NWSL Eliminates College Draft, Breaking Decades Of American Sports Tradition

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the league’s players’ association agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement this week, which will expand player movement and recruiting opportunities. The contract will most be remembered for a single landmark decision, however, as the league became the first in American history to do away with the college draft.

Since 1936, when the NFL first instituted a draft for college players, the pipeline from collegiate athletics to professional sports has become the norm in the United States. Every major sports league recruits the vast majority of its athletes from college. But in some sports, like soccer, such a model has always had its disadvantages.

While most American sports leagues have virtually unfettered access to its young athletes, soccer is a global pastime, and players can receive attention from countless leagues around the world. Many of these organizations, namely in Europe, recruit at a very young age. By the time American leagues draft from the collegiate pool, many of the best talents have already gone elsewhere, forgoing the academic route entirely.

While getting rid of the collegiate draft makes more sense for a league like the NWSL, the logistics alone are not the only thing that some may see as a motivating factor. In the NIL era, athletes in every sport are becoming more like pseudo-professionals, far removed from the “student-athlete” ideal that has been promoted for decades.

In soccer specifically, doing away with the draft could allow the league to recruit players at a younger age, which is the best course from a competitive standpoint. Other leagues with less international competition, however, could still do something similar at some point in the future.

In basketball, some players tried to work around the college athletics structure by signing up with G-League Ignite, an NBA affiliate intended to provide early professional experience. The appeal of this program vanished when NIL measures were expanded, but it still stands to reason that some athletes might continue pushing to change the current structure that practically requires college experience.

In MLB, it is still common practice for players to be drafted out of high school, and these prospects exist in the same pool as college athletes. The NBA used to function the same way. The NWSL’s latest arrangement seems to have reminded people that other leagues could someday restructure their recruiting processes to target players more consistently at a younger age.

After all, the purpose of collegiate athletics has long been described as an opportunity for players to develop and learn in a smaller instructional environment. In a world where these athletes are making as much, and occasionally more, than the pros, leagues could continue finding ways to eliminate this redundancy.