Talk to anyone around the NWSL these days, and just about every conversation relates to one thing: stadiums.
Controlling revenue to grow a team’s business? Owners such as Angie and Chris Long in Kansas City will tell you about how important their custom-built stadium is for that.
Scheduling games on prime nights on the calendar? That’s also about control of the stadium, which most teams in the NWSL don’t have.
The next cities to add expansion teams? Stadiums are a deciding factor in that, too, as NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman recently told ESPN.
With all that in mind, there are important questions about which stadiums are improving — or not — across the league, and what it all means for each team. For now, though, we are taking a look across the league for an albeit subjective ranking of all 14 stadium experiences. This is a look from the fan’s perspective — in other words, it’s not purely about architecture or field maintenance, so we’ll let issues like field drainage and artificial turf slide.
Sure, the locals will have the nitty-gritty on why the stadium ticket scanners or bag policies are awful, how the parking really isn’t that bad, or how the sun hits your eyes in the worst possible way in that one section of seats at some specific time. But…
