There is an inevitable question USL Super League president Amanda Vandervort faces in just about any interview, a version of which she has answered ad nauseum before the league she oversees even played a game: Why did the USL Super League launch as a first-division women’s soccer league when the National Women’s Soccer League is already thriving as the United States’ preeminent competition, and is arguably the best league in the world?
“Those Division 1 sanctioning standards were what we believed was right for the Super League, and so that’s what we set forth,” Vandervort told ESPN. “It was never about anything other than what’s right for us for the long-term sustainability of this league.”
And of the prospect that the NWSL and USL Super League are positioned as competitors?
“It’s just two leagues,” Vandervort said matter-of-factly. “We’re in different markets, and we’re both competing at the highest level.”
Neither the USL Super League nor the NWSL has been willing to publicly entertain the idea the two leagues are competitors, but an elephant in the room remains: The Super League’s first-division status is the same as the NWSL, and the Super League launched in mid-August with an approach designed to make it stand out it from its predecessors.
It’s the…
