When Trinity Rodman signed a historic three-year contract with the Washington Spirit in Los Angeles this week, the weight of several months of uncertainty finally lifted. It was “utter relief,” Rodman said. “If I could have this contract signed a year ago, I would (have),” Rodman told The Athletic over Zoom, moments after re-signing with the Spirit. Now, she said, “I feel like I can put my shoulders down and just focus on this next season.” Rodman’s new contract makes her one of the highest-paid
It was “utter relief,” Rodman said.
“If I could have this contract signed a year ago, I would (have),” Rodman told The Athletic over Zoom, moments after re-signing with the Spirit. Now, she said, “I feel like I can put my shoulders down and just focus on this next season.”
Rodman’s new contract makes her one of the highest-paid women’s soccer players in the world, earning more than $2 million annually. While the Spirit have been preparing for this moment for two years, it was the final two months of her previous contract that saw the star nearly leave as a free agent.
Every time Spirit owner Michele Kang read a new story about a club making an offer to Rodman, she felt a pang of fear. It was heightened by the fact that the player’s salary requirements were quickly surpassing the NWSL’s salary cap limitations, complicating negotiations.
With her talent on the pitch and marketability off it, Rodman attracted attention from multiple teams in Europe. None of whom have to abide by a salary cap.
“It’s been a lot of work and ups and downs,” Kang told The Athletic, “but we never lost faith.”
The most frightening moment, however, came earlier this month, when U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes unveiled her 26-player roster for January camp. The Olympic gold medalist was in the squad, but listed as “unattached.”
“I’ve never seen her name without the Spirit name next to it,” Kang said. “That was when it hit me. I’m like, ‘Oh, my god, this can’t happen.’ We have to accelerate (and) make sure that we can push it over to the finish line.”
There were sleepless nights, and dealing with various stakeholders, including Rodman’s agent, the NWSL and, eventually, the NWSL Players Association. As the new year turned over, there was also one league-rejected agreement, a new NWSL rule and two NWSLPA grievances.
In the end, a deal got done in large part because all parties involved desperately wanted the player to stay. However, their differences of opinion about how they should have ended up at a resolution remain unsolved.
Rodman’s signature is not the end, but an inflection point that will change the course of women’s soccer globally.
Talk around Rodman’s future in NWSL picked up in January 2025 when ESPN’s Futbol W published an interview with the player in which she said she would “kick herself” if she didn’t play in Europe and that it was “just a matter of time” before she made the move.
Kang, who owns the London City Lionesses in England and OL Lyonnes in France, sees the value in players testing the waters away from home. However, she made it clear neither she nor the NWSL was ready to lose a superstar like Rodman. In March, she said the team would “do everything in our power” to keep the 23-year-old stateside.
“It took a village to make this happen,” Kang said on Thursday. “We worked on this for a long time. We knew what her last day of the previous contract was, so we started working on it, actually, almost two years ago.”
Even as Rodman and her representation began to field offers from top European teams over the past few months, her desire was always to stay in Washington with the Spirit. It should have, in theory, given the team a considerable head start in getting her new contract across the line.
“Getting drafted here and developing and maturing and learning and failing at Spirit and in D.C., it’s become so much of my legacy and my story,” Rodman said during her contract signing ceremony on Thursday. “But on top of that, I still feel like there’s so much more I have to give and so much more that I want to do.”
After her rookie season, when the Spirit won the NWSL Championship, the club signed Rodman to a new deal for a then-record $1.1 million over four years.
Even then, Rodman was exploring the boundaries of what the NWSL deemed fair market value, especially for a 19-year-old who had yet to play in a World Cup with the senior national team. Still, as other players eventually surpassed her record contract, Rodman’s star power only grew.
While the 2023 Women’s World Cup went awry for the USWNT with an early exit in the round of 16 at the hands of Sweden, Rodman, alongside Mal Swanson and Sophia Wilson, enjoyed the breakout success of the “Triple Espresso” front line, helping the U.S. to gold in the Paris Olympics the following summer. There was more than just her performance on the field, too, with brand partnerships spanning Adidas, Red Bull and Oakley, amongst others.
Mention of Rodman’s value rising above the current NWSL salary compliance constraints was raised at the start of 2025, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. By November, with interest from at least three teams from Europe in the mix, Rodman’s agent Mike Senkowski said that the power to keep his player in the league was in Commissioner Jessica Berman’s hands, referring to the league’s ability to adjust the salary cap to increase the funds available to teams to pay players more.
