2020 was shaping up to being an Awesome season. What were you most looking forward to? Here are mine: a) Pretty much everything about Sky Blue, specifically newcomers Zerboni, Viens, and Pugh b) Year 2 under Burke in WAS, including the newcomers c) K. Watt (Ohai)in CHI d) Mace and A.Watt in NC e) Rookies King, Weaver, Kornieck and Plummer f) Daly, Stengel, and Latsko in HOU g) Balcer and Fishlock for OLR (and how Benstiti is going to do)
Apart from wondering if Chicago Red Stars could have kept the same (or a similar) level as last season despite losing Kerr, I wasn't looking forward to anything so specific. What I was looking forward to basically boiled down to a pair questions about the potential growth of NWSL: a) which expensions were on the horizon? How many of them were going to be actually finalized and when exactly? b) with the growing competition from Euro clubs, how many international stars (not just "internationals": I mean international stars, world top 10 or top 20 caliber) was NWSL going to attract? Kerr's departure was hinting at a general depletion; Aulas buying Seattle and turning it into OL American franchise, on the other hand, was a move in the opposite direction. I was curious to know how things were going to weigh up overall.
I was probably most excited about what was happening with SkyBlue. Also this is less related to play and players, but I would add that I was looking forward to seeing if the NWSL could sustain the WWC bump or even improve on it with the Olympics, and I especially would have loved to see how having an actual commissioner affected that. Also I just made the connection that yesterday was both what would have been the season opening day and 100 days after the WHO officially announced a novel coronavirus in China. Only 100 days. Crazy.
In addition to the Olympic bump and Sky Blue outlooks, I was looking forward to seeing how the CBS deal would play out. The season was supposed to start yesterday, and it would've likely been the biggest TV audience club WoSo has seen as the first broadcast ever on network TV.... The second year of the New Spirit and first year of OL Regin would've been interesting to see as well. Plus, check out what's just happened in Utah! I mean geez, I had been worried about what NWSL's global image would be after losing Kerr, but between Utah and Portland I don't think that's an issue any more.
How Chicago will/would now play with the acquired scoring trio of Doniak/Watt/Hill vs. Kerr. Also, I looked to see about CBS All Access and I got a message that it will soon be available (I have XFinity/Comcast) so curious how that will work out. Finally, how KJ, McCaskill, Vasconselos, Mautz and Yuki will do with Kerr now around.