NWSL flavor of the week 2025

What I think you are getting at is the difference between being a fan of soccer, in general, and a fan of women's soccer, specifically. I prefer the women's game, but it doesn't mean I don't watch men's soccer. In fact, I pay attention to both the women's and men's side of Tottenham. And as a Tottenham fan, I also check out the highlights of Bayern Munich men's team because of Harry Kane. Conversely, since DAZN is no longer showing highlights of the French league, I generally don't watch the 2min highlights of Lyonnes that they put out themselves.

The point is that culture is not uniform across genders or fans or nations. For one person, culture could be living and breathing football. For another, it could be support of a team or club or league. And for another it could be gender based. But one of the things I think that the players talk about when talking about culture also includes attendance. Looking at the top club attendances for a single match, NWSL is 42,054 in June 2023 (Seattle v. Portland). It is only the 18th most attended single match for a club team. And all of the others were in soccer specific stadiums (and even Lumen Field is not soccer specific). There just aren't soccer specific stadiums in the US that can accommodate 40k or 50k...or 90k fans*. Yes, other stadiums can, but there are no soccer specific stadiums that can. So, the Arsenal women's team can play at Emerites, which they often do, and get 40k in a soccer specific stadium. Chelsea could play at Stamford Bridge and get a 30k or a 40k (sellout) crowd. And that is part of the culture which doesn't exist in the US. (And I am well aware of the attendance in teams and league of NWSL. It's an argument I make on players playing in NWSL and not elsewhere.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women's_association_football_attendance_records

Now, I'm not saying that the culture in the US is less. Everybody talking about playing in Kansas City during the recent women's national team match v. New Zealand seemed really excited to be there. And it seemed that part of it was the stadium, itself, built specifically for women. That type of culture doesn't exist anywhere else outside of Kansas City, which is in the US. And in the US there is a push for that kind of recognition for women's soccer.

So the question of culture is complicated, and can vary from person to person.

edit - WSL has a reported £65m contract with Sky Sport for the next 5 years, inclusive.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...tic-five-year-tv-deal-with-sky-sports-and-bbc

* - A special note needs to be made for New White Heart Lane. That stadium was built for the Tottenham men's team, and also to accommodate NFL games. So I'm classifying that as a soccer specific stadium because of what team it was built for. Similar to Lumen Field, which was built for the Seahawks.

 

lol. No, I'm a Yank. Just had about 35 years of European soccer.

But the point I had about playing in large stadiums that are soccer specific are related to the rest of the world as compared to the US. And I'm thinking about playing. I never played at a high level at any point, but I remember a high school match against our rivals in which we actually had a lot of supporters show up far beyond our parents and that was exciting. And when I was at UMd, we had a team that was challenging for national title (the Taylor Twellman days). One match v. Virginia, who was #1 at that point, was played at home and a bunch of us soccer fans brought pots and spoons to make noise. It was a great atmosphere, with the fans at standing room only. And it was loud. It was fun, and talking to a few of the players after, and a few days later while walking across campus, they really enjoyed it as well.

So that is what I'm talking about when I'm talking size. The clubs in a lot of Europe all have those possibilities, apart from a few like London City. In the US, it has to be a special occasion to get a crowd above 20k (give or take).

I think you really misunderstand my perspective. I have been a huge supporter of things like Title IX and women's sports (and more broadly, women's equality). But I'm not going to say that something like culture, which is not really defined in any way, is better here than elsewhere. And in my post, I clearly caveated why it is not better here in specific ways. But there are ways in which it is. And since the A Thompson transfer saga, I have been arguing that it is not a time to panic and that we do have a very healthy league. But what I am inferring is that soccer is not culturally present across the board like it is in Europe. We have a lot of other competing sports that are more popular. Yet we also have a bigger and better women's league than anywhere else, and one of the best national teams. Those things don't exist if there was not a culture for women's soccer. And I am really happy that my "home" club of Denver is building their own stadium. I don't know if it is like KC and built for women. But I would guess it is, and that makes me excited.

I'm a fan of women's soccer as, to me, the players seem to play it as a team sport with a bunch of individuals rather than the men's game, which is a team of individuals who happen to be in the same uniform. And I've always seen the sport that way, as it being a team effort.

 

Ugh. For several months I have been talking about how the attendance in NWSL is larger, on average, than in any other league. I also thought I had pointed out here (I could have been somebody else, or it could have been elsewhere) that in average attendance, that Portland is second to Arsenal. And I would suspect that the top NWSL teams in terms of average attendance are larger than anybody else other than Arsenal and other NWSL teams.

Also, I have also been talking about, at the professional level, of soccer specific stadiums. Unless I'm missing things, the largest soccer specific stadium in the US is where the LA Galaxy play at 27k. Looking at the five biggest leagues in Europe, 27k is, overall, in the bottom third (eyeball reading). And when looking at the list of largest attendances for women's club matches, they all play in soccer specific stadiums of the men's side. We have to look all the way down to Portland playing at Providence Park, and that is just over 25k, to see a soccer specific stadium.

Now, I'm talking about culture, here, not just raw attendance. One of the things that really struck me about this past international break was about how the US players as well as Hayes talked about playing in KC. To us the term we are discussing, they talked about the overall culture surrounding playing at KC. Now, I don't follow the ins and outs of everyday discussion in other leagues, but I don't get the feeling that that kind of culture exists anywhere else. And I also get that what NWSL and the player's association and that Yates Report have all done is address the culture of women's soccer in the US, and how it can and has improved. I don't think this is the case elsewhere in the world.

 

What's the breakdown on Moultrie throught the year? There have been a couple of off-handed comments during matches about how much she has improved this year and I'm curious if that is reflected here.