The general gist of your post is good, but this opening statement in misleading/wrong on several levels. First, entire countries don't support a league - a number of cities in a country do. (And owners are more important that the local population is, but if we're arguing about population then we'll overlook that point for now.) The fact that NWSL only had 9 teams up to this point is irrelevant - we don't know how big NWSL could eventually get. The important thing is that NWSL has shown that markets as small as SLC and the Research Triangle can work, (while Rochester appears like it was not enough,) so the best comparison that could be made with that data is looking at how many Canadian markets there are of that population or more, in which case Canada does have enough cities to support 3-4 NWSL teams (6, actually). Also, Louisville is not in last place, Kansas City is.
my bad presentation; I mean’t the quality will significantly suffer if there were 3/4 Canadian NWSL teams or an entire Canadian league, since they got 9 times less the population to choose from. Of course their been a few countries with lower populations then CA in woso, and have had good so called pro leagues(let’s say Sweden & Holland), but most their youth move into these pro clubs, whereas Canadians are known to detour into college ball before playing pro(so don’t think this would change overnight, especially with low pay associated with woso pro clubs
Everything you mention here is a valid concern. However, Canadians seem to do a better job at supporting soccer teams than Americans, so I'm not sure you can compare the support that NWSL gets in the US to what it can get in Canada based on population. Just off the top of my head, Halifax, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa could support clubs on par with what US teams get. Probably not Thorn levels, but I could see Toronto getting 10k, while the others would be around 5k. With the right owners, of course. I haven't been very impressed with the CanPL owners so far, but I'd hope that TFC would be able the Toronto franchise and they'd do a good job with regards to attendance. As far as the number of players. it wouldn't be all at the same time and, much like soccer in the US, there are a lot of women soccer programs in the Canadian U Sport system (53 teams). Not to mention the number of Canadians that are bouncing around the NCAA. It's also worth pointing out that having been a professional, or playing with professionals, does not rule out a player from playing that sport in Canada like it does in the US. So the Canadian teams would be able to field players from U Sports during their off season if they so desire. As for pay.. Again, it would depend on CSA. For some of the Euro players, the CSA would have to pick up some of the salaries like USSF does for some of the USWNT players.
Good analysis about the likelihood of a Canadian league. One correction regarding the W-league: now that they have moved their season schedule to match up better with the European season, the NWSL-W League exchanges are reduced down to just about zero.
An MLS rebrand leaked today, and it got me thinking about NWSL logo history through the years. Fun fact: with Gotham's rebrand earlier this year, there isn't a single one of the original logos left in the league. I made a handy diagram for reminiscing:
Preferred the original Thorns and Reign logo. Hopefully Utah Royals comes back and stick to that logo. That's a better logo than the OL version. Can't wait to see what Angel FC and San Diego's logo for next year.
Oooo here's a big schedule change: The Aug 29th Cascadia derby match is being moved from Cheney Stadium in Tacoma to Lumen Field in Seattle as a full-on Cascadia double-header with the Sounders & Timbers!
it’s still available depending which shirt you get. The one STT posted isn’t actually either the home or away crest. It’s from 2018- l2019 with the two stars. This is the current home one. The away crest is dark grey with white highlights. And I just bought a hat that has a black background with sparkly gold highlights. Makes me look like a sea captain.
IIRC, you could say the same about the original KC and DC logos, since I believe both were scrapped before the teams ever played! Granted, in those cases, the logo change didn't also come with a name change. Well I think Portland is weird in that their crest isn't consistent between the official crest and what ends up on the jerseys - I think with all of the other teams, the crests on the jerseys is the same as the crest on all other media. The red-background-white-lines is the crest that's used on the NWSL site, on national game broadcasts, and on the Thorns site schedule page (though admittedly the red-on-black is at left corner of their header, so it's not even self-consistent on their own site); I think it's safe to say that's the "official" crest since it's the one the let most people easily see, while whatever goes on the jerseys is just a recoloring to best match the fabric. The big issue with Portland, IMO, is that the original crest had four colors, and importantly the actual thorns themselves in that crest were green. Now, the crest is never shown in more than two colors, and never with green. It's definitely a step down.
Just last Fall, I got a hat (from the Thorns store) that has the original crest. They have lots of variety and it seems to work for them.
Well if they're still using the original in some places, I wish they'd use it more! It's a lot better than any of the two-tone iterations.
