(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) “PWHL logo.”
James Guiry
Connector Staff
The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is a new league founded in August 2023 by Mark Walter and Billie Jean King. The league has seen great success in its first
season. They averaged 5,409 attendees per game according to the PWHL website. A game at the Belle Centre in Montreal broke a Women’s hockey attendance record when just over 21,000 people showed up. For comparison, the WNBA averages about 9,311 fans per game, according to ESPN. That is with six more teams and an extra 26 years to establish the league and market themselves. The league itself says that it is exceeding its expectations.
The league set very high goals for their first season in the competition. The PWHL and the PWHL Players Association agreed to the minimum salary being $35,000 a year and the maximum being $80,000 a year. This is a pay cut for some women; however, this league has a very high potential to grow. These salaries do not include bonuses either, the players can still receive them after getting the maximum salary, and the salaries are to go up by 3% over the next eight years. That’s when the Player’s Association will negotiate a new deal with the league. The Professional Lacrosse League (PLL), for example, is another new league created in 2018. Their average salary for their first season was $35,000 a year, and they also got stock options and healthcare. Hockey may have a larger following than lacrosse worldwide, but this is still a significant difference, especially between women’s sports and men’s sports.
The inaugural season ended with a bang in June of 2024. Minnesota beat Boston in the final game, game five, to secure the first-ever Walter Cup. Unlike the NHL and NBA, the PWHL does a five-game playoff series format instead of seven. One of the games between Minnesota and
Boston went into double overtime. Boston ended up winning the game 1-0. The elite goaltending by Aerin Frankle of Boston and Nicole Hensley of Minnesota was something to see. The first season began in January of 2024, yet they are expected to add more games for the second season and may start earlier.
Another major women’s professional sports league in the United States is the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The WNBA receives full backing from the NBA. The NBA gives the WNBA $15 million per year, as they also own 50% of the league. This has been a major contribution to the league’s growth over the last twenty-six years. In contrast, the NHL offers the PWHL no financial support but helps the executives navigate the professional sports landscape. The PWHL’s growth has been all their own through sponsorships, investors and media rights.
All six teams spent the first season nameless. They went by names such as “PWHL Boston” and “PWHL New York,” and just had the city names across their sweaters. This, for some reason, was a subject of contention between fans. If you look through the PWHL’s social media accounts, you will see people who are very upset about that. The teams were finally named and given logos on September 9th, 2024. The teams are the Boston Fleet, the Minnesota Frost, the Montreal Victoire, the New York Sirens, the Ottawa Charge, and the Toronto Sceptres. The Boston Fleet plays their games at UMass Lowell’s Tsongas Center. They also broadcast all their games to YouTube for free from the PWHL YouTube channel.
The PWHL gives women who have an elite skill a landing spot. It also allows them to be paid to play a sport they love and dedicate their lives to, the same way men can. The salaries are lower because the revenue is too but as the league grows the players’ bank accounts will too.
