed to drop restrictions on who can be considered a High Impact Player eligible to receive the league’s maximum salary after the NWSL Players Association argued the rules violated labor laws.
The High Impact Player (HIP) rule, introduced last year, allowed clubs to spend up to $1 million above the salary cap on players who met certain qualifications. The criteria included appearing in the Top 30 of Ballon d’Or voting, the Top 40 of The Guardian’s Top 100 football players list, the Top 40 of ESPN FC’s Top 50 football players list, or the Top 150 of SportsPro Media’s most marketable athletes list.
Starting next year, any player can be designated an HIP, allowing them to earn up to 12% of the league’s base salary cap. The current base salary cap is $3.5 million, while the total salary cap is $3.7 million after adding a portion of team revenue from the previous year. About 100 players qualified for HIP status under the previous restrictions.
The HIP rule has frequently been referred to as the “Rodman Rule” after Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, who re-signed with the club after receiving more lucrative offers from Europe that the Spirit would not have been able to match before the rule.
NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman at first vetoed a contract offer the Spirit made to Rodman, accusing the team of preemptively circumventing the salary cap by backloading the contract to align with projected league revenue increases. The HIP rule was created three weeks later to allow Rodman and other star players to be compensated at competitive rates.
The NWSLPA opposed the initial introduction of the HIP rule, arguing that it constituted a unilateral change to the salary cap system outside the collective bargaining process. The union instead proposed the salary cap be raised by $1 million and filed a grievance against the league, which it settled Friday.
Under the settlement, the NWSL can implement a limit on the number of HIP players per club in exchange for the removal of the merit-based restrictions.
NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke told ESPN in a statement that the settlement was “evidence of the NWSLPA’s strength and commitment to enforcing the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.”
New Bonuses
The settlement also resolves several other outstanding disagreements between the NWSLPA and the NWSL.
The league softened its policy requiring players to cover up logos of footwear brands not produced by Nike, its official supplier, allowing players with pre-existing deals to display different brands and rescinding the fines of players who were fined under the rule.
The settlement adds new categories of performance-based bonuses that players can negotiate into contracts, including bonuses tied to appearances milestones for a single club, minutes-played milestones, and individual player awards.
It also requires the NWSL to provide a written notice and explanation to the players union within 72 hours of vetoing a contract offer, addressing the union’s grievance over how Berman handled Rodman’s contract.
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