The Washington Spirit have re-signed Trinity Rodman to a record three-year, $2 million annually contract.

Rodman, 23, is a part of the U.S. Women’s National Team and was a big piece of the team that won the Olympic gold medal. Rodman is now the highest-paid female soccer player of all time. Aitana Bonmatí of Barcelona was previously the highest-paid player. The deal was negotiated by her agent, Mike Senkowski of Upper Sports Group.

This contract will keep Rodman in Washington until at least 2028 and prevents her from going abroad for a lucrative contract. “I’ve made the DMV my home and the Spirit my family, and I knew this was where I wanted to enter the next chapter of my career,” Rodman said after signing the contract.

NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman vetoed a contract offered by the Spirit, which included a backloaded four-year contract that would have paid Rodman more than $1 million a season. Berman saw it as an attempt to circumvent the salary cap. The NWSL Players Association filed a grievance over the move.

The new “Trinity Rodman Rule,” also known as the “High Impact Player” rule, now allows clubs to go over the salary cap by $1 million to sign high-performing players.

Rodman has played five seasons in the NWSL, scoring 33 goals and adding 21 assists in just 109 games. Rodman won the NWSL championship in 2021 and won the 2021 NWSL Rookie Of The Year award.

Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang had high praise for Rodman, saying, “This agreement reflects our belief that elite talent deserves elite commitment.”

Rodman now has her eyes set on the Australian Open, as her boyfriend, Ben Shelton, ranked the world’s eighth-best tennis player, is in the third round of the tournament.

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.

The U.S. Soccer, MLS, and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) will be joining a joint trial program aiming to test concussion substitutes.

Last December, the concussion trial was approved by the International Football Association Board, who is in charge of approving rules for the game. The concussion trial will run through August, 2022.

In addition, U.S. Soccer is working to implement the pilot program across the United States. This includes the top Women’s and Men’s soccer leagues, the United Soccer League, and the National Independent Soccer Association.

“We do think it’s incredibly important for players and player safety, and it speaks to our role of being a leader in this area” said Jeff Agoos, vice president of competition for MLS. “And prioritizing health and safety above really anything else that we do as a league.”

Normally a team is allowed three substitutions. However, because of the pandemic, it has increased to five substitutions. The concussion protocol will allow teams to have two additional substitutions for suspected concussions.

Concussion substitutions can still be made even if a player has returned to the field to play. If a team uses one of their concussion substitutes to sub out a player, then the passing team gets an additional sub.

“It was critical to come together as a sport with our professional leagues and proceed in this pilot program, prioritizing the well-being of our players above all,” Dr. George Chiampas, U.S. Soccer’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. “We’ve worked hard to raise awareness of head injuries in soccer over the last several years, and this change should go a long way in protecting players suspected of suffering a concussion.”

The concussion rule was used during the SheBeleives Cup in February. FIFA is currently debating whether to implement the rule during the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. The English Premier League has allowed the use of concussion substitutes since early February.

MLS will be using the concussion rule this season. In order to accommodate the use of the rule, the different cards will be used by officials to indicate subs. White cards are for a normal sub, pink for a concussion sub and blue for an additional sub.

The MLS regular season will start on April 16.

Forward Trinity Rodman, daughter of NBA legend Dennis Rodman, was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the National Women’s Soccer League by the Washington Spirit.

Trinity is the youngest of the Rodman family, and her older brother DJ plays college basketball at Washington State. Rodman, 18, was also supposed to play at Washington State, but the last college soccer season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of joining her brother at college, Rodman is moving forward with her professional career.

Last year, she played on the US national under-20 women’s soccer team and led them to the Concacaf Championship in March 2020.

“To even just be in the draft with my situation and my age is insane, but to be No 2 to an amazing team is out of this world like I couldn’t ask for anything more,” Rodman told ESPN. “DC has just got an awesome program, awesome team. The coach [Richie Burke] is amazing. I’ve talked to him a couple times. I know he’s a hard head coach, but I’m so excited to be his player and learn and get better.”

“He was an amazing athlete,” she said about her father. “And I got those genes from him, but I’m excited to be known as Trinity Rodman and not just as Rodman‘s daughter. I’m excited to pave my own path and get better throughout this journey.”

In this year’s NWSL draft, expansion team Racing Louisville used the first overall pick to select a member of the US women’s national team, Emily Fox. Fox, 22, was a defender at the University of North Carolina and appeared with the women’s national soccer team three times.

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During the national anthem before the second game of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Challenge Cup on Saturday between the Chicago Red Stars and the Washington Spirits, Julie Ertz consoled her Red Stars, and Team USA teammate Casey Short, who was visibly emotional. 

Players were showing support of the Black Lives Matter movement that is sweeping across the United States. Players also wore t-shirts during the pregame and arm bands during the game with ‘Black Lives Matter’ written on them.

The same scene took place prior to the first game of the day as all 22 starters as well as some reserves took a knee during the national anthem. 

In a statement prior to the first match on Saturday between the North Carolina Courage and Portland Thorns, the two squads issued a statement to comment on the ongoing issues in the U.S. “We took a knee today to protest racial injustice, police brutality, and systemic racism against Black people and people of color in America,” they said. “We love our country and we have taken this opportunity to hold it to a higher standard. It is our duty to demand that the liberties and freedoms this nation was founded upon are extended to everyone.”

This is not the first time that players knelt during the national anthem of an NWSL game, as back in 2016, Megan Rapinoe knelt prior to her game as a member of the Seattle Reign. In addition, Rapinoe knelt during the anthem while playing for Team USA. She took to Twitter to comment on what transpired Saturday.

https://twitter.com/mPinoe/status/1276923017025576962

Houston Dash player Rachel Daly collapsed during the final minutes of the team’s soccer match against the Seattle Reign on Saturday. The National Women’s Soccer League match was played in Houston, Texas, where the temperature hovered around 90 degrees Fahrenheit through out the weekend.

At the 3 p.m. kick-off, the temperature in BBVA Compass Stadium was 92 degrees. The afternoon start time was intentionally scheduled for May in order to avoid such warm conditions, according the the NWSL.

Daly, a former forward on the English National team, was immediately taken to the hospital and treated for heat illness. She was released from the hospital later that night.

“I’m doing better after being treated with heat exhaustion. It was a frightening experience,” Daly wrote on Twitter. “Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a player who will give everything and those conditions are not safe to play at your maximum.”

The NWSL released a statement on Twitter addressing the incident as well. The league mentioned that it had worked with the Dash prior to the start of the season to schedule nationally televised games in the afternoon earlier in the year, with the hopes of avoiding the smoldering summer temperatures in Texas.

“The safety of our players is always our top priority and due to the high temperature today in Houston, we implemented water breaks to provide additional opportunities to help the players stay hydrated,” the statement read.

“Prior to the season, we also worked with the Dash on scheduling any nationally televised afternoon games earlier in the year in an attempt to avoid the summer heat that unfortunately we experienced today. We will immediately review these measures to prevent this situation from occurring in the future.”

The Reign won the match 2-0 and improve their record to three wins, one loss, and three ties. The Reign are currently in fourth place in the ten team league, with 12 points. The Dash have a record of two wins, five losses, and no ties, after Saturday’s match. Houston is in ninth place with six points.

The Dash won’t play in their hometown again until Saturday, June 17, when they will host the Orlando Pride. The game is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. EST.