Ah dang, looks like I started a new page. If anyone was wondering what I was responding to: Baird announces that Sac in 2022 is official (no press release from Sac or from NWSL yet) Baird announces that USSF is no longer managing NWSL, though will still be a funding partner In other news: Baird is forming a 10yr plan for NWSL 2021 Challenge Cup is planned to be in home markets; bubble is backup 2021 schedule should drop in the next few days
Is there an official announcement of the Sacramento team? Or was it just announced durnig her press conference? Haven't seen anything official yet.
12 teams in 2022, nice. Hopefully Utah Royals returns in 2023 to fill out the western expansion a bit more.
It would be nice, but there has been no news I've seen of any movement on RSL ownership itself despite the 1/8 deadline yet, much less news of a Royals reboot. And remember that the SJ news of yesterday was news of preliminary talks. Let's not get ahead of ourselves - we don't have anything "looking like" 2023 yet at all. Three expansions and one relocation in two years is a lot already - I wouldn't be surprised if NWSL uses 2023 as a settling year. And while I certainly would like the Royals back (we need markets that draw 10k+) I also kinda like the 12-team setup we have.... Four west coast teams, four central teams, four east coast teams. Nice and symmetric.
Kansas City NWSL released their Washington Football Team-like temporary logo for just this season. The (new) NWSL team in Kansas City is going to play simply as "Kansas City NWSL" in 2021, due to the short turnaround in replacing Utah Royals FC. Permanent branding is still in development. This season, they will just play with this "KC" crest.https://t.co/FPrtFUNpzO pic.twitter.com/lPT2h5dvUh— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) January 12, 2021
2023 being a World Cup year would be a good year to focus on growing the twelve current teams. Maybe the league pauses on expansion for 2023 and looks to add two more in 2024?
Lisa Baird says she's received advice from other league commissioners on how to host tomorrow's virtual NWSL draft
Women's pro soccer has gone from hopelessly unstable (WPS) to possibly larger than the WNBA (they seem very leery of expansion) in 2023. Impressive, to say the least.
Full bullet-point list of Baird's call from AllForXI: https://www.allforxi.com/2021/1/12/...1-college-draft-gives-us-information-overload Highlights not already mentioned:
WNBA players do get paid more and have more TV exposure. And there's reports of the WNBA finally expanding. However, there's clearly more interest in the NWSL now than the WNBA.
Real Salt Lake is owned by MLS now as no new ownership group got put together by Jan. 8. Word is that if a new owner isn't found soon, the team will be up for relocation. Las Vegas appears to be the front-runner with a group willing to buy the team and move them by the start of the 2022 season.
Murphy’s soccer team (Sky Blue) got $147K forgivable loan under federal COVID relief for struggling businesses Murphy’s soccer team got $147K forgivable loan under federal COVID relief for struggling businesses - nj.com "The professional women’s soccer team that Gov. Phil Murphy owns was approved for nearly $150,000 in a forgivable federal loan last year from the coronavirus relief initiative that Congress rushed into law in the early days of the pandemic, records show.... "...Having just announced a new home arena, the team was unable to complete selling season tickets. While the income abruptly dropped, the team did not lay off staff, did not furlough and continued to pay salaries, housing, automobile leases, and rent while continuing to engage fans through social media,” he said (Ed Nalbandian, vice chair). “The Federal PPP program grant went through the same application and review process as every other applicant impacted by COVID.” ...The Murphys lost $1.1 million on the franchise in 2019 — up from about $823,000 the year before. They have lost more than $7 million in the team since buying it, according to the couple’s tax returns."
Impressive commitment to women football spending $7M with no return. Making a $1M loss is not bad, some teams in Europe probably lose 3 to 5 times that amount per season.
With the league growing to twelve teams, can we actually get individual team threads for North Carolina, Angel City, Louisville and Sacramento now?
Why? The league may be growing, but the number of people actually contributing here on BigSoccer is stable at best, but more likely steadily shrinking in my opinion. If you create a Courage thread, you'll get zero regular posters, just the odd drive-by and me showing up every three months or so to offer corrections or my perspective.
It actually might be more fun if there were no threads for individual teams but rather one overall Team thread.
Very true. I realized long ago that it was a waste of time to look at teams' threads. That was after a few times when something big happened with this team or that and I looked at the team's BS tread to see what people were saying and discovered that nobody had posted on that thread in seven months.
Okay so... This is kinda cool, but also kinda WTF? https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/international-womens-cup-to-launch-in-louisville Louisville trying to make a splash by hosting an international tournament, joined by the Red Stars and two TBD UWCL teams. It's the exact same format as the Women's ICC has been previously. Not sure why the competing tournament? =edit= On the event's website, they list six UWCL teams that were invited: Atletico, Barca, Real Madrid(???), AC Milan(???), Man City, and Arsenal(???) Three of those teams aren't in the current UWCL and two have never been in a UWCL...