2013 NWSL College Draft: Held January 18 at the annual
NSCAA convention, this year in
Indianapolis, the draft allowed all eight teams to draft four players who had completed their college eligibility. While they had originally announced that the draft would be in snake format with randomly determined order, NWSL announced several days before the draft that the order would be the same in each of the four rounds, with the order semi-randomly determined with weighting based on evaluation of the
allocation results.
2013 NWSL Supplemental Draft: After a limited free agency period, NWSL pooled remaining players who were identified by the teams to be distributed via draft. Each team submitted 8–10 player names to the draft pool, with players picked over six rounds.
2013 Preseason Waiver Draft: Drafted players who were waived by their teams were made available for other teams. Six players were available: Casey Berrier, Whitney Berry,
Heather Cooke,
Tina DiMartino, Jaclyn Logue, and Lauren Alkek. The only selection was of Alkek, originally drafted by
Boston, who was selected by
Western New York.[1]
Offseason 2013–14
2013 Postseason Waiver Draft: Players who were waived by their teams were available for other teams to pick up. Of the 11 players available, only
Nikki Marshall (previously of
Portland) was selected by
Washington.[2]
2015 Postseason Waiver Wire: Players who were waived by their teams were available for other teams to pick up. Originally announced for October 12, the Waiver Wire process was delayed to October 21–22,[5] presumably to allow for the October 20 announcement of expansion with the
Orlando Pride, who were granted top tie-break in the process.[6] Of the 8 players available, all from non-playoff teams, only
Brittany Bock (an Illinois native previously of
Houston) was selected by
Chicago.[7]
2016 NWSL Distribution Draft: Players who were no longer
allocated and whose former teams did not offer a new contract were made available in the Distribution Draft, held on March 31. Of the nine players whose NWSL rights were available, only
Verónica Pérez and
Arianna Romero were selected, both by
Seattle Reign FC.[8]
Offseason 2016–17
2016 Postseason Re-Entry Wire: Players who were waived by their teams, or whose contracts were allowed to lapse, were available for other teams to pick up on the re-entry wire (previously known as the waiver wire) on October 19.[9] Of the 13 players available, the only player selected was
Sinead Farrelly, who was left on the wire by the
Boston Breakers and selected by
Seattle Reign FC.[10]
Per the collective bargaining agreement between the NWSL and the
NWSL Players Association, the 2022–23 offseason included the first-ever free agency period in league history.[17] Pending free agents could begin negotiating with teams on August 26, 2022, and signing new contracts on November 15, 2022.[18]