The new High Impact Player rule, introduced Tuesday by the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), allows teams to spend as much as $1 million above the salary cap on players who meet certain criteria. A player needs to only satisfy one of eight metrics outlined by the rule, with each geared toward quantifying their skill set and commercial marketability. They need to have landed on one of three different lists intended to honor the best in the world: the top 30 in the Ballon d’Or, top 40 among T
A player needs to only satisfy one of eight metrics outlined by the rule, with each geared toward quantifying their skill set and commercial marketability.
They need to have landed on one of three different lists intended to honor the best in the world: the top 30 in the Ballon d’Or, top 40 among The Guardian’s top 100 footballers, or the top 40 of ESPN FC’s top 50 football players in the world in the two years before the current league season. The player can also have made SportsPro Media’s list of the 150 most marketable athletes within a year of the current league season.
A player can also qualify if they rank among the top 11 U.S. women’s national team players with the most minutes in the last two calendar years. A goalkeeper, meanwhile, would need to have played the most minutes in that position with the USWNT. Or a high-impact player, as defined by the league, could include anyone who was selected as a league MVP finalist or was named to the year-end Best XI first team within the last two seasons.
Ironically, this new roster mechanism risks pulling that decision-making power away from NWSL teams and placing it with the entities doing the ranking, some of which are directly tied to the league through its $240 million broadcast deal or have selection processes that are questionable at best.
Players themselves are critical of the new rule. NWSL Players Association executive director Meghann Burke relayed their concerns in an email to The Athletic on Tuesday, saying players “feel that this is a rushed decision to solve a short-term problem that will have long-term consequences” and sharing their belief that it “circumvents the collective bargaining process” and “unilaterally establishes criteria that relies on third party publications to drive player compensation.” They added that it “privileges a biased voting system that heavily favors European players” and does not account “for the high impact that Brazilian, African, and Japanese Players (sic) have had and will continue to have on NWSL.”
The disparity in the Ballon d’Or between the organization of voting in the women’s award (or lack thereof) and the demands of the women’s game is obvious. Those gaps were exposed when the organizers of the award, run by France Football magazine, published its voting breakdown. Of the 50 voters invited to participate in the Ballon d’Or (which is already half of those invited to vote in the men’s award), 29 were based in Europe. Nigeria was the only African country to vote, and no players from the continent of Asia landed in the top 30.
The Guardian appears more intentional about curating a globally diverse set of voters and publishes that list, and how they voted, alongside that of the players. While ESPN FC has created top 50 player lists from 2021-2024, it has not yet released its 2025 ranking. ESPN is a media partner of the NWSL.
Spanish forward Alexia Putellas is the highest-ranking women’s football player on the 2025 SportsPro Most Marketable list, at number 36; female athletes above her include Simone Biles (2), Ilona Maher (3), Caitlin Clark (7), Coco Gauff (10), and A’ja Wilson (31). The media and events company says it compiles its yearly list based on an athlete’s brand strength, addressable market, and economics.
The other women’s football players on this year’s list are Beth Mead (46); Aitana Bonmati (63); Lucy Bronze and Mary Earps (70 and 71); Millie Bright (79); Trinity Rodman (120); Mapi Leon (123); Lindsey Horan (127); Lauren James, Sophia Wilson (who is listed as Sophia Smith, despite having married and changed her name nine months before the release of the list), and Marta (137-139); Pernille Harder (141); Patri Guijarro (146); Keira Walsh and Salma Paralluelo (149-150).
Once again, African and Asian players are missing, as are South American players outside of Marta. Most of those same players also cannot qualify as high impact with USWNT minutes, leaving only the still-Eurocentric Ballon d’Or, the Guardian, ESPN FC rankings, and NWSL awards as realistic pathways right now for that group of players.
There is at least an ability to adjust the rules as the league continues to progress. That offers some solace, because at present, the league has narrowed the scope of that future for some players by skewing their chances of being considered high impact.
Take these current NWSL players who do not meet the league’s criteria but would otherwise be considered high impact, for example: Leicy Santos, Rosemonde Kouassi, Rebeca Bernal, and Gift Monday at the Spirit; Dudinha and Gia Corley of the San Diego Wave; Hina Sugita of Angel City; Claudia Dickey of Seattle Reign, or Taylor Flint of Racing Louisville. Or, even more worrying, the players who have yet to be discovered. Those players are automatically excluded because the rules require them to have proven their worth in some way, whether through their accomplishments on the field or their marketability off of it.
This clash between the NWSL’s new rule and its players’ opposition illustrates the tension between the superstar-driven nature of American sports culture with that of the team ethos, which has historically shaped football outside the U.S.
A person at the NWSL reiterated to The Athletic on Tuesday that the rule was not crafted for any specific player, although it came eight days before the international transfer window opens and European clubs are likely to up their offers to free agent Trinity Rodman. It does not take effect until July 2026, but teams are able to sign players from the beginning of the new year, provided their contracts do not engage the rule until July.
The NWSL is the only premier women’s soccer league in the world that abides by a hard salary cap, which it argues ensures an even distribution of competition, and thus higher numbers of entertaining matches each season to draw in fans and broadcast ratings. It has positioned NWSL clubs to be outbid by teams from other leagues, particularly in Europe, that aren’t limited in how much they can spend on a player.
In January, center back Naomi Girma left the San Diego Wave to join Chelsea on what was then a record-breaking transfer fee, and, nine months later, winger Alyssa Thompson left Angel City, her hometown club, to join Girma in London to play with Brazilian-American and fellow U.S. teammate Catarina Macario. That trio is part of a growing contingent of top U.S. players in Europe, which also includes Emily Fox at Arsenal; Phallon Tullis-Joyce at Manchester United; Lindsey Heaps, Lily Yohannes, and Korbin Shrader at OL Lyonnes; and Crystal Dunn and Eva Gaetino at Paris Saint-Germain.
According to NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman, the High Impact Player rule “allows teams to invest strategically in top talent, strengthens our ability to retain star players, and demonstrates our commitment to building world-class rosters for fans across the league.”
The league’s apparent disinterest in raising the salary cap by $1 million without restrictions, as the NWSLPA has suggested, is a doubling down on its desire to attract and retain a specific type of talent: one they feel confident can return their investment through their commercial appeal.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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