News: Ottawa Fury women's team is folded

Here ya go:
http://womens.soccerly.com/2014/11/25/pali-la-blues-usl-w-league-fold/

These are two of the W-League's best franchises over the past decade. One of them has been in the final since 2005 except for 2007 and 2010, and they've each been in the national semis five teams in those ten years as well. (By comparison, Vancouver and Seattle were in four times, the Washington-area team had six, and Atlanta had 3 - and Vancouver folded a while ago.) I hope this isn't a trend.

 

Seems to be a trend of more teams leaving the W-League than joining. I'm also surprised they didn't move to the WPSL where it has less expensive league fees.

 

Well, I was talking more about the apparent trend of elite teams folding (you could even count the revolving door of DC-area teams in that if you wanted). To be fair, the only cross-league movement recently have been Bay Area Breeze and Gulf Coast Texans both going from WPSL to the W-League, and the last five years have been 25-27-30-25-25 in total number of teams, so they're fairly stable at the moment - though they were much bigger before 2010. I'm guessing the decision to not go to the WPSL stems from a combination of not seeing a benefit to lowering costs when they've already lost so much and (maybe) the riff between W-League and WPSL, which seems to be nearly entirely on the W-League's part IMO.

 

Ah, yes well that's not good either. One does have to wonder if anything will happen to the Silverbacks Women with all the uncertainty surrounding the Silverbacks' NASL team since Atlanta is getting a MLS team.

Edit: Apparently the NASL actually just took over control of the team! Today (well yesterday for those of you on the east coast)!

 

You mean like how MLS took over Chivas USA for 2014?
/shot

Well, if the Silverbacks men go under as well and take the women with them, I think that's fundamentally different from the situations in Vancouver/LA/Ottawa; you can't really fault for them for folding the women's team if the men's team is no longer around either...

But yes, that would be the fourth W-League stalwart to go under in a fairly short time. One has to wonder how that would make people view W-League versus WPSL... the latter has high turnover, which can be viewed negatively, but when the former is supposed to be stable and suddenly starts losing its best teams...

 

Hopefully the Silverbacks W-League team will stick around, though. Some of the articles about the topic make it sound like the Silverbacks ownership is still interested in running lower division teams, just not the NASL team.

 

Yeah, I got into a discussion on Twitter earlier this evening and it sounds like that's the case, at least for this coming season. Also, while things aren't as separate as some other pairs, (Sounders/Sounder Women, DCU/DCU Women, RSL/RSL Women,) the Silverbacks Women do officially have a different owner despite being part of the same(?) organization. The Silverbacks Women also played in '09 & '10 while the senior Silverbacks Men were on hiatus, so there's that, too. Still, not an entirely encouraging sign to begin with.

Anyway, to get back more on-topic, the thing that really irks me about the Fury situation is that, unlike all the other teams we've discussed, the Fury NASL team is one year old. ONE. So they really have NOT even tried running both teams at the same time much at all.

 

The fifth if you count the Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach Piranhas, who folded after 2013. I think they were the last remaining W-League founding team.

 

I hear / believe there are other Canadian teams planning to drop out of the W League.

Strange business in the year of WWC ?

 

That's awful. Any idea of which ones?

 

I would suspect some of the programs would be looking to the new League1 Ontario birth next year as it's more of a league and less of a multi-weekend tournament.

 

We have seen in writing Ottawa Fury will not field a W League team but nothing mentioned about entering League One. I have heard from a reliable source that the Toronto Lynx will not field a W league team this season and there was no mention of moving to League One. ( I have yet to read any official announcement about the Lynx )

In theory League One is a better solution for competitive Women's soccer in Ontario but it does not sound like the league is flooded with applications. The entry fee is $21k and the teams considering a move from OWSL are left scratching their heads wondering why they should pay this and play against the same teams ?

Having said this the make up of any OWSL teams could change for the better because two W League clubs have stopped running and if the other two, KW United and London close shop it could create a snowball effect as good players migrate to League One while pulling other quality players away from U21 OWSL. This sounds good but many of the best players are in school teams on both sides of the Canada / US border so they will be unavailable for the full season which is intended to stretch from May to October. Perhaps for the first season it will run May to July 31st ?

I believe it could take a couple of seasons before League One gains support.

 

Lynx and Gryphons.

 

I believe all four Ontario W League teams have dropped out. There is enough talent in a province with 13,600,000 to create a competitive league of ten teams. It remains to be seen if agreement can be reached and all four teams apply to OWSL for 2015 with a plan to grow into League 1 for 2016.

 

Did the Long Island Riders have a hiatus or something? I know they won in 1995 and 1997, and they were definitely active 2003-present, but their W-League page says they joined in 2007...

 

The cost of entry and the associated travel expenses with these leagues is not worth it.

Once upon a time these inter-state "amateur" leagues were more important to players looking for good competition but the game has grown so there is enough quality in their own neighborhoods these days.

Lets face it. If you are 23 years old and playing in one of these leagues where do you think you are going ? It's the next generation of 15 and 16 year old players that need support.

The demise of these teams and leagues along with the emergence of quality and "standards based" state leagues for young adults will make the game more accessible to motivated, young players, families, sponsors, coaches, etc.

Let the fans spend money on the NWSL and not over priced, amateur, inter-state leagues.

 

I don't know. I did some more research ( http://homepages.sover.net/~spectrum/usl-w.html ), and there always seems to have been a Long Island team, though the name changed from "Lady Riders" to "Rough Riders" in 2007. Possibly the backers/owners changed at some point.