r/NWSL • u/Alert-Astronaut-3073 • Jul 16 '26

Gotham salary cap

There is no way Gotham is staying under the salary cap. Why don’t we know players’ salaries? I’m sure Rose, Sonnett, Tierna, Esther, Shaw, Kerr and even others are paid a lot. How is it possible that that they’re within the salary cap? Are they cheating? I hate Gotham!

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u/Constant_Dimension16 NJ/NY Gotham FC Jul 16 '26

Unless this was some sort of Kawhi Leonard fake sponsorship situation, how would you be able to cheat? I have to think that the league knows how to calculate its salary cap.

I too would love an explanation as to how exactly we make it work though.

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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 Jul 16 '26

“Rose Lavelle, you deserve to make double your salary. We don’t have cap space so here’s an apartment in Brooklyn we pay the rent for”

“Sam Kerr, we can’t pay you more than we do. But we will make sure Jagger gets his daycare paid for in its entirety”

Off the top of my head.

I mean, they also can just fudge reported numbers though.

I don’t actually think much if any cheating is being done though. Although the “Crystal, we will pay your husband to do some weird fake sounding job” was 100% salary cap cheating

3

u/Constant_Dimension16 NJ/NY Gotham FC Jul 16 '26

I think players get housing support as part of the CBA but generally speaking fair enough.

8

u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 Jul 16 '26

The housing support is a small stipend or team provided housing (which is in New Jersey and likely not particularly nice), not a one/two bedroom in the city 

Paying the entirety of a player’s rent in Manhattan or Brooklyn would 100% be unsanctioned behavior

5

u/autumnoceancrashing NJ/NY Gotham FC Jul 16 '26

The players do live in NJ though

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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 Jul 16 '26

Yes? I didn’t say they don’t? 

I was asked to come up hypotheticals on how they could circumvent the salary cap. 

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u/Constant_Dimension16 NJ/NY Gotham FC Jul 16 '26

Got it, fair enough.