Women's Professional Soccer

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Women's Professional Soccer

Sport	Soccer
Founded	2007
No. of teams	8
Country(ies)	United States

Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) is a professional women's soccer league in the United States that will begin play in Spring 2009. The league will replace Women's United Soccer Association, which folded after the 2003 season. WPS will field teams in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis and Washington in 2009 and will add Philadelphia for 2010.

The league, which had gone by the working name "Women's Soccer, LLC", announced its name and logo in January 2008.

1 Proposed teams
- 1.1 Future Expansion
2 Planning
3 Business model
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Proposed teams

Boston Breakers
Chicago Red Stars
Dallas (unnamed)
Jersey Sky Blue (New York/New Jersey)
Los Angeles (unnamed)
St. Louis (unnamed)
Washington Freedom
An Eighth Team for the inaugural season to be determine

[edit] Future Expansion

Philadelphia (2010 expansion)^[1]

[edit] Planning

After the folding of Women's United Soccer Association, which played its third and final full season in 2003, WUSA Reorganization Committee was formed in September of that year. The committee led to the founding in November 2004 of the non-profit organization, Women's Soccer Initiative, Inc. (WSII), whose stated goal was "promoting and supporting all aspects of women's soccer in the United States", including the founding of a new professional league.^[2]

Attempts to relaunch WUSA in full fell through in 2004 (when the league's member teams played the WUSA Festival instead) and 2005.^[3] In June 2006, WSII announced the relaunch of the league for the 2008 season.^[4] In December 2006, the organization announced that it reached an agreement with six owner-operators for teams based in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington, DC, and a then-unnamed city (Boston and New York/New Jersey were announced later).^[5] On May 27, 2008, the league announced that it would expand to Philadelphia for the 2010 season, with the franchise likely sharing facilities with the expansion Major League Soccer franchise. Despite being the eighth named team, the league is still considering adding an eighth team to play in the league's inaugural season.^[6]

In September 2007, the launch was pushed back from Spring of 2008 to 2009 to avoid clashing with 2007 Women's World Cup and the 2008 Olympic Games and to ensure that all of the teams were fully prepared for long-term operations.^[7]

On January 17, 2008, the new name, Women's Professional Soccer, and logo featuring the silhouette of retired player Mia Hamm were announced.^[8]

[edit] Business model

WSII CEO Tonya Antonucci said that unlike WUSA, which had higher expectations and employed a top-down model, WPS would take "a local, grass roots approach", and "a slow and steady growth type of approach", citing WUSA's losses of close to $100 million.^[3] She said the new league would have a closer relationship with Major League Soccer, the top men's professional league in the United States, to cut costs on staff and facilities, and for marketing.