NWSL kicks off pivotal year
The 11th NWSL season kicks off this Saturday, and it feels like a pivotal one for the league.
For one, it’s a World Cup year, and the NWSL has always looked to the world’s biggest tournament as an accelerant when it comes to driving interest. With nearly the entire U.S. women’s national team playing for NWSL clubs, and dozens of other players for other nations doing the same, it’s not hard to see why.
Just as significantly, the league has come through two extremely fraught years off the field. A first-ever Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NWSL Players’ Association and the league is in effect, instituting some badly needed standards when it comes to player safety, resources, and salary. Teams that badly needed to clean house have done so, while the league headquarters has grown in terms of staff, experience, and capabilities.
All of that change means some longstanding NWSL basics have been altered. That brings us to this piece, a quick reference guide for some important NWSL regulations.
Regular season format
The 2023 regular season will begin March 25, with the North Carolina Courage and Kansas City Current’s 2:00pm Eastern kickoff officially getting things under way.
Each team will play 22 regular season games, with a balanced schedule involving two games (one at home, and one away) against the other 11 teams in the league. The regular season runs until October 15, which will see all 12 teams play games scheduled for 5:00pm Eastern in what is the league’s first “Decision Day.”
The NWSL will only have one midweek regular season game out of 132, a major improvement over years past that players, fans, teams, and league officials all agreed was a must going forward.
The top six teams in the regular season standings will advance to the playoffs, which are set to begin “in late October.”
As was the case in 2022, the third- and fourth-placed teams will host first-round games, with the winners advancing to play road semifinals against the winners of the 2023 NWSL Shield (given to the top regular season team) and the regular season runnersup.
Is there a break for the World Cup?
Yes, but only for the regular season. NWSL will pause its regular season after the July 7-9 round of fixtures, and will not resume until the weekend of August 18-20.
The Challenge Cup, however, will play nearly half of its group-stage games during that span.
The 2023 World Cup begins on July 20, and will run until August 20. While it’s not entirely clear how long U.S. women’s national team players will be gone (for major tournaments, U.S. Soccer generally manages to convince clubs to release players before Fifamandated deadlines), it is likely that a USWNT run to the final will result in many players missing at least three rounds of regular season fixtures.
Oh right, the Challenge Cup. What’s happening there?
The Challenge Cup is back, but after intense criticism over a frankly unworkable and borderline dangerous schedule, it has been changed significantly.
Some things are still the same: the four-team groups based on geography from last season are still in place.
h East: NJ/NY Gotham FC, North Carolina Courage, Orlando Pride, Washington Spirit
h Central: Chicago Red Stars, Houston Dash, Kansas City Current, Racing Louisville
h West: Angel City FC, OL Reign, Portland Thorns, San Diego Wave.
Each group winner, and the group runner-up with the best record, will advance to single-game semifinals hosted by the team with the superior record on September 6. The final, hosted by the team with the best record between the two finalists, will take place just three days later on September 9.