The NWSL has positioned itself as the most competitive women’s soccer league in the world, pointing to its unpredictable results on a weekly basis. This has been the league’s chief value proposition since its inception in late 2012: chaos is entertaining. Commissioner Jessica Berman even refers to this parity as one of the league’s “superpowers.”
But there have been growing fears that such parity might start to wane as the league maintains an aggressive pace in expanding the number of teams. There is not infinite talent available, and eventually there won’t be enough top-tier players and coaches to go around. Indeed, in ESPN’s NWSL GM survey last year, almost all GMs cited parity as the league’s best selling point, but several worried about talent retention and over-expansion.
For now, such fear have not come to pass. The past two weeks of wild NWSL results illustrated exactly what Berman and the GMs covet — and what the NWSL’s competitors in the UEFA Women’s Champions League and England’s Women’s Super League still can’t consistently match.
Some big clubs in England, France and elsewhere are spending more than their NWSL counterparts and are earning prestigious reputations for it — but judging by on-field competitiveness, is it the NWSL that the rest of the world should look…
