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While Gotham FC governor and co-owner Carolyn Tisch Blodgett understands the need for big stars in the NWSL, she is still in favor of league-wide salary caps.
“The idea that the Green Bay Packers can beat the L.A. Rams on any given Sunday is key to the NFL,” Tisch Blodgett, who is also a co-owner of the New York Giants, said at the Front Office Sports Asset Class event in New York on Tuesday. “It’s what keeps people watching every year. A salary cap and a competitive balance is a really big part of that.”
Tisch Blodgett noted that attracting stars is specifically important in soccer, in which U.S. leagues “need to live in the reality of a global sport” and compete with leagues around the world for big names. However, she still wants the NWSL to keep its hard salary cap that’s not traditionally implemented in top European leagues in women’s and men’s soccer.
When asked about the NWSL’s High Impact Player (HIP) rule—which allows teams to exceed their $3.7 million salary caps by up to $1 million for star players who meet select criteria for awards, national team involvement, or marketability—she said she supports this rule.
Gotham FC, the reigning NWSL champion, recently used the HIP rule—also known as the Trinity Rodman rule—to re-sign U.S. women’s national team members Rose Lavelle and Emily Sonnett to its squad. Tisch Blodgett credits the rule as a reason for her team’s ability to attract stars.
“What’s really clear in sports right now is that stars are driving interest,” Tisch Blodgett said. “You can’t build one of the best leagues in the world if you don’t have stars.”
The HIP rule received heavy pushback from the NWSL Players Association, with the group filing an ongoing grievance against the league in January, claiming the rule violated the collective bargaining agreement and federal labor law. Gotham’s own Midge Purce told FOS in a May episode of Portfolio Players that she “hates” the rule because it places restrictions on what a player can earn.
Tisch Blodgett also said that teams need to “be creative” about attracting star power within a salary cap framework, and that dynasties are still possible with hard caps.
England’s Women’s Super League, arguably the top women’s professional league in Europe, doesn’t have a hard salary cap like the NWSL—instead, clubs can spend up to 80% of the revenue generated by its women’s team. MLS’s salary cap is $6.425 million per team, but the league allows teams to sign up to three players whose salaries exceed the maximum salary.
Relocating and Rebuilding Gotham FC
Tisch Blodgett also spoke about the Tisch family’s efforts to improve Gotham FC as a franchise after buying a stake in the New York/New Jersey–based team in November 2023.
Though the team won the NWSL title that same month, Tisch Blodgett said the player experience suffered from not having a dedicated training facility. Gotham will build a $35 million training facility in Whippany, New Jersey, ahead of the 2027 season.
“If you’ve grown up in men’s sports, you really can’t underestimate what it means to be in a shared space,” Tisch Blodgett said. “To be one of the best teams in the world, you have to control your venue, you have to control your own space, and you have to create one of the best places to train.”
Gotham FC will also relocate from Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, to Queens’s Etihad Park in 2028. The team will share a home venue with New York City FC.
Tisch Blodgett said that venue accessibility was “a real problem” in Harrison, and that moving to Queens was a “no-brainer.” Gotham averaged 8,892 fans per game in 2025, ranked seventh out of 14 teams.
“It opens us up to a much larger opportunity of fans. There’s an additional 3 million people that are accessible to the stadium,” Tisch Blodgett said of the Queens venue. “It’s right off the 7 train; the LIRR [Long Island Rail Road] goes there. That’s just a much more accessible experience than what we have today.”
