That was my exact point. If you remembered that, then you wouldn't have asked. Unless it was rhetorical so you could just complain about it.
Just found this article that has some really great visualizations and breakdown of the 2017 schedule: https://medium.com/positives-and-ne...occer-league-schedule-4ccbff77f2b0#.180ntrh9b
Per a Kassuof Tweet, seems that NWSL has officially moved out of USSF's building and now has their own offices down the road.
Yup! Though there have been quite a lot of baby and big steps taken just this offseason... Are we in NWSL 2.0 now? Or at least NWSL 1.5? -Massive media deal -Huge bump in player salaries -New offices w/ plans to double number of league staff -New commish incoming (sooner or later) -Two new team owners
I think 2.0 should be reserved for when independent teams start to have their own stadiums (not necessarily owned, but at least that they are the operator/primary tenant).
Start to have, or consistently have? The Spirit are primary at their venue, and I thought the Reign were (or damn close to it) at theirs.
I would say it's not start to have. Maybe not consistently have either, but at least when there are enough that have them that there comes an expectation that teams who don't should be looking into getting their own places. I would agree with you that the Spirit qualify. But I don't think the Reign count, as Seattle Public Schools is still the owner and thus their high school football teams are their primary concern.
New CBA ratified with some nice gains for the NWSL as well. If the players are OK with this deal, I am also. Now let's play ball. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/...soccer-labor-deal-contract.html?smid=tw-share
I really wish they had broken off the NWSL part. Having NWSL player salaries dictated by a third party agreement between the USSF and USWNTPA is a bad thing. People arguing about NWSL 1.5 or 2.0 or 8.6 are missing the key issue. As long as WNTPA players are paid directly by USSF and salaries of non-WNTPA players is constrained by an agreement not involving the NWSL directly, then it'll still be 1.0. Equal Pay for Equal Play, my ass. Guaranteed the highest wages, yet the miss large chunks of the club season for national team commitments, while the players that are there for every game can't get equitable salaries.
I think part of making sure that the player's pay are not dictated by USSF means that NWSL have to be financially secured. And for that to happen, other things have to happen as well. What this agreement ensure is that we are now seeing signs of those other things happening. Also, everything about your second paragraph is wrong about the current NWSL.
Carli Lloyd is not missing the NWSL season for national team duties. Edit: And if USSF did not control the fate of the players now, I can gaurantee you that Lloyd and most others will be missing more than the 6-8 games they will make now. My point is we all want to see NWSL be independent of USSF but the league is not there yet but this CBA is definitely a good step in that direction.
I agree that I'd like to see the allocated player situation ended, so that players have contracts directly with their teams the league. I think teams need to get to a point where they are generating more revenue through what I've labelled NWSL 2.0 (because that's what MLS 2.0 is/was) before they can get to that point, though (unless USSF were to fund a general player salary pool shared among all the teams or something like that rather than picking and paying allocated players directly). What number we think it is specifically doesn't really matter. If it's a step, it's a fairly small step. The only thing I see about players in the league is this: While that's nice for players who have been called in occasionally but not enough to be put under contract (like Ohai, McDonald, and Dahlkemper). It does nothing to help the players who haven't been called in at all like Colaprico, DiBernardo, etc... these are important players for the league to have, even if they're not USWNT players.
There was also some language about improving facilities and what not. Also I won't be surprised if they are also supporting increase in the size of the NWSL office. All this combined with the new partnership with A+E will take burden of the teams and ultimately push us in the right direction.
Salary info is out - http://nwslsoccer.com/about/2017-roster-rules Team salary cap of $315,000 seems REALLY low after bumping the minimum up so much.
It does seem a little low, but while the minimum moves up, nothing else does. If you were being paid $16k before the increase, you are still being paid $16k. Figure average team has 17 non-allocated players, breaks down to average salary of $18.5k.
Arnim (red stars owner) tweet- Also, any truth to the rumor that @JulieFoudy is coming out of retirement because NWSL is so freaking ? follow up tweet LIKED by arnim - Maybe she could be Commissioner
The math doesn't work out. If you have a full roster of 20, you're minimum is $300,000. With a maximum of $315,000, you can't afford even one max salary $41k player. And teams will almost certainly have to leave at least $15k in reserve in case a goalkeeper gets hurt. The first replacement player has to fit under the Cap. If you lose two players the league will consider cap relief. Even if a team goes light, with only 18 players, that's a minimum of $270k tied up, leaving $45k total.
You're forgetting most teams will have allocations they don't pay for. And those that don't have a certain number of allocations (no official word on what that exact # is) get relief. So Thorns who have 6 allocations don't just get to now use 315k on the remaining 14. Since they exceed the number most teams have, they basically cover someone like Boston. Number STILL seems off to me even considering this but it's not an exact 315/20
Let's say you had 10 players who are now at $15k (to be honest, I think generally it is higher than 10). That's $150k. Leaves you with $165k for the remaining 7 players (depending on how many allocated players you have). Let's say one of those is a max salary player, that's still an average of $20k per player for the remaining 6. Don't forget that most of the high value players in this league are allocated so not hitting the budget at all. Vast majority of players have been in the min salary to $25k range.
If the allocated players (or at least a portion of their salary) don't count against the budget then Washington is screwed and Portland is getting an unfair advantage.