Ahead of the NWSL Championship, Berman responded, saying she would “fight” to keep Rodman in the league. The problem was that the opponent was not immediately clear. The most obvious obstacle standing in front of Rodman’s return was a $3.5 million salary cap.
The salary cap base amount for teams each year was set by the collective bargaining agreement that runs through the 2030 season. It increases slightly every year based on revenue sharing and will reach more than $5 million as currently constructed. The league argued that drastically changing the salary cap would risk the competitive structure.
The Spirit lost the championship to Gotham FC, where Rodman admitted she was not at full strength for the second final in a row after spending much of the season benched due to injuries.
Shortly after, the Spirit made an offer to Rodman that they felt fit within the constraints of the league’s salary cap rules. Rodman was prepared to accept the offer. However, the league, which must approve all player contracts, rejected it. A league source said at the time that the deal violated the “spirit” of the rules.
“When we said we would fight for Trinity Rodman, what we meant by that was that we want her here, within the confines of our rules that all of our clubs can access, and that is inherently our responsibility as a league,” Berman said on Friday. “We need to be trusted to have rules that are clear and transparent and apply to all of our clubs equally, and that was the basis on which we rejected the original contract.”
The NWSL players’ association filed a grievance on Rodman’s behalf, saying the league violated at least five different provisions of the CBA in rejecting the proposed contract and engaged in a “flagrant” violation of Rodman’s free agency rights.
“It comes down to a very simple premise,” NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke told The Athletic. “If they can mess with Trinity Rodman’s free agency rights, they can mess with anyone’s. And we won’t stand for that.”
The initial contract proposal was built around a scaling salary, one that would have seen Rodman paid more in the final two years of the deal, hinging upon the next media rights negotiations for the NWSL. The current media rights deals with their various partners expires in 2027. The Spirit was betting not just on Rodman for another long-term deal, but on Berman and the league to once again strike it big on broadcast deals, boosting the team revenue share and the potential payday for their star.
The annual average of the original proposed contract would have been over $1 million a year, and the Spirit felt it was competitive with inbound offers from those top teams in Europe. (Rodman ended up with double that in the deal she signed Thursday.)
“That’s not ideal, to get rejected when it’s something that almost everybody wants,” Rodman said. “It’s something (Kang) wants to get done. I want to stay. (There were) a lot of different opinions and thoughts and feelings towards something, and it’s hard when the person that’s in charge of that decision has a different opinion than you.”
Rodman described what happened next as a “waiting game.” All she could do was trust the process and those around her to find a way for her to stay with the Spirit and stay in the NWSL.
The league’s board of governors understood the impact of keeping Rodman, and players like her, from going elsewhere, especially Europe after watching both U.S. captain Naomi Girma and former Angel City forward Alyssa Thompson leave for Chelsea in England.
So the NWSL came up with a solution. The High Impact Player rule was created in December, in part, to provide an avenue for Rodman to stay in the league while also getting paid comparative to the value she brings.
To the NWSL, the HIP rule is a “really important” step in reversing the narrative of losing footing to leagues abroad, Berman told The Athletic on Friday. Referred to by some as the “Rodman Rule”, it allows teams to spend up to $1 million over the salary cap on players who meet certain criteria, like top minutes played for the U.S. or being featured on specific media rankings.
Shortly after the roster rule was rolled out, USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps signed with expansion club Denver Summit, returning to the NWSL after playing the majority of her career abroad. The club has since confirmed their negotiations predated the HIP rule, and whether or not Heaps will use funds provided through HIP remains pending. Denver has not yet met the salary cap ceiling needed in order to access the additional funds which are available July 1. The midfielder won’t join the team until June after her season with OL Lyonnes in France has ended.
That same week, fellow U.S. midfielder and Portland Thorns captain Sam Coffey made the move to Manchester City, fulfilling her lifelong dream of playing in Europe.
“Unlike other sports, we live in a global labor market for talent. So, players will come and players will go,” Berman told The Athletic. “That is true, not just for U.S. women’s national team players. That’s true for other players in the world, and that is the beauty of the global game.”
