The National Women's Soccer League is the most talent-rich, competitively balanced and exciting women's soccer league in the world. Rosters are stacked with many of the world's best players -- from the United States and Brazil, to Spain and France, Malawi and Zambia.
This isn't the MLS of women's soccer -- a lower-tier, American-based operation.
Rather, it's the English Premier League of women's soccer -- the best of the global best.
But the alarm bells of European competition have been ringing lately, as the women's game grows where soccer is already king, and the NWSL now stands at a potential crossroads. The league has just begun to find its long-term footing but encounters a new challenge as it seeks continued growth and sustainability.
The first jolt came in January, when Naomi Girma, arguably the best player on the United States national team, left the San Diego Wave for English champions Chelsea for a record $1.1 million transfer fee. The 24-year-old is reportedly earning around $1 million annually as part of a Chelsea team that's spending $5 million to $7 million on its entire roster, per a source. (The NWSL salary cap is $3.3 million per team).
Then came a comment in March from Trinity Rodman, a sensational goal scorer and star for the Washington Spirit and USWNT, about her long-standing interest in playing in Europe: "It's just a matter of when, I think," she told ESPN's Futbol W.
Finally, last weekend, Chelsea minority owner and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian set an unprecedented standard for the club in an effort at domination, with an eye on the American market.
"This will be a billion-dollar franchise one day," Ohanian, who this month purchased a 10% stake in the team, told the BBC, "and I hope my dollars, my pounds, can go towards that and especially back home in America, this is going to be 'America's Team.'"
Ohanian is married to tennis star Serena Williams and is the former principal owner of the NWSL's Angel City FC, which was sold in 2024 at a $250 million valuation to new controlling owners Willow Bay and Bob Iger (Iger is CEO of the Walt Disney Company, which is the majority owner of ESPN). If Ohanian wants to elevate Chelsea, already a powerhouse in Europe, he most certainly has the means to do it.
Basically, any advantage that the NWSL -- and women's soccer in America -- has on European leagues and clubs isn't permanent.
"Attracting and retaining the world's top talent is central to the NWSL's identity as the best league in the world," a league spokesperson said. "As the biggest sports market in the world, we're recruiting globally to find and support the best players, while providing them with endless opportunities to showcase their talents, on and off the field."
Money is not the only motivator for player movement, and the NWSL has salaries that reach $500,000 or more for a star player. Chelsea might spend twice the NWSL cap on its team overall, but wages for most major talents are comparable.
Players might also be drawn to living and training in Europe, competing in the storied Champions League or playing for a historic brand. No offense to the Utah Royals, but living in Spain and slipping on the Barcelona kit carries a different, intrinsic weight.
A women's soccer league in the United States was never going to get every great player, the way the WNBA can in basketball.
Still, the NWSL needs to do all it can to attract and retain as much talent as possible. Beyond increasing revenue to drive salaries upward, the league needs to overcompensate with best-in-class coaching, technical training and facilities. It already has ended age limits for signing young talent and eliminated the draft.
It's never been easy making a women's soccer league work. The NWSL itself is the third iteration in the U.S. alone. The sport has been plagued by everything from weak ownership groups to misfit stadiums to not getting games on television.
But the league is turning a corner, riding a wave of dollars and eyeballs flooding into women's sports.
The NWSL inked television deals with ESPN/ABC, CBS, Ion and Amazon, greatly increasing exposure last season. "We've gone from hidden to visible," commissioner Jessica Berman said last fall.
Regular-season average attendance for the 2024 season hit 11,235, an increase from just 7,894 in 2022, per Sportico. The Kansas City Current opened the first women's soccer-specific stadium last year, a crown jewel for the league. Expansion fees (the league will add teams in Boston and Denver next year) have soared to $110 million. An increasing number of billionaires have purchased ownership stakes and are investing in teams. Iger and Bay, for one, have said they will invest an additional $50 million into Angel City FC.
Berman said fans at last season's playoffs were there to support their teams -- emotions rising and falling on the action -- rather than just coming out to support the concept of women's sports. It's a key move toward a viable sports league. Passion powers sustained growth.
"It felt specific to the game," Berman said. "It was very much focused on the action."
This season, the NWSL is a week-in, week-out battle. Just nine games into the 2025 season, every team has at least two losses.
The parity in play is an advantage for the NWSL because that kind of tight competition doesn't exist in Europe ... at least not yet. Legendary Lyon in France just won its league for the 18th time in 19 seasons. Chelsea took the English-based Women's Super League for a sixth consecutive year by going undefeated (19-0-3) with a whopping plus-43 goal differential.
Even the UEFA Women's Champions League -- featuring the best teams from Europe -- is mostly uncompetitive until the semifinals.
"The narrative ... that the NWSL is like the Champions League every single week?" Berman told ESPN's Jeff Kassouf. "It's like, no, the Champions League doesn't even get competitive until the very end. We are competitive every single week. And that is a superpower."
Whether the play on the field is enough of a superpower to overcome offers for top stars to play in Europe is a big question.
The major women's clubs in Europe are tied to massive men's side operations -- Chelsea, Arsenal, Barcelona, etc. -- while most NWSL teams operate independently.
The European teams have deep resources, legendary facilities and built-in fan bases. Ohanian is just one who sees the potential. If -- or when -- more European clubs invest in women's soccer, is the NWSL prepared to fight back?
The talent pipeline goes the other way, of course, and it has powered the NWSL onto solid footing and the cusp of significant advancement.
Nothing is guaranteed, though. This is business -- potentially very big business. Europe appears to be finally getting serious about women's soccer.
The NWSL will need to counter or risk "America's Team" being based in London.
