Every year, the NWSL college draft gets a little more sophisticated, with more media attention, enhanced on-site staging, broader promotion and the like. While the last two drafts were held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they still marked significant steps for the league, as the 2021 event was broadcast live on Twitch and the ’22 edition aired on TV for the first time after being picked up by CBS Sports.
Those drafted in 2013, back when the league was just getting off the ground, had a very disparate experience. The event wasn’t even open to the media, and only a few players were in attendance in Indianapolis.
“They told me, ‘Download Twitter; that’ll be how you find out if you get drafted or not,’” recalls Erika Tymrak, selected 11th that year. “So I remember downloading Twitter and just kind of refreshing it. And then I found out I was drafted to Kansas City. … It’s a lot different now.”
No one quite knew the full extent at the time, but 10 years ago was a decisive and fateful time for women’s professional soccer in the United States. Its pro league, the WPS, folded that spring after just three seasons, marking the country’s second failed women’s league in a decade. Months later, a group with the subsidized backing of the soccer federations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico announced it would try again, and the NWSL was born.
Third time’s the charm … right?
When a professional sports league folds, its players are scattered to the wind. Some, like Jasmyne Spencer and Toni Pressley, join a team abroad, extending their professional careers even if it means leaving their home country. Others, like Lauren Barnes, take it as a sign to retire. Barnes had played one professional season when the WPS dissolved, trading her cleats for coaching at age 22: “I figured I gave it a go, and the talks of a women’s league lasting longer than a few years were not very optimistic,” she recalls. Still others, like Tymrak, are impacted before they even get the chance to turn pro. Tymrak was wrapping up an All-American career at Florida, feeling like she was playing too well to have things end in college.
The creation of the NWSL was a game-changer for all of them—and the couple-hundred others who made up the eight teams’ inaugural rosters in 2013. Unlike the WUSA and WPS, the NWSL reached Year 3 and then pushed past it, doubling and even tripling the lifespan of its predecessors.
This weekend, the NWSL will officially kick off a milestone 10th year as it opens regular-season play. Spencer, Pressley, Tymrak and—yes—even Barnes, will all be there, veterans on the field and pioneers of a league that has achieved something for women’s soccer once seen as a pipe dream in the country.
“Ten years seems like forever, but in the grand scheme of a professional league, it's still very young,” says Spencer.
Says Barnes: “We always say it’s been 10 years, but we’re 10 years young. A lot of other leagues like the NFL, NHL, NBA, WNBA, whatever it may be, they’re all 20-plus years old.”
Of the roughly 200 players who were on an NWSL roster in its maiden season, only 28 are still active players in the league. The majority of those players have had significant national-team stints, whether with the U.S., Canada or another country—names like Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Christine Sinclair and Kelley O’Hara. Only eight of the 28 still in the NWSL have made fewer than five international appearances in their career.
Players like Spencer, Barnes, Pressley and Tymrak—who have just three USWNT caps among them, all belonging to Tymrak—are backbones of the league, having been there for its inception, going through highs and lows and serving as stabilizing forces on rosters during major events like the World Cup and the Olympics. Over the last decade, they’ve seen minimum salaries as low as $6,000 for a 22-game season. They’ve seen countless players take second jobs or live with host families just to afford a professional career. They’ve seen franchises disband, either completely or to have the entire roster transferred to a new location. They’ve seen the league expand to nine and then 10 teams, then back to nine, again to 10, and now to an all-time high of 12. They’ve navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, have seen abusive coaches ousted, watched TV ratings soar and helped ratify the first collective bargaining agreement in women’s soccer history earlier this year.
“I look back to where it was in 2013 to where it is now, and it’s night and day,” says Tymrak, now a midfielder for the Orlando Pride. “That doesn’t mean there’s still not things that we need to fight for and things that need to get better.”