The NWSLPA has opposed the rule from the start. The league maintains it used its discretion to establish a new HIP roster classification; the union sees it as a player compensation rule, which requires bargaining. Last week, the union filed another grievance against the NWSL, arguing the league’s implementation of the rule violated the terms of their collective bargaining agreement and federal labor law. They called for the mechanism to be revoked.
That matter remains pending, as does the grievance filed by the union on behalf of Rodman in December.
Despite the public discourse, the league announced on December 23 — in the heart of the holiday season — the creation of HIP, designed to “provide clubs with expanded flexibility to attract and retain high impact players.”
“This rule was not developed in response to Trinity, per se — of course, we were very aware of Trinity’s contract circumstances,” Berman said, “and we were always hopeful that she would and the club would be in a position to take advantage of this rule, which they’ve done, and we’re so glad that she’s staying in the NWSL.
“But the intention and the beauty of this rule is that it’s applicable and accessible for all of our clubs. So that (while) Trinity might be the first player whose contract has been able to take advantage of this rule, she most certainly won’t be the last, and we have our eyes set on ensuring that we’re continuing to attract and retain top players.”
Rodman’s deal uses HIP to stay salary cap compliant, while accounting for the increasing salary cap, year over year, and additional add-ons.
“Trin’s contract has benefited from the implementation of the HIP rule,” Haley Carter, the Spirit’s president of soccer operations, said Thursday. “I think the biggest takeaway — and recognizing, obviously, there’s a pending grievance between the NWSL and the Players Association regarding the HIP rule — is the need to think creatively about developing solutions that will enable the NWSL to retain and attract world-class talent.”
Carter, a longtime fan of the Spirit, joined the team in December, in large part to help finalize Rodman’s deal. She, like Rodman, described feeling a sense of relief in Los Angeles.
“I want to get custom champagne models for everyone that’s worked on this,” she joked. However, Carter also believes that we haven’t seen the last of the changes to NWSL’s rules.
“There’s a mixed reaction out there around the use of the HIP rule. But I think what is really important to emphasize is that, regardless of the outcome of things, any time that there’s more money entering the player compensation pool, I think it’s a step in the right direction,” Carter said. “I think that the HIP rule will continue to evolve, because everything in this league is constantly evolving.”
For Rodman, re-signing in Los Angeles made the occasion even more special.
The Orange County native planned a celebratory dinner with close family and friends to mark her re-signing, and will likely be surrounded by loved ones all weekend long.
“It’s just kind of a full circle moment for me,” Rodman said.
While Rodman’s new deal marks the close of a very long chapter (her contract means she’ll get paid no matter the changes), the debate over the HIP rule and how the last two months transpired has only just begun. The NWSL and the Players Association remain at odds.
“Trinity signing a new agreement does nothing to resolve the pending grievance,” Burke, executive director of the players’ union, told The Athletic on Friday. “We think there are very important legal questions that have to be answered — not just for Trinity, but for all of us — which is, can the league reject a validly-negotiated deal?”
When a grievance is filed, the league has 14 days to respond, denying or accepting the claims; the next phase involves a grievance committee. Then, if the matter remains unresolved, it heads to arbitration.
Rodman’s grievance was already denied by the league. The filing over HIP, which takes aim at the implementation of the HIP rule, was filed Jan. 12, meaning the process is slightly behind Rodman’s grievance. The league, which has not yet responded to the union’s filing, has until early next week to do so.
Whether the HIP rule exists in the future or not has no bearing on Rodman’s deal, Burke said.
“Trinity has a legally enforceable contract. NWSL and the Washington Spirit are on the hook to pay her what they’ve agreed to pay her. That’s the beginning, middle and end of the story,” Burke said. “The manner in which they decide to go about funding the contract is a ‘them’ problem.
“The contract is in no way, shape or form impacted if the high-impact player rule were rescinded.”
The league, meanwhile, remains confident in its actions — from vetoing Rodman’s contract to creating the HIP rule at its discretion.
“We specifically negotiated for the right to develop a rule like this in the context of this new CBA,” Berman said. “We’re very confident in our position and our right to be able to move forward, and have moved forward with this rule.”
No matter what comes next, Rodman’s persistence to seek what she believes she deserves, Kang’s willingness to spend on her players and Carter’s deep knowledge of the league mean a star will remain at the Spirit for at least three more years.
Emily Olsen contributed reporting to this story.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Women's national team, Washington Spirit, NWSL, Sports Business, Women's Soccer, FIFA Women's World Cup
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