The Athletic has an article on Duffy's move to Orlando. In it, the author reports that NWSL hired an outside firm in October to run the search for a new commissioner. They still might not hire one before Duffy leaves on Feb. 15, but I'm more confident that they'll hire one this year since an outside firm is involved.
Looking back the 2019 schedule was released on February 22nd (with the home openers announced a day earlier). The 2018 schedule was released on February 21st. A complicating factor last year was A+E/Lifetime pulling out of their production deal with the league. Complicating factors this year are that 1) still no commissioner, 2) Duffy steps down on February 15th, 3) USSF's management is a short-term band-aide, 4) I'm guessing there's some discussions about when players will be released for the Olympic Games as well as how to prevent any victory tour from hamstringing the on-field NWSL product afterwards, and 5) there is no officially announced production and/or broadcast partner for the 2020 season. With the MLS and USL schedules out, the 9 NWSL teams should have scheduling priority for remaining dates at their stadiums. Hopefully we won't have to wait five weeks for the schedule.
Missing the biggest factor - up until just a couple of weeks ago nobody knew for sure whether there would be 10 teams next year or 9.
Actually having been involved in schedule making, I consider that somewhat secondary at this point. If they were still thinking about expansion, then certainly. If I recall, a couple of years ago the league was simultaneously preparing 9 and 10 team schedules as the Boston situation was sorting itself out. Frankly, the bigger issue is figuring out where teams are playing and venue availability. The Washington Spirit with it's 4/4/4 schedule and the sudden switch to all 12 games for Sky Blue at RBA are bigger issues. Frankly, the hold up at this point is likely down to sorting out whether or not the league is starting with a national broadcast partner, then getting the teams and fixtures that that partner wants in the time slot that it wants.
The year Boston folded, that created a delay as they didn't have two separate schedules. It's a ton of work, especially for those teams that don't control their venue (which also tends to be the teams with the fewest human resources), so rightly or wrongly some of the teams don't want to waste a lot of time on schedules that may be irrelevant. But yeah, the venue issues you note are also significant in the timing as are broadcast related issues.
Seattle Reign close to hiring a coach: Benstiti. BREAKING NEWS: Sources tell EQZ that Reign FC is close to hiring Farid Benstiti to become the team's new head coach. Benstiti has previous experience managing Lyon & PSG. He most recently coached in the Chinese Women's Super League.➡️ https://t.co/WeAbHCliOK#NWSL pic.twitter.com/zgW11brcy1— The Equalizer (@EqualizerSoccer) January 12, 2020
New Forbes article up about NWSL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/howard...rned-about-nwsls-business-model/#26a17591671a It sounds like a new broadcast deal is close to finalized, with the new negotiating partner apparently working well: Allocation money is new this year, so maybe the amount of moves we've already seen are just a drop of what could happen once teams are truly comfortable with the tool:
If there is guaranteed tv money, new franchise fees just went up. that might make new teams a little less likely.
I mean, considering they had already confirmed that (at the time of LOU's announcement) that LOU was just one of five teams they were in talks with for expanding over the next three years... Yeah, having other expansions in the cards makes sense. Even if that five has been pared down to two because of perceived disorganization and such diluting interest, it still would make sense that there should be two in 2021. At the very least, it sounded like SAC was still interested in expansion even when the NWSL/USSF thing fell through.
I think settling the terms of divorce from USSF management, not to mention hiring a president and/or commissioner are orders of magnitude higher on the "to do" list than adding more expansion teams.
As long as they go slow on progressively successfully. We all know what happened last time when trying to expand too far and too fast. Even with NWSL, we had what like 2 teams that collapse the Boston Breakers and Kansas. And I've giving up on indoor mens soccer teams where teams disappear.
Other than his background given in the article, I'll add that some Chicago Red Stars players were very high on him. Colaprico said he helped turn her season around by doing extra training sessions with him. Naughton also said he had a really positive influence on her season after she lost her starting spot. With Chicago, according to reports, Harrington really helped out more with the defense.
My other thought on the hire is really not about Harrington but on the bigger picture: it doesn't speak well of our coaching system that we only have one female coaching in the NWSL this season and also only one natural-born American citizen (Dames; I do know Parsons and possibly Riley have US citizenship, but they didn't grow up here. Do we soccer fans really have such a fascination with English accents?).
The NWSL list is thoroughly English, but I think it's definitely true that US soccer teams tend to favor foreign coaches. When MLS launched in 1996, there were 2 US coaches, 3 English coaches, and 5 other-UEFA coaches. MLS was a coaching carousel for its first several years, but the league never added more than 2 US coaches in a given year until 2001 - and often coaches (US and foreign) didn't last more than a year or two. It wasn't until 2006 - the league's 11th season - when we started seeing a bunch of former players start joining the coaching ranks and shift the league toward being majority US-coached. NWSL started facilitating coaching classes for active players a year or two ago, but until those players retire, get more coaching classes, and/or get experience at lower levels, I don't think we'll start seeing former players in NWSL coaching gigs until maybe the 10th/11th season here as well. Also, one thing MLS had going for it was that, by 2006, it was clear that an MLS coaching gig would be as good or better than a top-level NCAA coaching gig. NWSL certainly isn't there yet, and I bet Waldrum's struggles at Houston put a bunch of cold water on the idea of jumping from NCAA to NWSL for other NCAA coaches.
^^^^this^^^^ .... some of it at least. isn’t it a fact that an nwsl coaching job is really not a very good position? especially when compared to college spots?
IDK about how much NCAA WoSo coaches make and how it compares to NWSL coaches' salaries, but one thing's for sure: job security is a hell of a lot better in NCAA than in NWSL. Of course, a professional coaching gig will always have less job security than a college gig because the stakes are higher, but NWSL has also had to deal with the "will the league fold soon" or "will my team fold soon" questions. I think the former almost entirely dispelled at this point, (though a continued lack of expansion may leave the question hanging open at least somewhat,) while the latter is a little bit iffier. And considering that dealing with those questions for most of its existence has likely left league and team financials more strapped than they would like, I wouldn't be surprised if the top-top NCAA coaching gigs do in fact pay several times what an NWSL gig would - but at the same time, I would think an NWSL team could offer more than what coaches might be making at, say, mid-to-upper level NCAA programs.
Let's not forget that Cindy Parlow Cone coached the Thorns in their first year and was successful. She left the position for personal reasons. NCAA Division I women's soccer coaching is not as stable as some might think. They have a turnover of about 10% per year.