There is an inevitable question USL Super League president Amanda Vandervort faces in just about any interview, a version of which she has answered ad nauseum before the league she oversees even played a game: Why did the USL Super League launch as a first-division women’s soccer league when the National Women’s Soccer League is already thriving as the United States’ preeminent competition, and is arguably the best league in the world?
“Those Division 1 sanctioning standards were what we believed was right for the Super League, and so that’s what we set forth,” Vandervort told ESPN. “It was never about anything other than what’s right for us for the long-term sustainability of this league.”
And of the prospect that the NWSL and USL Super League are positioned as competitors?
“It’s just two leagues,” Vandervort said matter-of-factly. “We’re in different markets, and we’re both competing at the highest level.”
Neither the USL Super League nor the NWSL has been willing to publicly entertain the idea the two leagues are competitors, but an elephant in the room remains: The Super League’s first-division status is the same as the NWSL, and the Super League launched in mid-August with an approach designed to make it stand out it from its predecessors.
It’s the first women’s professional soccer league in the United States to align with the “global” (read: European) calendar, meaning its season begins in August and ends in late spring. There is neither a draft nor a salary cap, two mechanisms that are ubiquitous across American sports but mostly foreign to soccer worldwide. Many Super League teams have existing academies and amateur adult teams, creating pathways to professionalism that NWSL clubs lack.
Now, the Super League is trying to do something that has never been done before: create a second successful top-flight women’s soccer league in a country that already has one.
The Super League’s path to Division 1 status
Initially, the USL Super League was slated to fill a void as a second-division league, which has never existed in U.S. women’s soccer. Then, plans changed.
Last year, Super League leadership announced it would apply to the U.S. Soccer Federation for first-division sanctioning, which it was granted in February after meeting the federation’s requirements for professional standards. The league launched with eight teams, the minimum required for a top-flight league.
Operating as a first-division league has drawn everything from confusion to skepticism from sources across the industry, although there is widespread agreement that more professional playing opportunities for women in the U.S. is a net positive. Most skeptics don’t understand why the Super League didn’t stick with the plan of operating as a second division to fill a void in the pyramid.
“I don’t think it’s a threat,” one NWSL club general manager told ESPN in a recent anonymous GM survey. “I also don’t think it’s good for the NWSL. I’m frustrated that they were sanctioned as a first division, because I don’t think that would ever happen on the MLS side. I think when you look at the board — U.S. Soccer, that group that voted to do that — it never would have happened on the men’s side. Why did it happen on the women’s side?”
Unlike the rest of the world, the U.S. soccer pyramid is not connected. There is no promotion and relegation. American soccer is a closed system of private entities that simply must meet requirements set forth by the federation to be sanctioned. For a first-division women’s league, those include the league having eight teams in at least two time zones in season one, all stadiums featuring a minimum capacity of 5,000, and the majority owner of each team must own at least 35% and have an individual net worth of $15 million.
Several of the Super League’s ownership groups also operate USL men’s teams, meaning there is existing infrastructure in these markets. U.S. Soccer’s requirements for a second-division men’s league — like the USL Championship — roughly mirror the requirements to run a first-division women’s league. Vandervort and prospective Super League owners determined they could meet first-division requirements, so why should they confine themselves to the second division, where standards (like 2,000-seat stadium capacities) are much lower?
Proponents of the Super League — and even some NWSL executives who spoke to ESPN — believe that such opportunities will broaden the American player pool for the better. There is communication between NWSL and USL Super League clubs, but there is no formal collaboration.
The NWSL declined to provide further comment from commissioner Jessica Berman about the USL Super League, and a spokesperson pointed to the league’s statement from February, when the USL Super League received first-division sanctioning. The statement read, in part: “As the most competitive women’s league in the world, there are limited roster spots available in the NWSL. More opportunities to compete professionally is a good thing and we’re interested to see how a new league might contribute to the continued growth of our game.”
Still, these two leagues are competitors, even if neither Berman nor Vandervort will say as much. There are physical examples like overlapping markets — each league has a team playing in the same stadium in Washington, D.C., for the most extreme example — and there are idealistic tensions. Innovation from a challenger league can force (and arguably already has forced) change from the incumbent.
Historically, across American sports, that has led to rule innovations and league mergers, including in American football and in both men’s and women’s basketball. The path that the Super League takes — and how it converges with the NWSL’s path — remains to be seen.
“I was incredibly impressed at the level of talent and the level of competition and competitiveness between our clubs in the first couple of weekends,” Vandervort said. “And I think that’s a testament to the talent and the pool of talent that’s out there, and it’ll only grow in the years ahead for us.”
