I am confident that for all of the NWSL teams with MLS siblings, each sibling is a separately incorporated business entity. There would be legitimate business reasons for having the teams separately incorporated (such as to insulate them from each others’ problems). So the employers would be different. Plus, the NWSL players, at least, are not employees of the teams. They are employees of the NWSL, which organizationally is completely separate from MLS. So I do not see an equal pay problem for teams like the Thorns (or Dash or Pride). This is different than the USSF, which is a single entity that employs both male and female players.
Just read that Lynn Williams have been traded to KC Current! [NEWS] Courage Trade Lynn Williams to Kansas City CurrentCourage receive $200,000 in allocation money, the rights to keeper Katelyn Rowland and KC's natural first-round pick in the 2023 NWSL Draft📰: https://t.co/N7LSeMleE6 pic.twitter.com/E6voacdGVT— NC Courage (@TheNCCourage) January 10, 2022
Sadly, all signs from over the weekend seem to be pointing to a rushed sale to Boehly's group. I think the Spirit situation is going to get a whole lot messier before it gets better. Baldwin is setting himself (and the league) up for some lawsuits and/or there's going to be an exodus of players.
More on that: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/01/10/beth-wilkinson-washington-spirit/ Attorney Beth Wilkinson, who recently led the investigation against the Washington Football Team, has joined the fray now on the side of the (17!) minority owners supporting Kang. Sounds like multiple people in the NWSL FO (and other team owners?) prefer Boehly over Kang
HOLD THE PHONE BREAKING: In a stunning turn of events, Michele Kang has wrested 52% control of the Washington Spirit from Steve Baldwin and Bill Lynch. Details, with @itsmeglinehan and @thrace, on @TheAthleticSCCR: https://t.co/Q93B0vMpNj— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) January 11, 2022 TL;DR 1. Kang bought out Talbott's share to have a higher individual stake than either Baldwin or Lynch, AND 2. Other minor investors (who were aligned with Kang) converted debt to equity, creating a voting bloc amounting to 52% majority overall With a 52% voting majority and the largest individual stakeholder on their side, I don't think a sale needs to occur to keep Kang in control. This group now has the power to control any potential sale, though, so I wonder if they'll use the power to bin Boehly's offer and instead sell *more* of the club to this group.
I used to work on complex financial transaction contract negotiations. Something I learned the hard way was to never try to force the other side to agree to something on paper that they really and strongly did not agree with. It looks like the two sides in these negotiations are playing hardball with each other (and really dislike each other) and the prevailing party may end up trying to force the other party to agree to an outcome it really cannot stomach. That could be a recipe for disaster. The NWSL needs to be sure whatever deal they end up with is reasonable for all parties involved.
I mean, you're not wrong... At the same time, I think that the situation escalated past any even-slightly-amicable divorce a long time ago, as all reports in the past month or two have indicated that Baldwin flat-out refused to sell to Kang a long time ago and refuses to work with her at all at this point, simply out of spite. Which, itself, is not a reasonable stance, so it's been pretty much a given that someone was going to get forced out against their will.
I'd be interested in what the debt to equity swap is and what would prevent Baldwin from doing the same and putting himself back as the majority owner...
For the record, the Athletic story has been updated with a few paragraph, basically saying that the pro-Kang group hasn't finished dotting their i's and crossing their t's yet. Actually being an equity owner instead of a debt holder *is* bringing a new owner into the group, so they all have to be vetted and approved by the league, plus Kang newly becoming plurality owner requires its own league approval. The process to do all these has started, but is not yet approved.
This took me a couple of reads to understand, but it looks like an NWSL team will announce they now have a team in USL W League: Sources tell @ProtagonistUSA that an NWSL team will be announcing a USL W League team today. The team will play this season and is the first W team attached to an NWSL club to be announced. More likely to follow over the next few years as clubs flesh out their dev. pipelines.— Lis Schendel Misses the Pac-12 (@lis_ashlee) January 18, 2022
So it is a reserve/development team for a to be announce NWSL team? That seems like a good development for Women's soccer if true.
Omid Namazi was the Red Stars Coach in 2010. He took the team over from Emma Hayes who made a mess of it and turned it around quick. Players loved him from what I remember and so did the fans. Something I’ve heard today:Omid Namazi is a candidate to be the Chicago Red Stars’ next manager.— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) January 18, 2022
Wow! A blast from the past! I liked him. He did not get much of a chance as CRS exited the WPS. I guess I would not mind at all if her got a chance.
Speaking of a blast from the past, Michelle Akers has joined the Pride's coaching staff as an assistant coach and player development coach: https://www.orlandocitysc.com/news/...tant-coaching-staff-ahead-of-2022-nwsl-season
Yes, the Red Stars folded after that season and went into the WPSL under Rory. So technically if he gets hired, it would have been Omid, followed by Rory and back to Omid. We'll see what happens. Nothing final yet as far as I know.
CBA negotiations seem almost done, as it sounds like everything is lined up except for "the finer details of free agency" and when said provisions go into effect. It sounds like the Player's Union is giving an unofficial deadline of Feb. 1 to get those details ironed out with the league, as players won't report to camp until the CBA is signed. https://theathletic.com/news/nwsl-p...bs-without-cba-in-place-sources/6Lq02CrVJBBr/ The fact that they're into the "finer details of free agency" makes it sound like we are absolutely going to be getting free agency of some kind, so that's definitely a boon. And it make the fact that the Challenge Cup is still a preseason tournament not hurt he players or the league much if things need to get shortened or cancelled before the regular season begins.
Am I right in thinking that the effect of free agency will depend largely on what the salary cap will be and how it will work?
Alright now.... NWSL BoG has now said that Y. Michelle Kang can move forward with taking control of the Spirit, but apparently not all hurdles have been fully cleared: https://equalizersoccer.com/2022/01...ship-washington-spirit-equity-voting-remains/
Schedule update: Challenge Cup schedule should be out mid next week, regular season by mid-February #CourageCountry— The Uproar (@UproarNC) January 28, 2022
Update on this: Apparently the regular season opening weekend will be *before* the Challenge Cup final. There's also a full weekend of matches planned for the CC final, which is locked in with CBS, so I assume they're also directly planning a makeup window for the regular season games that will need to be rescheduled depending on who makes the CC final.