There was a sellout crowd of 22,000 fans at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles on Friday. The Angel City FC hosted its first regular-season match, rolling out the pink carpet for a who's who list of celebrity owners, players who waited full careers for the moment and fans who willed the team into existence.
It was a great way to start the new NWSL season. Two previous attempts at professional women's soccer in the United States failed, so getting to Season 10 is worth celebrating. The arrival of Angel City and San Diego Wave FC suggests that the NWSL could finally be moving out of its survivalist roots and into growth mode.
There are reminders of its naivete. The Houston Dash head coach was suspended by the league pending further investigation. Less than a week ago, Jessica Berman was on the job. The NWSL is emerging from what everyone hopes is its darkest hour, after a season in which there were reports of abuse across the league.
The NWSL enters its 10th-anniversary season in a complicated place. It is a league that continues in a way that suggests the ceiling is not in sight. Berman has promised to address this through more concentrated staffing and planning, something the league still finds hard to get out of its own way at times.
Berman and the 12 ownership groups must address questions of a different variety. Figuring out what that looks like will be difficult amid the ongoing investigations that may expose further rot within the league.
These are some of the defining stories on and off the field that shape the NWSL's present and future.
Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC are not your typical expansion teams. Christen Press in L.A. and Alex Morgan in San Diego are the two U.S. women's national team legends who anchor each squad.
Each team circumvented the expansion draft, which is an ineffective way for new teams to build competitive rosters. They used their monetary assets to assemble a squad that looks better than previous teams. In its first year, no NWSL expansion team has finished better than last or second-to-last.
Angel City and San Diego opened the regular season last weekend with victories and both struggled at times in the NWSL Challenge Cup. Even if there are a few more talented teams, six of 12 teams will qualify for the playoffs.
The two California teams stand out off the field. Angel City sold over 15,000 season tickets before the opening match and could lead the NWSL in attendance this year, which would end the Portland Thorns' stranglehold on the honor since the league's inaugural season. Angel City has a purpose-driven, women-majority-owned identity that is popular with fans.
San Diego is still one with potential. The NWSL team was also going to be launched by Ron Burkle, but he backed out of a deal with Major League Soccer. The Wave have played to sold-out crowds in Torero Stadium in San Diego, where the NWSL's board voted to move the franchise to. Their move to a larger stadium in September will be a litmus test of their potential.
Both teams have told the rest of the league how things need to change. The league fined them for announcing Press and Morgan because they had their own visions for the media. The largest fine in league history was imposed on Angel City before they played a match.
The league and other clubs should pay attention to the early returns of the two teams that offer evidence of the NWSL being at an inflection point.
The Washington Spirit hung their first banner on Sunday after collecting their championship rings. Washington defeated OL Reign, 2-1, in the preceding match, which they won in large part because of their incredible attacking trio of Trinity Rodman,Ashleynchez andAshley Hatch.
The most exciting one-two punch in the NWSL are Rodman andnchez. They are clever and audacious on the ball, and they play like a young duo unintimidated by the stars. As a teenager, Rodman won the Freshman of the Year award and could win it again this season. She is that good. A sign of the shift inside the league and at the international level is that both players earned significant looks with the U.S. women's national team.
A central player in the changing of the guard within the national team is Mallory Pugh. She is entering her sixth year as a professional after turning 24 on opening day. She earned a recall to the U.S. national team after an extended absence after leading the Chicago Red Stars to the final.
Three of the best forwards in the NWSL are Americans with an average age under 22. Press and Morgan still have roles to play in that conversation for club and country, but the arrival of the NWSL's young stars is apparent.
Berman and Burke signed the first collective bargaining agreement of the NWSL at a party in L.A. Three months after the league and union announced that they had approved the deal, the moment was a formality, but it was not out of place in the spotlight of a national broadcast, and in front of a new set of fans.
The NWSL should remain one of the best leagues in the world thanks to the increased standards of the CBA. Minimum salaries went from $22,000 in 2021 to $35,000 in 2022, with increases scheduled throughout the five-year term of the agreement. Benefits include guaranteed travel standards and vacation time to more progressive collaboration, as well as access to mental health services and leave for related reasons.
