The National Women’s Soccer League is embarking on its biggest and most important season to date. That might seem like a bold claim, but a quick look around the league shows how much the stakes in the 12-year-old NWSL have grown.
Two new expansion teams will enter the fray for 2024, bringing the NWSL to a league-high 14 teams. One of them is Bay FC, the new Northern California-based team that is being spearheaded by former U.S. women’s national team legend Brandi Chastain, among others. The other is the Utah Royals — although a team under the same name previously played in the NWSL before relocating, this iteration is a new team sharing co-owners with the likes of the Premier League’s Crystal Palace and the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers.
Two of the league’s founding teams, meanwhile, completed sales to new owners going into this season, removing the last high-profile decision-makers to be found culpable in the abuse scandal that rocked the league in 2021 and 2022. The Portland Thorns…
