abuse came to light last year had been trailed by com-
plaints from one team to another, or from youth clubs
up to the pros. “Some sort of system where we’re not
allowing ownership or stakeholders to sweep abuse or
wrongdoing under the rug would be a really big step in
the right direction for accountability,” McCullough says.
Players can achieve plenty with their voices and col-
lective action, but they have their limits, and real change
requires leadership from above, too. There’s hope for
change under a new commissioner (Jessica Berman,
formerly of the NHL and National Lacrosse League,selected with player input) and with the upcoming results
of the independent report on the league’s abuse problem.
Players recognize all of this as only a start.
“It’s unfortunate that it took 10 years to get to this
point,” says Spirit backup goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart, a
member of the union’s executive committee. “But it is a
turning point, for sure.”T
HE SPIRIT DO NOT want this to be lost in every-
thing they went through last year: They won. In a
season that was consumed by questions on how to con-
front systemic abuse and how to deal with training at
a high school, they still played their best soccer. Theywish they hadn’t needed to. But they feel the fact that
they did speaks volumes about the league’s potential:
If this is what we can do under the worst of circumstances,
their belief goes, imagine what we can do when we can all
focus on our actual game.
That led to a much lighter mood entering training
camp. There are CBA protections. There’s also the impact
of a new owner who is ready to invest. Kang, the entrepre-
neur behind the health care tech company Cognosante,
declined to speak while the sale was being finalized. But
players see the signs of her commitment already—such
as a deal to secure long-term training space at a new
facility built by D.C. United—and they’re excited for more.
“It’s been really cool to get to know Michele, especially
from a leadership perspective, and she just sees it as a busi-
ness,” Sullivan says. “She sees this as a big investment—like
a startup, a company with a lot of potential, and she’s
going to run it as she did when she built her company.”
Players want to drive that point home across the league—
they feel this is an investment opportunity. Conditions of
this milestone year indicate that the players are not alone in
that feeling. The Kansas City Current are building the first
stadium created for an NWSL team, a $70 million project
privately financed by the team owners. The league has
expanded to two new markets, Los Angeles and San Diego,
with star-studded investors and players alike.
“This is a business. This is not a charity,” Burke says.
“And ironically, it’s the players who want it to be profes-
sionalized and run like a business. You cannot build a busi-
ness based on volunteerism and free labor, and you cannot
build a professional soccer league on a baseball field.”
If that last bit sounds like a pithy slogan, it’s not an
exaggeration—amateur players could be used to fill roster
gaps for free until a few years ago, and two teams were
playing on converted baseball fields as of 2021, struggling
with the difficulties of an oddly sized pitch and uneven sod.
Now unpaid amateurs are gone, and the CBA stipulates
that there can be “no more playing on fields that require
substantial conversion to the dimensions of a soccer field.”
The hope is that such action creates room for the
league to grow and its talent to develop. It also creates
an opportunity for fans to watch the league without a crisis
of conscience about player safety and welfare.
“I’m excited that they won’t feel conflicted. They can
come support us. They can buy merchandise, buy tickets,
they can pack the stadium,” Kingsbury says.
The players’ message is clear: They knew that it was
time to ask for more. Now, they’re eager to let fans see it.
“When you go to a game, you’ll be seeing the best of
us,” Burke says. “And I think this league, in the future, it’s
really going to center around the players. It has to for us
to be successful.”SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED
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MAY 2022
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CHANGE IN THE NWSLCALIFORNIA DREAMIN’
The 2022 season features two expansion sides:
Angel City FC ( black) and San Diego Wave.