Women's Soccer

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
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NWSL absolutely crushes their TV rights deals, getting "over 10x" their previous $1.5M / yr deal from CBS, while focusing on reach rather than revenue.

https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2023/nwsl-media-deals-espn-cbs-amazon-scripps-1234741394/

They're just doing so, so much correctly. The labor negotiations (Jessica Berman's specialty from her time at the NHL) were a home run, expansion has been done smartly, they're booting out the shitty owners, the league's best new team launch (Angel City) is apparently worth $180M as a franchise now, and deep-pocketed investors are lining up to be next in the door.

I mostly just want them to continue kicking the English WSL's arses. You look at average attendance per game across the league, and you've got:

League, last season, this season:

USA NWSL: 6,964 --> 10,384 (and expanding to 16 teams soon)
ENG WSL: 1,926 --> 4,560 (tottenham only averaged 517 home attendance!)
GER Frauen-BL: 711 --> 1,958 (Wolfsburg crushes it, >5k, would be 5th in the WSL)
JPN WE League: 1,555 --> 1,401 (launched in 2021-22; min 5 pro contracts on team)
AUS W-League: 1,125 --> 1,225 (new expansion to 12 teams, new stadiums)
Damallsvenskan: 824 --> 923 (oldest fully pro women's league, attendance stable since ~2003)
FRA D1 Feminin: 664 --> 963 (only Lyon & PSG averaged >1k in 2022-23)
NOR Toppserien: 592 --> 450 (oldest women's league - 1984 - but poorly supported)
NED Eredivisie V: 538 --> 419 (was at 8 teams only a few years ago; only Feyenoord is well-supported)

Data on attendance is a lot cleaner than data on salaries, which is scant. But the NWSL CBA suggests two very important things: (1) the league makes enough money that there's a pie worth fighting over, and (2) the league's teams can more-or-less cap their player budget if they want to and don't have to get into a bidding war, so they likely have some margin to invest in building a fanbase, facilities, coaching, etc.

It wasn't always this way. A dozen years ago, the top leagues in the world were in Sweden, Germany, and the USA (WPS, which folded a year later). England zoomed up out of nowhere, professionalizing even ahead of Germany (where only a few clubs are fully professional, even still). Italy and Spain had their leagues go allegedly fully professional only last year. There's not a ton of other strong competition. Like, NCAA D1W Soccer probably puts more butts in seats per-team than all but NWSL and WSL.

And the NWSL has done it while maintaining a lot of parity. The best team (SD Wave) has 1.65 points per match played (33 points), while the worst team this year has 1.10 P/MP (22 points). It's going to be a very exciting last few weeks in the run-up to the playoffs. Some teams are a lot more valuable than others, according to that Sportico article (and they'd know best - theirs is the best MLS club valuations list every year), but they're all growing strongly in value.

It'd be a great time for, say, Boston to figure out where to put a women's soccer stadium. No time like the present, Mayor Wu!
Boston Breakers are supposed to be in Franklin Park, $30 million to refurbish White Stadium
 

67YAZ

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Dec 1, 2000
8,731

Very nice. Big step up.

Should be fun playoffs. The top 4 teams are very even and none of the clubs are going into the postseason with massive momentum.

And Soph Smith is back! She logged 30 minutes yesterday.

An absolutely disastrous season for Chicago, finishing dead bottom of the table. Thank god there's no relegation. But there's new ownership, who have already pledged $15m for club improvements, a new manager to be hired, and the return of Mal Swanson next season. Hope springs eternal in the NWSL - the Red Stars only finished 7 points out of a playoff spot.
 

steeplechase3k

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Portland, OR
This is really beautiful.


Last page confirms she's coming back for 1 more year with the Thorns. Sinc is such a private, humble person it will be interesting to see how she reacts to what I assume will turn into a farewell tourn next year. As a Thorns fans I'm excited to get to watch her for one more year. I've been watching her since she was at the University of Portland. She was a freshman in 2001, I'm not sure if I went to any games that year, but I know I did starting in 2002, and in 2004 I was at pretty much every match (and have been a season ticket holder since 2005). Amazing player, amazing person.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
72,567
Reminder that the sendoffs for Krieger and Rapinoe are tonight in the NWSL Final in half an hour (8:00PM ET) on CBS.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
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this game has been a hell of a lot of fun to watch, other than the Pinoe "weekend at bernies" routine in minute 3. Rose Lavelle doing magic with the ball. Midge Purce has absolutely skinned the Gotham left side alive a couple of times, including dribbling 3 fools in a row to set up the first goal.
 

