NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman addresses Trinity Rodman’s contract talks and defends salary cap structure

NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said the NWSL’s salary cap is “the reason our league is the most competitive league in the world,” defending the league’s policy amidst reports that Trinity Rodman could leave the Washington Spirit because of the limitations of those restrictions.

Rodman is in the final year of her contract with the Spirit and a return to the club could be tricky, according to The Athletic, over salary discussions. Any potential suitor is likely able to offer more money than the Spirit, including other NWSL sides, though Rodman’s team have had talks with three different teams in England’s Women’s Super League. The player’s representatives have also spoken with NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman.

“First of all, I think the NWSL is unique in that the players are actually employees of the league and so we we have a lot of direct connectivity with the players that might not otherwise exist in how people think about the infrastructure around professional sports leagues,” Berman said in an exclusive interview with CBS Sports on Saturday, shortly after the Rodman news broke and ahead of the Spirit’s NWSL playoff semifinal against the Portland Thorns. “I spend a lot of time with individual players and agents. I think it’s really important. It’s one of the most important constituents who really underpin the game.”

Berman defended the existence of the NWSL’s salary cap, which currently stands at $3.3 million per team for the 2025 season. The cap will increase incrementally each season and will reach $5.1 million in 2030.

“The reason our league is the most competitive league in the world, the reason that three of our four games in the quarterfinals went to extra time is because of the salary cap,” Berman said. “It is because there is a mechanism that forces our teams to be able to compete with each other. We do not want or want to facilitate haves and have nots. We want players to know that there’s a consistency in standards that you can expect when you play in the NWSL and that is our superpower. We want any team to be able to win any game.

“It’s important not just for the players to know that they’ll need to show up and compete, but it’s important for our business. No one wants to buy tickets to a game where you know the outcome before it starts and we want our fans, every single year when the schedule comes out, to believe that their team can win the championship or their team can win the Shield, and without a salary cap, that can’t be true, so we have to know that.”

Berman said the league will “continue to examine” their current salary policies and looks to other leagues for examples. The commissioner, though, offered no specifics on whether or not any adjustments to the salary cap would be made, be it increasing it or adding something like MLS’ designated player rule, in which the salaries of three players per team will not count against the cap.

“We always look at all of the other leagues in the way that their salary caps are constructed and luckily we have lots of leagues to point to here,” she said. “I do believe having come from those leagues that those are the differentiator and being able to build a long-term sustainable business and we want to make sure that this league is thriving and is the best league in the world, not just in 2026 but in five, 10, 50, 100 years and there needs to be a long-term lens on how you think about those things and if you look back in history over the last few years, we’ve quadrupled our salary cap so we’re investing. Our owners are investing hundreds of millions of dollars and we want to do that in a way that’s smart and supported by revenue growth and is done strategically.”

Berman also believes the NWSL is uniquely positioned to support players of Rodman’s stature, both in terms of skill and star quality.

“I think there’s so many compelling reasons for a top player in the world to want to play in the NWSL,” she said. “First, that any team can win any game. If you are a player who likes to be tested, who wants to be pushed to be your best on and off the field, to prepare you, in some cases, for top level international competition where you’re not only playing against some of the best players in the world week over week, every single game, but also that you’re playing in front of full stadiums consistently. That is the environment that you have when you’re playing in World Cups and Olympics and we replicate that every single week, not just when the two top teams in a league are playing each other and I think that really matters. I think it matters for the maturity of a player, for the professionalism of a player, to be able to know in their minds that they can compete in those kinds of circumstances and that they can thrive under that kind of consistent pressure so we think that’s super important.

“Number two, I believe we’re the only league in the world that has consistent, bespoke, purpose-built facilities for female athletes. If you believe that women’s soccer should and could be as big as any other sport, you have to believe in the long-term investment that comes with the ownership that we’ve assembled, not just in one or two teams, but literally top to bottom and more than half of our teams either have or will have their own training facility and many of them are either building or talking about building new stadiums where we’ll be able to decide when we get to play for our players and I think I could go on and on, but those are sort of like two things that come to mind that are what I describe as superpowers. They are unique.”

She also believes the momentum that women’s sports has in the U.S. creates unique opportunites for players to make the most of their playing careers, especially ahead of a busy period that includes a men’s and women’s World Cups in the next six years.

“If you are a star and a top player, I am certain that there is no other country that you could be celebrated as a cultural icon the way you will be in this country,” Berman said. “The catalytic moment that we have right now behind women’s sports and the sport of soccer with the men’s World Cup being, here with the Women’s World Cup being in this region and with the Women’s World Cup coming in 2031, the boom that’s going to happen here on our soil is going to be unmatched and if I were a top player, those would be important considerations.”

For her, that also includes commercial opportunities for players off the field.

“I mean marketability. I mean from brands, I mean being able to monetize your [name, image and likeness],” Berman said. “We know what’s happening in college sports and that in many cases, the female college athletes are paid more than the male college athletes and that’s also true in the professional world, like we’re seeing it happen and so we want to be a facilitator and enabler for that because we want our players to make as much money as they can and we think that there’s plenty of opportunities for that to be true in the U.S.”

What is Trinity Rodman’s contract status?

Rodman signed a four-year deal after her rookie season in 2022 worth $1.1 million, which made her one of the NWSL’s highest-paid players. The deal included an option year for 2025, which the Spirit exercised, though the contract has now expired.

What has Trinity Rodman said about her future?

The forward has mostly kept quiet over the course of the year on her future, in large part because she has spent much of the season battling different injuries. Earlier this year, though, she did say she plans to play in Europe one day.

“‘Ive always thought about playing overseas at some point in my career,” she said in an interview with ESPN. “I think I would kick myself if I retired and hadn’t done that. So it’s just a matter of when I think. But yeah, just focused on this year and we’ll see what happens when the time is right.”

Which teams have been interested in signing Trinity Rodman?

Chelsea and Arsenal were linked to Rodman last winter, the clubs reportedly monitoring her status because she was in the final year of her contract with the Spirit. It is currently unclear if they are still interested, especially Chelsea after they signed Rodman’s USWNT teammate Alyssa Thompson in the summer.

Spirit owner Michele Kang, though, said in March that it was imperative that the team – and the league – keep Rodman around.

“It will be very, very important not only for the Spirit, but in my opinion, for NWSL,” she said. “We’re going to do everything in our power to hopefully keep her here. She’s an integral part of our success, our success meaning the Spirit as well as NWSL.”