The new collective bargaining agreement for the NWSL was discussed by Julie Foudy.
The addition of free agency is a big win for players. Any player with an expiring contract who has at least six years of experience in the NWSL will be eligible for free agency.
It is the first time in the history of the league that players will have a say in where they play. The single-entity setup of the NWSL means teams have control over players even after their contracts are up. The initial form of free agency will not create an entirely open market, but it will allow some players to have control over their futures and force teams to improve their standards.
The fans at Washington's AUDI Field roared for the new majority owner as she was announced during the ring ceremony. After buying the club from Steve Baldwin and Bill Lynch for $35 million, Kang assumed control of the club, 10 times the amount the franchise sold for three years ago.
One hopes that the ownership change will put an end to the off-field problems. The NWSL suspended the Spirit from all league governance last year due to investigations that found a toxic work environment and the former head coach was banned for abusing players. It got so bad that the players demanded that Baldwin sell the team to a minority owner.
At one point, she looked like she had been squeezed out of a deal when a group led by Todd Boehly entered exclusive negotiations with Baldwin. Boehly is in exclusive negotiations to purchase a team. In the background, Kang made some power moves to convince other Spirit investors to side with her, and eventually wrestled away enough support from Baldwin to leave him with only one option, which was what the players wanted.
There are a lot of Ramifications of the sale. She is the first woman of color to own a team in the NWSL. Her investment into the team sets a new high mark for what an NWSL franchise is worth, something that will impact future expansion as well as current teams.
The Chicago Bears are the team with the most questions surrounding ownership. The Red Stars lost the league championship to the Spirit, and just over a day later, the only head coach in the history of the NWSL resigned. A Washington Post report detailing years of alleged verbal and emotional abuse by Dames toward players came shortly after and the Red Stars went dark for the season.
The Red Stars entered preseason without a full-time head coach, and the majority owner went almost three months without making a statement. There are still questions about what leadership knew about Dames during his decade-plus at the club, and they should be answered in one of the multiple ongoing, leaguewide investigations.
The NWSL's fall was marked by allegations against the Spirit's Burke, as well as alleged sexual misconduct from ex-Portland Thorns coach Paul Riley toward players at multiple points in his career. Fans in Portland continue protesting at games, even as the club seeks to move on, and the suspension of David Clarkson in Houston brought a reminder that last season's turmoil isn't quite behind the league.
The Portland Thorns and Portland Timbers have been criticized by Sebastian Salazar for their handling of abuse claims.
The league and union commissioned an independent investigation that led to the suspension of the head coach of the 12 teams in the league, who was in the same position he was at the start of 2021. The NWSL and the Dash didn't give any details as to why the man was suspended.
Half of the league's 10 head coaches left their teams. The actions were not reported by the team until they were exposed by independent reporting.
The game-day facilities have taken a big step forward. San Diego's big home debut will have to wait a few months, but Angel City's start at Banc of California Stadium was the perfect Hollywood script.
The upgrades in Seattle and Kansas City are equally important. The OL Reign and the Kansas City Current both played on converted baseball fields in 2021, much to the displeasure of players and neutral observers alike. The one in Kansas City looked terrible on TV. The Kansas City Royals converted a baseball field into a soccer stadium, which was across the street from one of the best soccer stadiums in the country.
The current has that and more sorted out. The new home for the children is Children's Mercy Park, which will be the first built specifically for an NWSL team once the downtown stadium is completed. The Current will open a training facility later this year. The two will cost $85 million and be funded by private investors.
The club will return to downtown Seattle on a permanent basis for the first time in over a year after moving to Lumen Field. The 70,000-plus seats at the home of the Seattle Seahawks have the danger of feeling cavernous, but the Seattle Sounders game-day atmosphere offers a glimpse of what things could look like one day for the Reign. It was the only solution for securing the long-term future of the Reign. It is a major upgrade. The club needs to grow.
The Washington Spirit are the reigning champ and the team with the lowest question marks. Washington is the obvious choice to be the front-runner in a league that has rarely seen things go according to plan. The Washington season is proof of that.
The Spirit have little turnover from last year, even securing Rodman's long-term future with a new contract that made her the league's first million-dollar player. Washington has not lost a game in the past 19 games.
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