https://the18.com/en/soccer-news/paul-riley-nwsl-vs-wsl Most Successful NWSL Coach Roasts English League: ‘I Fall Asleep Watching Quite A Few Of The Games’ Paul Riley is the most successful head coach in National Women’s Soccer League history. With three championships and three more NWSL Shields, the opinion of the Liverpool native carries a lot of weight in women’s soccer. And his opinion on the differences between his current league and the top flight in England highlight how far the FA Women’s Super League still has to go. Riley and his Courage will welcome the Orlando Pride to WakeMed Soccer Park on Saturday for their season home opener. During a pregame news conference on Friday, Riley went into the differences between the NWSL and the WSL. “Sometimes in the English league, they just don’t have the type of athletes that we have in our league and the type of players that we have in our league,” Riley said. “They close you quickly and they don’t give you your breath. I think in the English league, it’s a bit more relaxed. … I just think it’s a little bit slower. They play slower, they play less directly, they play less in transition and they go side-to-side a lot. “I think in the English game, it’s a lot more side-to-side and, to be honest with you, I fall asleep watching quite a few of the games compared to NWSL. I’m biased, of course, but that’s my take on it.” Ouch. That sounds a lot like men’s soccer fans in the U.S. who say they only watch European leagues and would never stoop to watching American soccer. Riley went on to brag about the parity in the NWSL. In England, Chelsea was clearly the best team this season, followed closely by Manchester City. Arsenal and Manchester United, which featured Tobin Heath and Christen Press this season, finished third and fourth, respectively. After that there is a huge drop-off in talent. In the NWSL, a team that has never qualified for the playoffs won last summer’s Challenge Cup. “I think that we’ve got much more parity in our league, too,” Riley said. “You can’t have a day off in this league — you’ll get beat. And in the English league, that’s not so true. You look at the top five and the bottom five have considerably different teams. I mean, there are some really good teams. Let’s be fair, Chelsea is really good. Man United is good. And City is really good. Chelsea is really good and then you start to drop off pretty quickly.
gonna be a trading card bestie now, i guess. thanks @nwsl. pic.twitter.com/h0ifj7CtoI— jo 🇵🇭 (@johannahsueg) June 16, 2021
Moultrie is granted a preliminary injunction against the NWSL age rule (see full twitter thread): Olivia Moultrie has won again. Judge Karin J. Immergut granted Moultrie's motion for a preliminary injunction against the #NWSL age rule.I'll thread some snippets from the decision here.— Paul Tenorio (@PaulTenorio) June 18, 2021 Also there's an unlocked article on The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/news/olivia...-in-fight-against-nwsls-age-rule/qfcnsLgl3BrV Important note: the judge also ruled that the NWSL is a single LLC, but NOT single entity.
In other news from over the weekend: NWSL now has a second out trans individual in the Spirit's Kumi Yokoyama Good evening/afternoon/morning to all you @WashSpirit/#RiseUpDC fans, @NWSL followers and #Pride celebrants - here's my story on @yoko10_official's big 🏳️🌈coming out🏳️⚧️:https://t.co/kjbYvYLeIS— Dan Orlowitz (@aishiterutokyo) June 20, 2021 There's a lot that can be said is wrong with soccer in the US, and LGBT issues in the US in general, but I rather like how this is the only country where the top men's league has had out non-straight active players since Fashanu, and now the only country with out trans active players at all, with not one but two examples of each. [Robbie Rogers (since retired), Collin Martin (since DII), Quinn, and now Kumi] In related news, the Spirit - which used to be the only team without a Pride night game - will be hosting a Pride panel at the end of the month. It's actually their second annual edition of this panel, meaning I completely missed that they had one last year, oops!
Ah sorry - panels are super-common at both the professional conferences and the fandom conventions I go to, and I think at lots of policy/governance meetings too. They're basically an unscripted seminar by committee - a group of experts and/or persons of interest (the "panelists") are there to contribute their views to whatever the topic of interest is, usually with little introductory statements leading to an open conversation between the panelists. There's a host/moderator to keep the discussion from going too far on tangents, often seeding the discussion with planned questions (planned by the moderator, not always known beforehand by the panelists) and sometimes also taking questions from whatever audience is gathered.
Is this over-explaining? I'd simply say that it is a discussion headed by a group of experts on the subject at hand, who usually sit on a stage facing the audience.
Oh, got it, I know what a panel discussion is, I just could not make sense of it, but should have. My bad!
NWSL is in discussions with the NWSLPA about whether to put an end to playing the national anthem prior to matches. No final decision has been made yet.
This is a big ooof that I missed the other day: CBS broadcasters misidentify random black boy in the stands as McDonald's son https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nwsl-jessica-mcdonald-blasts-broadcast-random-black-kid This of course on the heels of several other racially charged incidents over the season so far...
What McDonald should have said is: "I'd be proud if the boy in the stands identified as my son was my son, but he isn't."
Perhaps, but it also falls into some common problems POCs have to deal with, particularly when they are in the extreme minority in a situation: 1. The "They all look alike" meme that is frequently pops up among Whites that are not used to interacting with POCs. An example that occurred with the Sounders during a CCL game. The pbp announcer was remote watching a low quality feed and was not familiar with MLS teams. The Sounders had three Black players on the game day roster, two of which started the game. About halfway through the first half the PBP stopped even trying to correctly identify which Black player they were talking about and both Black players were consistently referred to as Eddie Johnson. It was so bad that when the Sounders subbed Johnson out and subbed in a the third Black player, the PBP continued to refer to the other Black players as Johnson even though he wasn't even on the field. One might think it was the low quality feed, but the PBP nailed every White and Hispanic player on the team and it was only the Black players that he got wrong. 2. An assumption that the only reason a POC could be at a game is if they were related to a similar POC player and this biases the identification to that of a relative of the POC player. Obviously wearing a mask complicates things even further, but considering they had just done a feature on McDonald and her son, they should have been able to identify him correctly.