Last night, Trinity Rodman became the highest paid female soccer player in the world.
Rodman, aged 23, renewed her contract with the Washington Spirit of the NWSL last night during a live event in Los Angeles.
The contract, reportedly valued at over $2 million per year, eclipses the reported salary figures of Aitana Bonmati of Barcelona, putting Rodman at the top.
Rodman had been with the Spirit for her whole career, but saw her contract expire at the end of 2025. The re-signing talks turned into a contentious saga with the Player’s Union even filing a grievance on her behalf. Following that, the league introduced a new roster rule, the High Impact Player rule. Naturally, the public at large has taken to calling it the Rodman Rule on the belief that it was created to facilitate the resigning of Rodman. The rule creates special provisions allowing players who meet certain criteria to be categorized as High Impact Players and signed for contracts in excess of $1 million. Per the NWSL’s December press release announcing the rule, these are the criteria:
- Player is on SportsPro Media Top 150 Most Marketable Athletes within the one (1) year prior to the current league season; or,
- Player is selected in the Top 30 in Ballon d’Or voting in the two (2) years prior to the current league season; or
- Player is selected in the Top 40 of the Guardian Top 100 football players in the world in the two (2) years prior; or
- Player is selected in the Top 40 of ESPN FC Top 50 football players in the world in the two (2) years prior; or
- Top 11 minutes played for the USWNT in the prior two (2) calendar years for field players for all competition types; or
- Top one (1) minutes played for USWNT in the prior two (2) calendar years for goalkeepers for all competition types; or
- Player selected as NWSL MVP Finalist within previous the two (2) league seasons; or
- Player selected to the End of Year NWSL Best XI First Team within the previous two (2) league seasons.
Naturally, Rodman meets all of these criterea, excluding the one limited to goalkeepers. However, this saga is not over as the Rodman rule was not implemented with the blessing of the Player’s Union. Rule changes like this are subject to collective bargaining agreements and the Union has now filed a(nother) grievance.
That said, this contract does succeed in keeping Rodman with the Spirit and in the NWSL, at least for now. With the growing of the women’s game in Europe and the numbers of high profile players at teams like Barcelona and Arsenal (at times including American players), there has been a risk of losing such players to clubs abroad. Rodman is arguably the highest profile player in the entire women’s game, so keeping her in the US helps keep the spotlight in the States.
