Scrub through the early days of the National Women’s Soccer League YouTube archives, and you’ll find a treasure trove of games from the inaugural season in 2013. Without some supporting metadata from the videos, you might have trouble identifying teams.
The poor quality of the team-produced broadcasts in those days didn’t help, but among the NWSL’s early visual issues was the fact that many teams looked exactly the same. Each of the eight teams from that first season wore one of a few Nike templates in a team-specified color. So lacking in variety were the jerseys that it was easy to confuse which team was which in multiple matchups on a given day. Just try distinguishing the Portland Thorns from the Washington Spirit at a distance, each with the same red jersey with a white stripe across the chest. The same issue existed for Sky Blue FC (which, despite its name, wore navy) and the Seattle Reign.
All of this was understandable enough in the early years. The NWSL came together in a hurry, by the standards of a professional sports league, evolving…
