What can women’s football learn from the NWSL Challenge Cup?
‘A turning point.’ ‘A cultural phenomenon.’’ ‘Game changer.’ These were some of the headlines used to describe the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Just one year on from that tournament in France, the outlook for women’s football is very different this summer.
The coronavirus pandemic forced leagues around the world to pause and most of the top competitions, including England’s Women’s Super League, France’s Feminine Division 1 and Italy’s Calcio Femminile, have now ended their seasons with no football having taken place since March. The top men’s league in all three of those countries are all restarting this month.
Plans are still in motion for the seven outstanding matches in the UEFA Women’s Champions League to be completed in Spain at the end of August and the FA hasn’t yet cancelled the remainder of the Women’s FA Cup either. In Germany, the Frauen Bundesliga is back, thanks to the German FA and the more wealthy clubs like Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg in the women’s league that have come together to take on the cost of testing.
So there is some football on the continent this summer. But more broadly, there will be a seven-month gap of absolutely no women’s football in most of Europe. After a combined and record-breaking 1.2 billion people tuned in to watch the 2019 World Cup around the world and thousands watched live in stadiums across France, this seems like a pretty crap situation for the expected progress women’s game.
It’s been refreshing to see the USA’s National Women’s Soccer League take a creative approach to solving the problems that the pandemic has created for professional sport. It’s certainly easier to adapt in a large country like the USA, where every state has a different number of cases and has been handling the pandemic slightly differently with fewer cases in some areas, although the national death toll still stands at nearly 120,000, the highest in the world.
USA-France 2019 Women’s World Cup QF in Paris. 47,000 fans attended the game. Credit: Flo Lloyd-Hughes
Determined to have some football this summer, the NWSL and its commissioner Lisa Baird, who has only been in the role since February, have come up with a one-off tournament that will take place in Utah at the home of NWSL club the Utah Royals. When the opening match takes place on 27 June, the NWSL will be the first professional US sports league to make its return since coronavirus lockdown, despite some US media outlets lauding MLS’ restart date of 8 July as the first comeback for an American sports league.
The NWSL Challenge Cup is a result of creative thinking by the NWSL, who came up with an alternative to regular league competition, but also sponsors and insurers who helped the league overcome the obvious financial obstacles that became barriers for many women’s leagues’ return.
The cost of coronavirus testing, which Lewes FC estimated would cost around £3 million for the WSL and Championship to finish, is being covered by insurance. Sponsorship deals with Nike, P&G, Verizon and Budweiser will help cover nearly all other costs associated with putting on the event, including accommodation, travel and food. There’s also a national TV deal with CBS and an international streaming partnership with Twitch.
The league is putting itself on Twitch, which is more synonymous with eSports. Twitch is becoming more popular with traditional sports and Amazon will be streaming its Premier League games on the platform. Twitch’s technical capabilities and easy-to-use interface make it a perfect place to watch sport.
The league has said that players and their children will live in an ‘NWSL Village’ and their pay, which will stay at pre-pandemic levels, and benefits will be carried over until the end of the season, despite the NWSL Challenge Cup only lasting one month. Players will also have an input on tournament procedures and player safety.
Empty training pitches. Photographer: Ali Riley Credit: Goal Click
Baird openly told journalists when the NWSL Challenge Cup was revealed that she ‘wanted to come up with an idea that was appealing to sponsors’, something that seems rare in women’s football at the moment. So often sponsorship is restricted and rigid, it’s the title rights to a league and not much else. The opportunity to sponsor a one-off women’s football event that features World Cup winners and household names when there’s very little happening elsewhere is a bit of a no brainer as brands search for relevance and exposure.
It’s certainly easier to adapt in a large country like the USA, where every state has been handling the pandemic differently with a varied number of cases and deaths, enabling the NWSL to find a less densely populated area that can be transformed into a central host location without the usual cross-country travel between fixtures. However, since parts of the country reopened cases have been climbing again and the national death toll stands at nearly 120,000, the highest in the world.
The power of the players’ unions is another thing that is unique to the NWSL and US sports. Across Europe, unions are predominantly centralised, with an association that represents both men’s and women’s players like the Professional Footballers’ Association in England. In the US, players in all of the major sports sign long-term Collective Bargaining Agreement which ensure adequate compensation for things like image rights, coverage for health insurance and maternity pay.
Yael Averbuch, co-executive director of the NWSL Players Association told The Athletic that the strong relationship with the players’ union and the league, which can be shaky sometimes, helped get things back on the pitch. The power of the union meant any decision to return had to be negotiated and a deal crafted out meticulously with player representatives.
Averbuch said: ‘Both sides — the NWSLPA and the NWSL — have viewed this as an opportunity to really pave the way in terms of how a players’ association and a league can work together. We’ve said this all along, in women’s soccer, there’s no room for everyone’s energy to not be going in the same direction and not be working together.’
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But it’s not all rosy for the NWSL. This week an unnamed player tested positive for coronavirus, an inevitability but also a worry for the organisers. The NWSL will now need to be extra careful to stop the virus spreading among the squad of the infected player.
The NWSL Challenge Cup will already be without some stars as participation is rightly not compulsory, those that opt out will still be entitled to pay and housing benefits, but it means that some of the sport’s biggest players will not be there. As well as the NWSLPA, the NWSL needed to negotiate with the USWNT Players Association and it has been open about supporting players’ decisions to opt out.
So far, Megan Rapinoe and Christen Press are the two headline players who are set to not take part in the NWSL Challenge Cup. Alex Morgan will also not be in Utah as she’s on maternity leave. At a time when women’s football needs star power to drive it and in a country that cares more for its national team than domestic competition, it’s a real blow to be missing big names.
The NWSL Challenge Cup is sure to be a thriller and there will still be players from the World Cup on show, Marta, Rose Lavelle and Tobin Heath. After such an exciting World Cup anything that can vaguely recreate the tension of tournament football is bound to be a winner.
Ultimately, the NWSL improvised and was willing to put money behind an alternative competition, when very few in women’s football were willing to. It didn’t buckle under the pressure of testing costs or logistical issues. Under difficult and unpredictable circumstances, the league has worked out a way to create something that fans, sponsors and the media will enjoy.
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As women’s football continues to commercialise, the NWSL has ticked every possible capitalist box with this. While some leagues in Europe are still trying to find a title sponsor, the NWSL is creating a lucrative one-off club competition the likes of which will never happen again when leagues return to traditional competition and normality resumes.
When things kick off on 27 June and there is plenty of pressure on the NWSL to ensure things run smoothly. If the virus starts to spread through teams and the NWSL Challenge Cup is cancelled it could end up being an expensive waste of time. But, if the NWSL Challenge Cup runs without hiccups, the majority of the USWNT still take part and international players showcase their talent too, it could be a classic. Whatever happens, I’m sure much of the women’s football world will be watching on and taking notes.
Words and photography: Flo Lloyd-Hughes
Photography: Goal Click
Editor’s note
After publication, Orlando Pride withdrew from the NWSL Challenge Cup after six players and coaches tested positive for Covid-19.