Somehow trying to compete with Europe big-spending clubs? Probably everyone is aware that women's football recently entered a new era.
Gotham able/allowed to buy NT’s like Dunn, Lavelle Sonnett seems very Euro & monopolistic to me, it’s like the NWSL don’t care about an fair & balanced league anymore
Not necessarily because the parity of the NWSL is one reason it is so exciting. Gotham got a bit lucky with their timing. Just won the championship, big free agents available, and salary cap increases in one big perfect storm.
Not for any sport in the US, it isn't. This isn't some random country with a much smaller population and essentially no competition in the sports market, like most of Europe is. Soccer is 5th or 6th on the totem pole for men and probably lower for those who watch both men's and women's sports. Having a bunch of lame duck teams who will never have a real chance to win is an absolute death knell for a niche sport.
I would also add that it helps that the Reign are still in the middle of their sale and Kang isn't about to spend money that isn't hers to keep the 2 players the Reign lost.
It looks like Gotham is in a "win now" mode, which makes sense for them. Dunn will be 32 in July, Rose 29 in May (which perhaps should mean she is in her soccer prime), and Sonnett 31 in November. In my opinion, Dunn has not been that good recently, although perhaps she was depressed after her husband got terminated from Portland. I really like Lavelle, but she seems extremely injury-prone. Sonnett has gotten to be terrific in the defensive mid position, but maybe will be getting a little up there in age for that position. It will be interesting to see how Gotham does (1) over the short term and (2) over the long term. It also will interesting to see what the influx of big name talent does for their fan support, which may be a critical factor for them.
Sonnet has always been a very versatile defensive player. Sonnett just turned 30! That is not old to play CDM on a possession-based team. Gotham won last year and its possible they may have reduced the average age of the squad with these additions, so I dont see age as a factor. I can't speak to the emotional side of the game, but I dont think Dunn is a great fit with a possession type team like Gotham. I wonder what position she will play. She does add the local woman coming home story though. Lavelle has been underwhelming in the NWSL for a long time https://fbref.com/en/players/dcd6a67e/Rose-Lavelle Its possible she will be better, but its a big risk. Davidson was part of a down year in Chicago but is a great passer who looks like a very good fit based on how Gotham played last year. Gotham scored 25 regular season goals last year and had a GD of +1. They got in to the dance and won, but the underlying metrics were not great. Suggests that they had a healthy slice of good fortune last year. I wonder what constitutes the long term in the NWSL.
Great post. I agree with all of it. The one question on Sonnett though is she has only played the 6 as a double 6 with USWNT and Reign. She has never played as a solo 6 that I recall. I suspect Gotham intents for Rose and Dunn to play a double 10, and Sonnett as a solo 6. They only played one 6 last year, too. Can Sonnett play a solo 6? One of her strengths is her aggressiveness. You need to be more disciplined as a solo 6 though.
Maybe? The introduction of Allocation Money pre-pandemic was the first attempt at "competing" with Europe's superclubs, and I think it's been fairly successful at that. You had Debinha staying, the record salary for first Rodman and then Sanchez, and even when NWSL lost Kerr, the introduction of AM at that point kept Chicago's offer competitive with what she ended up getting at Chelsea. Still, that *was* several years ago, and the market has just kept ramping up since. I think between the regular Salary Cap increases and the increases in AM, salaries stayed competitive, so if anything, this move might be NWSL trying to pull *ahead* of the superclubs, based on the increasing size of the league and the massive attendance and TV boosts - unless, of course, the salaries there also take another jump up (which NWSL might be anticipating, e.g. after the boost from the French Olympics). That all said, NWSL (like MLS) is a bit more of a "business" than a soccer league when compared to many other leagues, so being "competitive" with overseas clubs is probably less important than just simply having an engaging product with invested fans and happy players. That last point is probably at least part of the reason for the jump. Maybe more importantly, though, I would wager that NWSL has taken a look at how AM has been used since introduction and decided that the complexity of the program wasn't worth continuing, likely because clubs that were willing to spend all of their AM were kinda laughing at the salary cap to begin with. That is, it's pointless have effectively two salary systems if the second one isn't helping enforce the first one. I do think that league growth, attendance growth, the new TV deal, and any extra sponsorship money that's subsequently come is also has made the AM program unnecessary. Remember, to use AM, clubs had to pay the league first before they could increase pay for the players they were using AM on. Even if the increase in the salary cap only offset the phase-out of AM (which it's overshot here) so it meant literally nothing to the clubs, that's still income to the league's central office that it's not getting anymore. They can't have decided to get rid of that unless the finances look *really* good going forward.
