Honestly, with NWSL's previous talk of "paired expansion", bring in both SAC and LA in 2022 would probably be amazing (after LOU in 2021). Since the Olympics would be next summer, that might get enough interest in the league for two other candidates to start lining up for 2023 (maybe ATL and MIA?)
You know I'm not going to a freaking LA Galaxy women's game right? I"m an LAFC supporter through and through and I don't believe this is happening, we want an LAFC womens team, not this bull. Also Angel City FC? I hate the Los Angeles Angels baseball team and you want me to support that trade mark?
I say Los Angeles & Sacramento join in 2022. Nothing in 2023 due to the World Cup, then possibly Atlanta & Miami by 2024.
I still don't get the logic behind "don't start a team in a big tournament year". Sure, you're missing players for a month or two and maybe hurting on-field performance for an already-new team, but I think it'd be obvious that the publicity boost a big tournament brings far outweighs that. Starting a new team during a tournament year is the ideal time since you get a much bigger visibility boost than your would in a not-tournament year, fast-tracking how quickly you make inroads in your market. Not to mention that the league then gets to consolidate "tough organizational times" into a single year instead of having one year disrupted by a tournament and the next year disrupted by expansion. Expand during the tournaments and then you have non-tournament years of pure stability.
Yeah, the WWC shouldn't affect if/when there is expansion. And anyone assuming that Sacramento is still happening, needs to wake up. It might, but it's particularly close.
...close like them teasing a "major team announcement coming soon" on their various social media channels last Friday? (I mean, yes, it could be them announcing a series of friendlies to make up for the WPSL season they didn't have, but who knows?)
And I left out the word "not". Sigh. It's not particularly close. I'm not saying Sacramento won't happen, but the deal everyone thought was imminent last fall, fell apart.
Haha I knew there was supposed to be a "not" in there! I was actually trying to tease you based on what they posted. X-D You post didn't make sense without the "not", hence my caveat in the parentheses And yeah, it's clear the old deal fell apart, but IDK how much of that was situational and how much was institutional differences. Considering how much the Storm still Tweets about NWSL, I have to imagine that whatever fell apart last time didn't 100% implode the effort.
has to be an official announcement. I mean, why continue to tease us? Do they join in 2021? Or wait until 2022? 2022 seems likely as long as all current 9 teams are solid going into 2021. Then the league looks at Cincinnati also for 2022. EAST: SkyBlue, Washington, Orlando, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Louisville WEST: Portland, OL Reign, Utah, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago
The "possibility" in the previous post was me hedging because I wasn't 100% sure that it was a tweet about expansion. But its now being commented on and retweeted by multiple soccer journalists who are in the know, including confirmation from Grant Wahl of an announcement tomorrow. Anyway, we're getting a little drip of info now. There will be more tomorrow, I'm sure. Sources tell me just because Mia Hamm is involved in the new LA NWSL team doesn't mean LAFC is.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) July 21, 2020
The idea that Hamm is in separate from LAFC as a whole isn't too surprising; I remember that the owner of the Sounders bought into the Reign without bringing the entire Sounders club into the picture. Gotta imagine that Angel City FC is going to be slated for 2022 - giving them over a year to prepare, just like Louisville. That also gives NWSL time to find an expansion partner for LA. =edit= Sounds like Serena and her husband will be some of the NWSL LA ownership group, so that's pretty cool =edit 2= They should have saved the announcement for next week so they could say it on national TV during the CBS broadcast of the Challenge Cup final. Could have timed this announcement much better. (I'm nit-picking though, expansion news is great) =edit 3= Also, gotta say that this expansion effort was impressive for flying under the radar for so long. All the focus was on LAFC itself, so when that went quiet, there was nothing to really go on until the leak the other week about a new ownership group, even though I would not be surprised if this has been in the works ever since the Barca/LAFC cooperation fell through.
PLEASE INJECT MACARIO INTO OUR STARTING LINEUP ALONG WITH PRESS, SAM MEWIS, ASHLEY SANCHEZ, HAILIE MACE, I WANT ALL OF OUR UCLA PLAYERS BACK OVER HERE.
Others who look to be involved in some way: Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, Julie Foudy, Angela Hucles, and Abby Wambach (?). EDIT to add: Joy Fawcett, Saskia Webber, and Tisha Hoch are also reported to be a part of the ownership group.
Also Grant Wahl just tweeted that they're expected to begin play in 2022. On second thought, maybe there won't be more info tomorrow; maybe we'll figure it all out before then.
Why can't we do it 2021? Come on NWSL, you're just teasing us Angelenos, why do we have to wait? What if I have a heart attack or get hit by a bus or something?
Keep the teams even. Ten for 2021 with Louisville joining. 2022 with LA & Cincinnati to get to twelve teams.
Tomorrow's LA NWSL announcement is hardly the only NWSL expansion interest I know of. Hearing Sacramento is close again, plus at least one other investor group interested in West Coast team ownership.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) July 21, 2020 Grant Wahl indicats that Sacramento is still alive and closing in... Tomorrow's LA NWSL announcement is hardly the only NWSL expansion interest I know of. Hearing Sacramento is close again, plus at least one other investor group interested in West Coast team ownership. Sacramento plus another west coast team? San Jose? San Diego? We might hit 14 teams by 2023.
Not only is it a good idea to keep the total number of teams even, but it's also nice to have more than a year of run-up time. That said, I would be surprised if Cincy is team #12 *then, as I was typing this reply...* ...haha yeah, I would be surprised if Cincy was #12! As for which other West Coast team might join, I would wager a guess that it'd be San Jose - outside of LA and Sac, that's the only place we've actually heard from before. I'd also put ATL or MIA as the next-most-likely for #14. Also... (from the other thread) If it pans out for 14 in '23, I called it.
Official announcement: The time has come to reshape expectations on & off the soccer field. This is the place. The time is now. Welcome to the beginning. #WeAreAngelCity pic.twitter.com/M3bvsmiAfm— Angel City FC (@weareangelcity) July 21, 2020 Angel City FC coming in 2022. Athletic article about how it came about, and a Q&A piece with Natalie Portman. As it says in the Athletic article, the timing of the announcement was intentional to hopefully build buzz going into the semifinals and final and pick up more fans for those games. They're also using a slow build-up to enter the "right way" and build a brand and a fan base.
I still say it would've been better to tease an announcement between the SFs and final so that they could make the announcement on the national CBS broadcast, but I guess I can see the reasoning for the timing now.
I just posted in the "Expansion: 2020, 2021, 2022" thread, but actually I am not sure about how exactly the info is parceled between that thread and this one: what exactly are we supposed to post in each? Edit: also add the "Angel City FC" thread recently created by understandably enthusiastic @McSkillz for more confusion!
IMO, this thread is for general speculation, guessing, and wishing - i.e. "possibilities". The 20/21/22 thread is for solid, confirmed news about the teams during those years (and maybe discussion about the league structure as a whole w/r/t expansion). Finally, team-specific threads are for team-specific news, like name/crest/coach/player/owner stuff.