Growing Pains in Women’s Sports

When Success Creates Friction

OPENING STATEMENTS

The WNBA playoffs tipped off last Sunday. But instead of focusing solely on record viewership and packed arenas, there’s tension in the air. Players and owners remain apart on a new collective bargaining agreement with an October 31 deadline looming. This isn’t weakness. It’s what happens when an industry that survived on scraps suddenly discovers its worth. And while it may be the highest-profile, it’s representative of the friction, the positive friction, manifesting in so many areas of women’s sports.

NWSL star Naomi Girma just became the highest-paid female soccer player ever, but she had to leave for England’s Chelsea to get that $1.1 million salary. Other top American players have preceded and are likely to follow her overseas. This contrast highlights a growing contract-law gap: U.S. leagues still operate under salary caps and budget restrictions, while overseas clubs can offer open-market pay. . Meanwhile, some college athletes - Caitlin Clark (basketball), Livvy Dunne (gymnastics), NiJaree Canady (softball), etc. - are earning more through NIL deals than they could from professional contracts, reflecting the collapse of the “amateurism” model under antitrust pressure.

It’s not just salaries. Women’s volleyball is exploding with growth nobody saw coming. The 2024 NCAA championship drew 1.3 million viewers. Multiple professional leagues are launching with serious investment backing. High school participation hit an all-time high last year with more than 3.5 million athletes, according to the NFHS High School Athletics Participation survey released this week. It’s also growth that sits alongside the chaos in college athletics that’s forcing teams to crisscross the country constantly, burning through budgets, exhausting athletes and eliminating teams and reducing opportunities.

Women’s sports revenue jumped from $1.88 billion in 2024 to a projected $2.35 billion in 2025. NWSL teams that sold for $2 million just a few years ago are now worth over $100 million. The WNBA’s new media deal is worth $2.2 billion over 11 years, triple its previous contract. Expansion fees that were once pocket change are now $250 million per team. And with each of those numbers raises a question lawyers will keep asking: if franchise values are skyrocketing, how long can leagues hold the line on salary caps and revenue shares without inviting legal challenge?

But here’s the rub: valuations are skyrocketing faster than the infrastructure can keep up. Players are demanding their fair share of revenue that didn’t exist five years ago. Leagues are figuring out how to compete with deep-pocketed European clubs. College athletes with million-dollar NIL deals are questioning why they should turn pro for less money. That tension isn’t just financial – it’s structural, and increasingly legal, as CBA negotiations, antitrust cases, and labor rights challenges dictate the shape of the market.

In college sports, NIL deals and conference reshuffling are demolishing the old amateur model. Women’s volleyball players are becoming social media stars. Basketball players are out-earning their professional counterparts. But the same forces creating these opportunities are also creating instability – and setting up the next round of disputes over labor status, athlete mobility, and equality of opportunity under Title IX. .

In professional leagues, soaring valuations and global competition are challenging business models built for survival, not success. The WNBA players’ union isn’t asking for charity. They want equity in a business that’s beginning to soar. NWSL players aren’t being ungrateful by leaving for Europe. They’re following the money, just like any other professional athlete would. And increasingly, those moves shine a spotlight on the very laws and contracts that shape where talent flows.

This friction comes with growth. Women’s sports are leaving behind an era where getting any attention felt like victory. They’re entering one where athletes expect to be paid what they’re worth, where leagues compete globally for talent, and where success creates its own problems – not just in boardrooms, but in courtrooms and bargaining tables too. 

The next phase won’t be smooth. But that’s not the point. The point is that women’s sports have grown to a place big enough to have these problems…and the legal fights that will likely come with them. 

EXHIBIT A

We wrote a bit last week about eligibility. This was a pretty big week for it, as two major eligibility challenges hit federal appeals courts. Tuesday’s Sixth Circuit hearing focused on Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, who’s challenging NCAA rules that count junior college years toward Division I eligibility limits. Wednesday’s Third Circuit arguments centered on Rutgers’ Jett Elad, who’s fighting similar restrictions plus the five-year eligibility rule. Both athletes argue these rules violate antitrust laws by limiting their NIL earning potential. With the NCAA facing approximately 21 eligibility lawsuits, these appellate rulings could reshape how long college athletes can compete and earn money. And it does not appear that the NCAA will be able to fall back on the SCORE Act, which continues to be delayed.

EXHIBIT B

The NCAA eliminated the spring transfer portal window this week in an attempt to further shrink player access to mobility. With only a short January window left, the intent is clear: limit movement and blunt athletes’ leverage. But this move may not have the bite the NCAA hopes. Players can still unenroll after fall semester and reappear at a new school in January – something that is likely to pull agents into the process earlier and more deeply. Or a student-athlete seeking to transfer after the portal closes may take the NCAA to court, where recent history shows the association rarely wins. If there’s one constant we’re seeing it’s that continued patchwork of solutions doesn’t really solve anything.

ON THE DOCKET

Two New Mexico universities are fighting to keep student-athlete compensation details secret, after the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government filed lawsuits seeking their release. The schools claim educational privacy protections, but critics argue taxpayer-funded institutions should disclose how they’re spending public money on athlete payments, especially after both requested extra legislative funding to cover costs from the House v. NCAA settlement that allows up to $20.5 million in annual athlete payments. There are 2 key considerations. 1) New Mexico’s open records laws are among the strongest in the country, so if this information becomes publicly available, it may cascade across the country. 2) This is one of the many reasons why schools are creating separate nonprofits to manage athletics department business.

FOOTNOTES

"So you have to decide, as an athletic director, are you gonna get out in this lane that you know you're not supposed to be in and operate without the highest level of integrity -- or do you wanna stay in these two lanes? And that's where the rub is coming right now in college athletics. And until we get our enforcement agency up and running, you're gonna continue to have schools operating in that third lane. And that's a bad place to be, in my opinion. It's bad for college athletics. And I don't wanna operate there. But, I think, to be competitive, we may have to figure out what that third lane looks like for the University of Arkansas.”

Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachekin an amazingly honest, revealing, seemingly unprecedented comment from a current AD about the current landscape of college athletics (via CBS Sports).