I don't know when EQZ put up their "salary cap explanation" article today - I'm pretty sure before my previous post, and I only just saw the article now - but two points that they brought up I felt like relaying here: --Another bit aspect of AM was that paying the league to "activate" annual AM didn't actually require the clubs to use the "activated" AM that year. In theory, if you weren't using a chunk on salary or infrastructure, you could essentially bank AM and have it roll over, fully accessible, to the next year when you would get the potential to "activate" even more AM. Apparently the notion of clubs sitting on up millions in held-over AM was a sticking point in figuring out how much bonus AM that BAY and UTA got coming into trade season this year. --The removal of AM from use in transfer fees apparently stems back to issues that most of the league had when RGN got their trio of Lyon players the other year, i.e. league rules allowed for those transfers in a way that felt like RGN were really bending the spirit of the financial parity rules.
The "OL Reign" are no more in favor of the original Seattle Reign FC moniker, with an updated version of the original crest that features a healthy amount of gold
Spain’s invasion of US soccer has intensified as the Spirit has officially announced the signing of the current Barca coach, Giraldez. Now our main concern would be how to get the hyphen on top of the a?
So on the theme I've mentioned of NJY becoming the new POR... After adding Dunn to their roster, Gotham have also added her husband to their youth coaching staff. You know, the guy that NWSL previously suspended for inappropriately giving two players codeine in a 2022 match. The league has cleared his return, but uh still....
I approve. Hopefully they are on the verge of announcing the completion of the sale and the Reign can finally get to addressing their roster issues. New website at www.reignfc.com And some branding information about the return/redesign to the original request. https://www.reignfc.com/news/seattle-reign-fc-makes-triumphant-return-ahead-of-2024-season
á = alt + 160 á = alt + 0225 Whazzdadifference?! I don't know If you can find it, there's a menu for Windows Accessories and on it is a Character Map. You can select and copy from the Character Map or look up the alt keystroke. Or you can go to the Women's International or Women's Rivalry Forum and copy/paste from the highly sophisticated linguists that hang out there. Good thread, interesting comments. Please carry on
Competitive parity. Fans benefit because it is more exciting. Clubs benefit financially because it maintains paying fan interest across the league. In my opinion, players benefit from playing against quality competition rather than playing half field games like Lyon and Barca, who completely dominate their leagues.
Pros and cons. It reduces variance, but limits peaks. I dont see any evidence that fans find it more exciting. I do think it provides some level of cost certainty for owners and allows for easier valuation of the asset. A person's view on the issue tends to reflect the system they grew up in. Quite a few of the disagreements here can be traced back to that. For me, the only clear winners are the owners
*shrug* Depends what you mean by excitement. It's not quite as applicable to women's soccer since there are other factors that impact attendance more, but in other sports and leagues, there is a pretty strong connection between a team's protracted performance and attendance. A season or two doesn't have a significant impact, but if a team does poorly over an extended period of time, their attendance does decline fairly extensively.
Hence FedExField in DC going from 91,704 capacity to 58,000 capacity over the Dan Snyder tenure as owner and 25 years of crap play.
Ok, but there is no reason an owner cannot invest to improve performance. It feels like the US system is designed to protect owners from themselves. The fear must be that any one owner going for broke may force the others into more investment than they are comfortable with/their market can absorb. The USA is so big, that different markets probably require different strategies and can support differing levels of investment. Its a very interesting topic.
hyphen or not(above his a), be interesting to see if Giladrez can turn Trinity Rodman into an fine, tiki taka player!