Don't they provide it? I remember Skyblue FC provided bad housing for the team and they didn't like it and it ruined its reputation. Think they also share a car.
Yes, I was meaning that one should not think just about salary in considering player compensation. Benefits should be included too -- back then, for Sky Blue, housing being less than ideal to put it mildly.
Couple-a Commishes cuttin' it up!@NWSL Commish @lisainog tells #TWSS about reacting to the pandemic on her 2nd day on the job, the success of the Challenge Cup, the league's changing relationship with US Soccer, expansion teams, the anthem & more. #IWDhttps://t.co/TtgDxqSo41 pic.twitter.com/78zYm3KWrV— Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) March 8, 2021
Claire Watkins @ScoutRipley 1h relevant #NWSL Challenge Cup news significant the league is adopting the new IFAB concussion sub trial
Excellent long article from EQZ about Baird's first year on the job: https://equalizersoccer.com/2021/03...wsl-commissioner-first-year-review-interview/ Most of it is a retrospective of how the league has adapted to COVID and come out of the ordeal with more sponsorships (and teams) than before.
Jeff Kassouf @JeffKassouf 46m Australia's W-League was once the unofficial offseason home of NWSL players (and there was nearly a formal relationship at one point). Now, both leagues have shifted schedules to overlap even more. That leaves Mallory Weber as the only NWSL player on loan there this season
A game changing announcement 💯🗓 3.30.21 ⏰ 11am ET pic.twitter.com/cFUQSYAHZJ— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) March 28, 2021
Just from my experience with anime & video game fans picking apart any details they can from any announcement, "changing the game" sounds like an alteration to an existing something rather than an addition of something, and maybe something that affects on-field stuff more than off-field, though that latter guess is less certain. So it's probably not a new competition or an expansion team (both additions), though it could be that they've agreed to the Sacramento-San Diego shift. A new TV deal sounds similarly unlikely, though a buff to the existing deal is possible. Also could be upgrading the NWSLPA to a more official status. The picture itself also seems to be in a facility of sorts, so it could be something about facilities and player support, too.
For the record, NWSL had also announced news for today at 11am ET in addition to more news tomorrow at 11am. Today's news was that Nationwide has been added as a league sponsor, with several side goals: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/nationwide-joins-nwsl-as-official-league-partner Emphases mine; I'm looking forward to a league awards ceremony! Maybe taking place the evening before or after the final, so that finals week is more of an "event"?
Hehheh schedule would be nice! Probably won't come out for another week or two at least, though; regular season is starting relatively late this year. Certainly wouldn't be the "game-changing" announcement tomorrow.
The thing with goal line tech and VAR is they're both very facility-dependent; you need to have the cameras and data bandwidth to support both systems. I'm not sure if every NWSL stadium meets the necessary support levels. Granted, as I noted earlier, the announcement looks like a facility-related thing*, so maybe? MLS already uses VAR, so the fact that many teams share stadiums would make it seem somewhat reasonable; question is how the non-shared stadiums would do. *NWSL made a previous version of the same announcement Tweet whose picture also was definitely in a stadium of some sorts, or at least what looked like a large-capacity building. So there's that.
So the game-changing announcement is that NWSL is adding another partner in Ally bank. Apparently the "game-changing" part is that players will be getting paid extra by Ally, i.e. this partnership is a supplement to their NWSL (or USWNT) salaries, I believe.
It's great that the league now has two more big sponsors/partners, but I was hoping for something else with these announcements this week.
While it didn't receive as much hype as the other two announcements, NWSL continued with news yesterday by officially codifying its stance on transgender participation in the league: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/spo...0210401-jrtabo4lhveglm4fixcw4c7bka-story.html The policy is not 100% inclusive as it does set testosterone level limited for transitioning athletes, and it specifically only explicitly discusses male-female-binary transitions i.e. does not directly acknowledge nonbinary athletes (e.g. RGN's Quinn), but at first glance, I think it's still pretty open? The testosterone level set is 5x the typical upper limit for cisgender women and marginally above the typical lower limit for cisgender men (it's the IOC testosterone level, thankfully not the IAAF level). It was also approved by the NWSLPA, so it sounds(?) like most players are on board with it, at least as a first step. That said, seems like many people don't like setting testosterone limits at all, as many find it a bit dehumanizing, soooo... IDK?
I wouldn't say it is dehumanizing, per se, but rather using testosterone as the sole thing to apply a limit to doesn't accurately account for natural variation and that testosterone is not the only thing that accounts for better athleticism of athletes. It's also something that generally ends up only being applied to trans/non-binary people. As an example, it is possible for cis-women to have higher testosterone than the lower limit for cis-men, so does that mean NWSL will require a cis-woman in that situation to take drugs to limit her testosterone production, or will they say it is okay since their high-T is "natural", or will that only be enforced against trans-women/non-binary/intersex.
What happens when a 6 foot tall, 180 pound former male who previously competed on men's teams as a sprinter and talented soccer player, declares that they want to play in the NWSL? Said person after hormone treatments which meet requirements for identification as a female, is still bigger, stronger, and faster than the most elite woman player, aren't they?