Womenâs professional hockey is about to see a major influx of money.
The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) â formerly the National Womenâs Hockey League (NWHL) â announced on Tuesday that it will more than double each teamâs salary cap (from $300,000 to $750,000) ahead of the 2022-23 season. Each player will also be eligible for full health care benefits and paid maternity leave (current players receive only workers comp for hockey-related injuries).
In addition to increased salaries and benefits, the league is also adding two teams (one in Montreal, one in a U.S. city yet-to-be-announced) prior to next season. And there are already plans for further expansion in 2023 (more below).
The announcement is the result of a three-year $25 million commitment from the leagueâs seven-member board of governors â the largest one-time investment ever committed to womenâs professional hockey.
So what does this mean for the future of womenâs professional hockey?
Itâs not a coincidence that the PHF announced this investment two weeks before the Winter Olympics
While itâs never a bad time to announce a major investment in womenâs sports, the fact that the Winter Olympics begin in just over two weeks played a big role.
âWe wanted to ensure that we got this news out prior to the Winter Olympics,â PHF Board of Governors chairman John Boynton said in a phone interview. âWe know that there will be a lot of attention paid to womenâs hockey at the beginning of February.â
The Olympics certainly provide a spotlight â and springboard â like no other, especially for athletes in womenâs sports. The WNBA launched following the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, while the NWSL (the third and most successful U.S. womenâs soccer league) played its first season following Team USAâs memorable gold-medal performance at the 2012 London Olympics.
But thereâs a major difference between the PHF and its counterparts in the WNBA and NWSL. Thatâs because no current member of the U.S. or Canadian womenâs hockey rosters for Beijing has played in the PHF/NWHL since 2019.
Why arenât U.S. and Canadian national team players in the PHF?
A quick refresher for those who havenât followed this saga: When the PHF (then NWHL) began in 2015, it was the first womenâs hockey league to pay its players. That inaugural season, players made between $10,000 and $26,000, but salaries were slashed nearly in half after the start of season two to keep the league afloat.
Following the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics â where the U.S. womenâs hockey team defeated Canada to win its first gold medal in 20 years â most American and Canadian players returned to either the NWHL or the Canadian Womenâs Hockey League (CWHL).
But in 2019, after the CWHL announced that it was ceasing operations, over 200 womenâs hockey players announced that they would not play in any North American professional league during the 2019-20 season, essentially boycotting the NWHL. Their joint statement â posted on social media â cited low wages and lack of insurance coverage as the motivating factor: âWe cannot make a sustainable living playing in the current state of the professional game. Having no health insurance and making as low as two thousand dollars a season means players canât adequately train and prepare to play at the highest level.â
Later that month, those players launched the Professional Womenâs Hockey Players Association (PWHPA). While a few PWHPA players have since returned to the NWHL/PHF, every member of the U.S. and Canadian womenâs hockey roster for the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is either a member of the PWHPA, plays abroad in the Zhenskaya Hockey League, or is still in college.
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Even without many of the best womenâs hockey players in the world, the PHF pushed ahead. The league expanded from five teams to six ahead of a semi-disastrous 2021 season that was halted due to a widespread Covid outbreak. Still, the league managed to double the salary cap (from $150,000 to $300,000) ahead of the current season and secured streaming of this seasonâs games on ESPN Plus. The league has also made major changes to its front office and ownership structure since 2019.
Does this new investment mean the PWHPA and PHF will merge?
That is still to be determined.
PHF commissioner Tyler Tumminia told the Associated Press she believes the increased salary cap and health care benefits meet the PWHPA playersâ vision.
âWe canât speak for them, but our position has always been that a single professional womenâs hockey league in North America provides the best opportunities for growth and sustainability of the game,â Tumminia said. âThis investment supports everything we all want to see, and thatâs enhance opportunities for athletes and take the sport to the next level.â
As for the timing, âWe thought it was important for those players to understand that thereâs a viable alternative for them when they come back [from the Olympics],â Boynton said.
But with members of the U.S. and Canadian Olympic teams currently laser focused on defeating each other at the Winter Games, it is unclear whether any of them will commit one way or the other before the womenâs Olympic tournament begins on February 3rd.
âIt is exciting to have more money into the game, but I havenât really been focused that much on it,â U.S. Olympic team member Savannah Harmon said of the PHF news. âWith us leaving [for Beijing] in less than a week, I think my eyes are really set on the task here and coming back with a gold medal.â
With the increased salary cap, will womenâs hockey players be able to make a living wage?
There isnât exactly a clear-cut answer to that question.
While PHF teams can carry up to 25 players, most roster sizes are closer to 20 athletes. With the increased $750,000 cap, the average salary would be $37,500 for a 20-player roster or $30,000 for a 25-player roster. Thatâs a major increase from last season, when the highest announced salary was $15,000 and some players made just a couple thousand dollars. And there will also be salary cap increases in years two and three of the upcoming three-year investment.
That said, the Board of Governors hasnât imposed salary minimums or maximums, Boynton said. That is a stark difference from the NWSL and WNBA, where salary minimums have ensured that no athlete fell below a specific income threshold.
There also isnât currently any mandate that each team must pay out the entire $750,000 salary cap.
That means players could make well below $30,000 a year, which is far from a liveable wage, especially in markets like Boston and New York. Given that the league hasnât historically released salary data, it could remain difficult to determine how many players are actually making a living wage just from playing hockey.
Whatâs included in the PHFâs new benefits package?
In addition to salary increases, PHF players will receive health insurance coverage and paid maternity leave.
While health insurance is long overdue, paid maternity leave represents how other womenâs leagues â primarily the WNBA â have paved the way. It wasnât until the WNBAâs landmark 2020 CBA that the best womenâs basketball players in the world were guaranteed fully paid maternity leave.
Players will also receive 10% equity in their respective team.
âWe made that decision to essentially invest 10% of the ownership in the players because we want the players to share in the upside. We want them to share in the value they helped create,â Boynton said. âOver decades, leagues and teams create a lot of value. We believe that weâre creating something that will be extremely valuable at some point in the future.â
Beyond that, Boynton said the PHF will invest in facility upgrades and the overall player experience.
âWe want these women, these athletes, to feel and be treated like professionals,â he said. âWeâre doing everything we can to deliver that top shelf experience for them.â
These things arenât trivial. In 2020, the Victory Press examined working conditions in the then-NWHL by speaking with former players about their experiences. A frequently cited issue was facilities, with players detailing problems with locker rooms, bathroom access, and ice time, among other concerns.
What does the future look like for womenâs pro hockey?
While many of the PHF benefits follow the WNBAâs lead, the PHF appears to have a far larger appetite for expansion than its basketball counterpart. In addition to next yearâs expansion from six to eight teams, Boynton said he hopes the league will have ten teams by the start of season nine.
âAll of the indications suggest that there is a genuine appetite for this,â he said. âWe want to be able to deliver more of what we think is a really good product. Secondly, growth allows us to attract more players, more sponsors, more broadcast relationships.â
As for the larger landscape of womenâs professional hockey, âWeâre at a real inflection point,â said Johanna Boynton, Principal Owner of the Toronto Six and wife of John Boynton. âThe owners are unbelievably committed to this. This is the right time to be investing and saying, âWeâre committed.'â
Follow Alex Azzi on Twitter @AlexAzziNBC