WOMEN’S TEAM BELONGS HERE
Could NWSL thrive in Vancouver?
The Canadian women’s soccer team has never been more popular, more marketable, or more influential than these past 4½ years.
You see it in the stadiums and in TV ratings for major tournaments. You see it at community appearances and speaking engagements.
At a sport leadership conference in Richmond before the holidays, Christine Sinclair, Diana Matheson, Rhian Wilkinson and the retired Karina LeBlanc left a packed ballroom to a standing ovation.
But the rise in the popularity and international status of the women’s program — fuelled by back-toback Olympic bronze medals and a whole bunch of personality — has regrettably overlapped with the absence of a women’s soccer franchise in Vancouver.
The Whitecaps ceased operations of their W-League team after the 2012 season, citing an evolving women’s soccer landscape.
There was also the sense that they wanted to focus their attention and resources on their fledgling Major League Soccer franchise, which launched in 2011.
On the women’s side, the Caps shifted their efforts to the girls elite REX (regional excel centre) program, a youth development partnership with B.C. Soccer and Canada Soccer. Hugely important, yes, but not something the public could see and support or draw inspiration from.
Now there are rumblings of a return to Vancouver. The Whitecaps have been in discussions with the NWSL, and the feeling is that it’s a matter of when, not if, the Caps relaunch a women’s team.
“I think it would be amazing for Vancouver, or any Canadian team, to get into the NWSL,” said the soon-to-be-retiring Melissa Tancredi, who led the Whitecaps in scoring in 2010.
“It’s important for us because this is how it all begins. You go to to a match, you see women play professional soccer, and that’s a girl who has a dream right there.”
THE BUSINESS CASE
The Whitecaps were content to watch Women’s Professional Soccer from the sidelines from 200912, even with co-owners Jeff Mallett and Steve Nash invested in that circuit.
And when the NWSL was getting off the ground in 2012, there were rumblings that the Caps were interested, but only if they could hand-pick a handful of Canadian national team players for the Vancouver market.
But with the NWSL entering its fifth season, with the financial stability offered by the federations, who foot part of the salary costs, and with the immense interest in the Canadian women’s national team following Olympic successes and hosting the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Caps will see this working in Vancouver.
The Portland Thorns are an anomaly with 10,000 season ticket holders and an average attendance of almost 17,000 at Providence Park. But relative newcomers to the league, Orlando Pride and Houston Dash, both affiliated with their MLS teams, were second and third in league attendance, with crowds hovering between 5,0008,000 for most games.
The NWSL didn’t start with MLS backing, but the fact that the top three clubs in terms of attendance are now MLS affiliates suggests that having ready-built infrastructure, both in staffing and facilities, is a good model.
Exactly where the Caps see this franchise working is among the intriguing questions.
The success of the W-League team peaked with the star-studded 2006 squad, which attracted some crowds of 4,000-5,000 to Burnaby’s Swangard Stadium. Later iterations of the W-League Caps played games around the Lower Mainland, including Coquitlam’s Town Centre and Langley’s McLeod Athletic Park.
There are whispers the Caps are thinking bigger for the NWSL franchise, like B.C. Place Stadium big. It would give the franchise a professional feel. The risk would be the potential loss of atmosphere in the 27,500-seat lower bowl.
THE SINCLAIR FACTOR
How many tickets could Christine Sinclair sell here? If you said 3,000 or 4,000, no one would look at you funny.
The national team has grown to be much more than Sinclair, the incomparable Burnaby-raised striker, and there are certainly other players who could move the metre in Vancouver.
Abbotsford midfielder Sophie Schmidt is a world-class player in her own right and a fantastic ambassador for the game. She’s currently with FFC Frankfurt in Germany.
And the FIFA Women’s World Cup and Olympics made household names out of several players, such as Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence, both 21 and recently signed in France. Jessie Fleming, 18 and at UCLA, is a fantastic talent and treat to watch.
“It would be really exciting to keep players like Kadeisha in Canada, to ignite something in the next generation,” said Jesse Symons, the UBC Thunderbirds women’s coach and former head of the Caps’ elite girls program. “The Canadian team has done an unbelievable job evolving and you can see it with all the young up-and-coming players.”
So, could you build a team here without Sinclair? Sure. But she’s still the star attraction. She’s still the player that would give an owner the sense that the entire enterprise will work out. Still the player you’d want to launch a new franchise with as the centrepiece.
Is it a make-or-break point for the Caps? That’s a fascinating question.
For her part, Sinclair has always talked up the importance of bringing a women’s soccer franchise back to Vancouver, yet she’s remained coy about how it might affect her future.
She currently plays for the Portland Thorns. She loves it in Portland. It’s home, as much as here is.
But the off-field opportunities for Sinclair in Canada and in Vancouver could be intriguing.
Another selling point might be the further impact on young Canadian players Sinclair could have by playing in Vancouver.
She’d be close to the girls elite development program here. She’d be in and around the 44,000 registered youth girls players in B.C. And she’d presumably be on a team with a handful of top young Canadian talents who could learn and grow alongside her.
Surely, that would all be music to the ears of national team coach John Herdman. Vancouver is home base for the women’s program, and with the NWSL being only a sevenmonth season, it would be a boost for Herdman to have more Canadian players together those other five months.
Perhaps some players would even forgo an NCAA scholarship to instead play professionally in Vancouver and do their schooling at one of the universities here.
As for Sinclair embracing the spotlight, that’s a role she has warmed to — or, at least, become used to it — in recent years. You get the sense she could be the face of the franchise now, and even enjoy it a bit.
“I want our young people with posters of Christine Sinclair on their wall and not Mia Hamm, which I grew up with,” said retiring fullback Rhian Wilkinson.
AT WHAT COST?
Would the Caps commit the resources to run teams in both the NWSL and USL? It seems unlikely, and the recent rumours of the Caps looking to move their USL team have upset some of their more dedicated supporters.
Whitecaps FC 2 played great soccer but averaged only a reported 1,779 fans in 2016, which is about half the league average.
The NWSL, in many ways, makes more business sense, but the Caps have also invested hugely in their boys residency program and they can’t afford to now slip up on this piece of the pathway.
Whatever the future holds for the NWSL and USL, it seems unlikely we’ll see any changes before 2018.