How the NWSL’s choice to abolish the college draft could impact the entire American sports landscape

The NWSL’s groundbreaking new collective bargaining agreement marks another step forward for the league’s players, who will have more freedom of movement than ever before thanks to multiple new initiatives that will take effect immediately. One of the league’s rule changes, however, could lay the groundwork for a seismic shift in the American sports landscape by abolishing an old staple — the college draft.

The new CBA makes the NWSL the first major American sports league to do away with the college draft, which has been part of the regular cadence in the US since the NFL held their first in 1936. That said, the writing was on the wall for years. the NWSL version of the college draft, which has been in place since the league’s inaugural season in 2013. The NWSL Players Association has been pushing hard to loosen restrictions on player movement since they began negotiating the first CBA of the league, and NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke told CBS Sports earlier this year that the league needed to get rid of its concepts.

Although the league has yet to announce its new plans to recruit collegiate athletes, the choice to do away with the draft is likely to pique the interest of many in American sports, especially as the landscape at the youth level changes dramatically with the introduction of name, image and similarity. deals for amateur athletes in 2021. However the future of the NWSL plays out, the move raises several questions about the league itself and perhaps the American sports landscape as a whole.

A new recruitment landscape

While few details are available about the NWSL’s plans to replace the draft, the NWSLPA’s announcement of the new CBA teased that young players could essentially act as free agents, empowered “to decide which team environment best suits their needs and their development. ” It’s not necessarily uncharted territory for the NWSL: the league introduced an under-18 entry mechanism in 2022, allowing teams to recruit high school players and remain competitive in a global football landscape that involves identifying talent on young age is as important as landing stars in their prime.

However, the elimination of a pathway specifically for collegiate athletes raises questions about the long-term relevance of college football. It is still currently the best stepping stone for players not signed through the under-18 registration mechanism, especially considering that most NWSL clubs do not have academies, where most European teams in women’s football and almost all clubs in the women’s football are located. the men’s game identifies the best emerging talents. Whether college football remains an important place for player scouting in the long term will be worth monitoring in the coming years, especially as women’s football continues to develop globally.

While college women’s soccer’s influence on professional soccer could be changing, that may not be the case in the college sports landscape – for most major U.S. sports leagues, college sports is still the best pipeline for identifying top talent. However, the NWSLPA’s wording suggesting that all amateur athletes could have more influence at the bargaining table could set a precedent that other sports could consider adopting sooner rather than later.

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Increased leverage for amateur athletes

The 2021 Supreme Court ruling that the NCAA could not prevent student-athletes from receiving compensation did not just result in lucrative deals for college sports. It has arguably paved the way for collegiate athletes to seek greater rights as workers, with several college sports teams currently in the midst of a labor battle with their universities. Burke believes a labor battle was a natural next chapter in the name, image and likeness era of college sports.

“As you see college athletes being able to monetize their name, image and likeness and things changing in the college game,” Burke told CBS Sports last winter, “I think you’re going to see more college athletes — basketball, baseball, football — look at that and say, “Wait a minute. After I did pretty well at any state university, now you’re going to put me in this draft where I have no choice and you’re just going to decide my future.” no bargaining power to negotiate?’ I think these questions will come up in other sports and they should, because we are talking about people.”

The greater influence for young athletes could mean that the recruiting tactics of competitive players in college sports will sooner or later be mirrored in professional sports, and could change the dialogue about turning pro in the NIL era. Many argued (wrongly) that Caitlin Clark, for example, would lose money after leaving the NCAA for the WNBA, although a new landscape could allow new professionals to make strong deals not only with their sponsors, but also with their new teams. The new reality, however, would force America’s major leagues to answer an existential question: How much value do they actually place on parity, the guiding principle behind college drafts?

The question of parity

The importance of equality is a question that professional sports in the US continues to grapple with, given the evergreen argument that relying solely on each team’s resources would allow a few to rise to the top and therefore create a predictable product. In theory, that could become a problem for the NWSL, which currently prides itself on being one of the most competitive major leagues in the world.

That said, there is a growing argument that leagues that attempt to level the playing field hinder the overall product, especially in women’s sports. Take, for example, the WNBA’s years-long battle over charter flights: the New York Liberty, financed by Joe Tsai and the fortune of Clara Wu Tsai of the Chinese technology company Alibaba Group, was willing to break the league’s transportation rules in 2021 because they felt they should have the right to do this regularly. Rules that cater to the teams that don’t want to spend that money penalize the more ambitious franchises and players across the league, stunting the progress of a league on the rise.

That specific example may seem less relevant to leagues like the NFL and NBA, where players often travel in comfort and work in state-of-the-art facilities. Amid a widespread labor movement in the US, however, it’s worth pointing out that there is no shortage of issues players’ unions are grappling with. While the NWSL is entering uncharted territory, it will undoubtedly be worth paying attention to whether the league’s choice to expand free agency to a new group of athletes creates a domino effect in American sports , which results in a wide variety of outcomes.