Former UCLA defender Quincy McMahon was excited to launch her professional soccer career with choices about where she'd land.
McMahon was among the first college players to navigate a transition to the NWSL this coming season in the absence of a college draft as she signed with the San Diego Wave.
The NWSL became the first major pro sports league in the United States to eliminate the draft last year as part of its collective-bargaining agreement with players. While many college players in years past prepared at this time of year for a January draft, now they're on the open market.
McMahon got interest from several NWSL teams, many of which she was familiar with because of offseason training sessions. Upon graduation, she hired an agent and began interviews.
“It was almost like college recruiting all over again,” she said. “I talked on the phone with head coaches, saw presentations that they had given me, kind of just like, 'Here’s what we have to offer you.′ And then I’d gotten contract (offers) from those and then just had to kind of choose based on that."
The first player to test this draft-less future was Texas all-time leading scorer Trinity Byars, who signed with the San Diego Wave in November. McMahon joined the Wave in December, inking a three-year deal.
The NWSL Players' Association says the change will give players like Byars and McMahon greater control over the start of their careers. Teams will need to compete for the best players, which in turn could boost salaries and prompt clubs to invest in better facilities.
While the draft was a celebratory moment in the past — players got their moment in the spotlight in front of family and friends — the reality was that nothing was official until contracts were signed. Teams held their drafted players' rights for a period, even if they ultimately didn't sign, said Meghann Burke, executive director of the NWSL Players Association.
“You could find a number of players across the league saying, 'Yeah, I was drafted. I was all excited. I got to camp, and I very quickly realized I wasn’t going to be seeing the field or I wasn’t the right fit for the coach.' ... And now they’re stuck because the club unilaterally holds the rights without a contract," Burke said.
While elite players may choose to skip college in the absence of a draft, players and coaches alike said most athletes can still benefit from development at the college level.
"I’m an advocate for opportunities for my student-athletes. So if I can help them develop and get opportunities in the NWSL, it’s fantastic. That’s what I want. I want to see them playing hopefully on the U.S. women’s national team in the future," Stanford women's coach Paul Ratcliffe said. “Obviously, I want to help them grow and I’m an advocate for education and I want them to get their degree. So my hope is they take the time to get their degree and then go on to, if they did aspire to, play professional women’s soccer."
Sophia Smith, part of the U.S. team that won the gold medal at the Olympics in France last summer, played for Stanford for two years and won a national title before she declared for the draft and was taken with the was No. 1 overall pick by the Portland Thorns in 2020.
“I loved my two years at Stanford. You learn a lot about yourself. You develop not only as a player by as a person. In college, it gives you real life experiences. It makes you go away from home and challenge yourself," Smith said. "So I do still think college is very important. But I do think there will be more players going pro earlier, and that's also good, because the talent is there, for sure. But I think it's just knowing yourself and knowing what route is best for you.”
Teams are also adjusting to the new draft-less landscape in women's soccer.
There were 56 players taken in the 2024 draft. So far, the 14 NWSL teams have collectively signed some 27 free agents out of college.
“Talking to agents, talking to other GMs, talking to people in the league, it's like this is the wild, wild west,” said Racing Louisville interim general manager Caitlyn Milby. “No one knows what's happening. No one knows how to do it. No one knows if they're doing it right. We won't know if we're doing it right for a little bit of time."
NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman also said it will take time to see the impact on the league.
“The resources that our clubs need to be able to make their scouting processes more sophisticated, it’s created a really important dialogue at our board level about investing in the path to pro, which I think is going to be the next chapter of this league’s growth,” Berman said. “It sort of goes hand in hand with the idea of not having a draft and having full free agency that you need to shore up the foundation of your strategy to bring talent into the league.”
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Anne M. Peterson, The Associated Press
