The Black Women’s Player Collective (BWPC) will cohost a showcase in November aimed at identifying and nurturing young Black soccer talent, the organization announced Wednesday.
In partnership with Allstate and Black Star media, the Next Wave National Showcase will take place on the campus of Prairie View A&M, an historically Black college in Texas, from Nov. 22-25. Allstate provided the funding for the event, and Black Star will serve as the chief storyteller. The group will select 20-30 of the best Black high school soccer players in the country.
Between the elimination of the college draft and increased visibility of Black female soccer players succeeding at all levels of the game, the ability to properly scout and develop Black talent has become more critical. According to BWPC data, 3.8 per cent of NWSL players self-identified as Black during the 2020 season. That figure has since grown to 12 per cent for the 2025 season, while Black players make up nearly half of the U.S. women’s national team.
“Black players have been historically underrepresented in this sport, and if you don’t carve out space for us to exist in this community, then they’ll be left behind,” North Carolina Courage forward Brianna Pinto, who serves on the board of the BWPC, told The Athletic before the announcement.
“It’s incredibly important to the BWPC to make sure that we’re creating a seat at the table for the next generation of Black athletes, and the way to do that is by making events specifically for them.”
The announcement comes one week after the NWSL announced it would host two combines for different age groups in December. One will be for players aged 13-17; the other for those 18-23, with an aim “to support NWSL clubs in early talent evaluation and provide players with exposure to a professional environment,” according to NWSL Director of Youth Development Karla Thompson.
Like the NWSL combine, the organizers of the Next Wave Showcase are yet to share their list of participating players. Pinto supports the expansion of opportunities for young players to show their skills in front of clubs, coaches, and agents, but emphasized the importance of showcasing Black talent.
“In this country, in a lot of social environments, Black people have been an afterthought and we want to celebrate our collective experience as minorities in this country because we have so much to share and so much to give and so much passion for the game,” she said. “I do believe that if we pour into our community, it will benefit the entire soccer landscape.”
Pinto said BWPC members will tap into their respective networks to nail down their invite list for the showcase. The itinerary will include “a lot of playing so that they can properly be evaluated,” Pinto said, adding the event would aim to “identify talent and push them to where they need to be.”
The BWPC and its partners were intentional about taking a holistic approach to the showcase, ensuring its messaging was aligned with its sporting ambitions. There will also be networking opportunities with coaches, scouts, and agents; and a media day for the players to gain experience interacting with the press.
Pinto said one detail that’s garnered excitement among the BWPC is the inclusion of hair, makeup, and “off the field glam,” as she put it, to expose players to that side of professional sports.
In 2021, U.S. women’s national team star Crystal Dunn spoke about the disappointment of walking into similar environments and being unable to work with hair and makeup artists who were trained to work with Black textured hair and darker complexions.
Dunn has been capped 160 times by the USWNT (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Pinto said the showcase will discuss nutrition and mental health with the players. She also hopes that it will “shift the landscape and give more attention to HBCU athletics programs.”
The showcase comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs by withdrawing funding from initiatives, if not eliminating policies altogether. For Pinto, these efforts to specifically champion Black people have been vital for long before that.
“We’ve always had to create spaces for our own people to thrive and to fully be themselves,” she said. “I think as we move forward and continue to push the boundaries as those policies continue to get more restricted, we have to be diligent about protecting our own, and I think this is a way for us to show joy in the face of adversity.
“Joy is a contagious thing because if we put on an event where people are celebrated and they feel valued and seen as a whole human being, I think that’s a way of protesting, of making space for these incredible individuals who are going to make up the next generation of athletes.”
(Top photo of Brianna Pinto: Jared Tilton/NWSL via Getty Images)
