How PWHL's Three-Year Contracts Will Impact Incoming Stars

The PWHL's guaranteed three-year deals benefitted a small number of primarily former PWHPA players, but it will mean elite stars like Sarah Fillier and Hannah Bilka will have to accept far less than their peers when they join the league.

Within the PWHL / PWHLPA collective bargaining agreement was a stipulation stating that each of the league's six teams must sign at least six players to guaranteed three-year contracts worth a minimum of $80,000 each.

Those contracts will total more than $500,000 for most clubs in a league with a salary cap of $1,265,000. The contracts cannot be terminated for any reason, meaning that for the next three seasons, roughly 40% of each team's salary will be locked in, no matter what.

For the PWHPA who negotiated the CBA, it was a way to have a group of their players rewarded and compensated professionally. But the impact on the talent pool the next few seasons could be immense.

Among the 36 players signed to these deals are a mix of PWHPA veterans like Hilary Knight, Sarah Nurse, Brianne Jenner, and Kendall Coyne Schofield, along with incoming NCAA standouts like Taylor Heise, Gabbie Hughes, Alina Muller, and Sophie Jaques.

But what happens next offseason when another influx of talent wants to join the PWHL and there are no contracts available to pay these players what they're worth? 

Teams will not have the salary cap flexibility to pay players like Sarah Fillier, Hannah Bilka, and Cayla Barnes anywhere near what their counterparts who graduated this year received, nor provide these young stars with security. If these players had entered the PWHL this season, they would have certainly drawn one of the guaranteed three-year contracts.

From Europe, it could prove difficult to attract Petra Nieminen, Vivvi Vainikka, Michaela Pejzlova, Daniela Pejsova, Elisa Holopainen, Hanna Olsson, Klara Peslarova, or Maja Nylen Persson over the next two seasons. Some of these players however, will certainly make the move in order to play in the best league in the world, and the PWHL needs to find a way to attract a handful of these players of the next two seasons.

The salary cap is scheduled to increase by 3% each year for the next eight seasons, meaning the league minimum will be approximately $44,336 in 2031 when the contract expires. When the guaranteed three-year contracts expire, which will roughly coincide with the eligibility of players like Caroline Harvey, Nelli Laitinen, Laila Edwards, and Kirsten Simms the league minimum will be roughly $38,245. 

The three-year guarantees benefitted a small group of players, most of whom were already collecting significant stipends from their national teams, but a more even distribution of salary across the league would certainly have allowed for a more equitable professional landscape now, and as world class talent begin to consider the league.