Ten years after the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was formed, a majority of its players are still being paid poverty wages. Approximately one-third make the League’s minimum salary, $22,000 per year; three-fourths earn under $31,000 – a small fraction of their average male counterparts’ compensation.
Many of these professional athletes are compelled to take second and third jobs to make ends meet, forcing time away from their families, compromising their health, and undermining their ability to compete at the highest level.
The players unionized and started a collective bargaining process in the interest of achieving liveable wages, fair contracts, and safe workplace conditions. Despite their status as at-will employees that could be fired or traded at will, they had had enough - it was time to challenge the culture of silence in women’s soccer.
The objective was for the NWSLPA (Players Association) to use an online campaign to frame the discussion and harness public support in the fight for fair pay and dignity in women’s sports.
NoMoreSideHustles.com was launched, reminding the world that full-time professional athletes deserve to earn enough with their one career job to afford basic necessities, no matter their gender.
With few resources beyond a volunteer army of athletes willing to share their stories and urge their fans to get involved; the campaign successfully exposed pay disparities, shaped public opinion, and united soccer players past, present, and future around one message: fair pay for professional athletes regardless of gender.
The campaign stemmed from a brainstorming session on ways that NWSLPA could run different types of modern, digital-first, public awareness campaigns in support of raising industry standards. Their biggest asset was the players, past and present, and their willingness to share their truths Since the average age of a player in the NWSL is 26 years old, the campaign would need to rely heavily on social media channels, where super fans of women’s soccer could follow hashtags and spread the message through their social channels and in places like subreddits groups. Our goal was to build enough momentum to break into the mainstream news too, so the public would understand and join in the fight to end these systemic issues.
With the blessing of the Players Association, our team created the concept of #NoMoreSideHustles, bought a uniquely named URL, and built a website that echoed the players' concerns, establishing a narrative. The campaign’s website served as a hub to highlight the players' plight, to deliver facts and statistics, and to advocate for change. This project was assembled and launched with no budget and relied solely on organic social media support and old-fashioned hustle to get the word out
We launched with a half dozen key players telling their stories about working multiple jobs to make ends meet … it exploded! Soon, dozens of players were sharing their truths and demanding that the league reform.
As the campaign gained steam, we were able to package and serve inspirational social media posts to news outlets to embed in their stories.
Players’ struggles were not only being shared in soccer outlets, but on NBC and CBS, and in Yahoo News, and Atlantic Magazine, among other major news sources.
The campaign was heralded by former women’s soccer players as well as the NFL, MLS, MLB, and NBA players’ associations.
Women’s rights groups and unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO, which The Players Association subsequently joined, also got involved.
The Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association even decided to have each of their players take to social media and join us to tell their #NoMoreSideHustles struggles.
Fans made homemade banners that read #NoMoreSideHustles and brought them to all subsequent matches.
We built an online store from which to sell branded T-shirts, sweatshirts, and scarves, in the interest of maintaining engagement and raising funds.
The campaign constantly evolved, finding new ways to keep fans engaged and the movement growing. By September, we were holding creative solidarity events around the league as negotiations continued. We even organized the Portland Thorns team to join the Nabisco worker's picket line to show solidarity for factory workers caught in a similar wage struggle. Atlantic Magazine wrote about our unique #NoMoreSideHustles coalition building, noting, “Despite the fact that many professional athletes enjoy celebrity status and massive paychecks, the majority of professional women’s soccer players in the U.S. has more in common with the Nabisco bakers than with LeBron James”
Our message was resonating and our movement for #fairpay through narrative was growing!
Even with the massive financial and power differences between the NWSL’s underpaid athletes and its deep-pocketed team owners, NoMoreSideHustles.com delivered what most campaigns dream of… the right message at the right time, and in a manner that seizes the public consciousness.
Through the campaign’s website, players highlighted their real-life struggles cleaning toilets, working graveyard shifts, and driving delivery services. Salient campaign facts were made available on NoMoreSideHustles.com. The tech stack included a custom WordPress theme integrated with an online storefront, emailer for acquisitions, payment gateway for contributions, resource center, and an Instagram hashtag integration to keep populating the website with authentic first-person stories about systemic problems.
The campaign effort snowballed as more and more NWSL players, former players, allied unions, support groups, and women’s rights organizations echoed and amplified similar stories.
Low-dollar fundraising efforts doubled, tens of thousands of dollars were raised, and the Players Association's social media presence tripled in both size and engagement.
NoMoreSideHustles.com allowed the Players Association to change their narrative, engage supporters, end the culture of silence in the NWSL, and make fair pay an issue that became known to the public.
Tens of thousands of impressions, hundreds of supporter events, countless opinion articles all helped the Players Association as they negotiated their first collective bargaining agreement.
The Players Association even achieved a 60% increase in minimum salaries for 2022, stepladder increases for other players, free agency in the 2023 season, 4% annual pay increases, and more.