candylandriots

unkempt
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Cross-posting from the Union Berlin losing streak thread, as this seems like kind of a big deal:

I guess one silver lining in this extraordinarily sad story is that we'll see the first ever female coach on the touchline in a Bundesliga match on the 25th. U-19 coach Markus Hoffman will take over for Fischer on an interim basis, and his assistant is Marie-Louise Eta.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
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A good warmup before tonight's NBA game (7:30pm) can be found in the NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament championship match, 6:00pm ET - Stanford vs Florida State. #1-ranked FSU has a possible #1 overall NWSL draft pick in striker Jordynn Dudley (who starred for the USA U-20 team this summer) and likely top-5 pick LW Onyi Echegini (who missed the start of the season to play for Nigeria in the Women's World Cup!), and they absolutely crushed teams all season. #3-ranked Stanford has a plethora of talent but had struggled to put it all together, until they looked the best they had all tournament in offing #6 BYU in the national semis last Friday. They're led by likely top-5 pick CM Maya Doms.
 

steeplechase3k

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Oct 25, 2005
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Good news in Portland! I look forward to being a season ticket holder again, once the sale is complete.

View: https://twitter.com/itsmeglinehan/status/1733252695115305263


Tweet from Meg Linehan
The sale of Portland Thorns to new ownership led by Lisa Bhathal Merage is almost complete.

• Thorns staying in Portland & Providence Park
• Committed to building new training facility
• Sale expected to close early 2024
Article:
https://theathletic.com/5123628/2023/12/08/portland-thorns-sale-bhathal/

The sale of Portland Thorns FC is nearly complete. The Bhathal family, via RAJ Sports, is in the final stages of purchasing the team from Peregrine Sports, LLC, according to two sources briefed on the transaction who were not authorized to speak publicly while the deal is still in progress. While the NWSL and commissioner Jessica Berman had targeted the end of this year for the sales of both the Thorns and OL Reign, the close of this transaction is not expected until early 2024.

Lisa Bhathal Merage is leading the transaction for RAJ Sports and will serve as the team’s representative on the NWSL Board of Governors once approved. Bhathal Merage’s brother and partner across multiple business entities, Alex Bhathal, will serve as the alternate governor. Sportico first reported that the two sides were engaged in exclusive talks last month.
 

steeplechase3k

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The sale of the Thorns is complete.

$63 million.


View: https://twitter.com/ThornsFC/status/1742637085834780994


View: https://twitter.com/RyanTClarke/status/1742637182903558596


View: https://twitter.com/itsmeglinehan/status/1742637468279583063


https://theathletic.com/5177529/2024/01/03/portland-thorns-bhathal-nwsl/

The sale of Portland Thorns FC to RAJ Sports is complete, the team announced on Wednesday. According to two sources briefed on the agreement, the sale price totaled $63 million with the NWSL board of governors approving the transaction last week in a formal vote. As reported here last month, Lisa Bhathal Merage will serve as the team’s controlling owner and representative on the NWSL board of governors. Her brother and partner across multiple business entities, Alex Bhathal, will serve as the alternate governor.

The Bhathals have committed to keeping the team in Portland. The Thorns have a lease agreement in place to play in Providence Park through 2035.
 

67YAZ

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She’s the co-owner of the Sacto Kings iirc fwiw
It’s great for the league to have so many new owners that are also involved in ownership or other professional franchises - it brings expertise, connections, and general sense that this league is here to stay.

$65m is a massive number. Great for the league and even more important that one of the marquee clubs no longer has a piece of shit owner.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
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The USL Super League has obtained D1 sanctioning from the USSF and plans to play a fall-spring schedule with eight teams. Some of the markets are very marginal for division one sports and are in there because existing USL men's teams are launching women's teams (Spokane, Lexington). This seems like a dicey, expensive proposition to me.

View: https://twitter.com/uslsuperleague/status/1756030517000937618


 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
72,567
In season 2, among the teams seeming to be added is Palm Beach. Won’t they cannibalize the Fort Lauderdale team?

or did they lose a competition with FTL for the SFL team? That website isn’t very clear