NWSL Venue Crisis Highlights Continuous Issues in Women’s Sports

With as much progress as women’s sports have made in the past decade, it’s impressive how many obstacles that women’s sports leagues and college teams still face. But just because it’s impressive, doesn’t mean it’s shocking.

While Messi most definitely is an anomaly, the next three highest paid MLS players still each make more in one year than Macario will make through 2030. Obviously, the NWSL is a younger, smaller league than MLS, but that doesn’t mean the discrepancies have to be that drastic.

Now, as the NWSL playoffs are underway, we see these discrepancies manifest in a different way. As the seedings and game times between the top eight teams were decided, a recurring issue was discovered among the quarterfinal game slots. Of the six teams that had the possibility of hosting a quarterfinal match, three of them had a potential conflict in their home stadium.

Here’s what those conflicts look like:

Had San Diego won on Friday, the team would have faced a conflict with the San Diego State football program, as they were slated to take on Utah State on the evening of the 14th. The Wave’s home field, Snapdragon Stadium, is also home to both the Aztecs and San Diego FC, the city’s MLS team. As the Wave is the third tenant, the team does not have priority when it comes to scheduling, especially for games that aren’t necessarily guaranteed.

With a San Diego loss, the Spirit are next in line to host a semifinal game. However, the three seed also faced a potential conflict, with a DIII NCAA football game taking place at Audi Field on November 14th. Audi Field is owned by the team’s MLS counterpart, D.C. United, which means that the Spirit has little control over when and where they get to play. Until the quarterfinal games had concluded, the team had made plans to play the semifinal match at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland instead. Shortly after the Spirit had shut down Portland 4-1 on Sunday, however, it was confirmed that Washington would be able to play on Saturday within the walls of their own stadium, although the fate of the originally scheduled football game had not been released.

As expected, Gotham has made it to the semifinals, but getting there did not settle where that match would be played. As with the other two teams, Gotham’s home field is booked on November 14th. Instead of a college football game, however, there will be a friendly between Sports Illustrated Stadium’s primary tenant, the New York Red Bulls, and Mexico’s Club América. The organization had already planned to move to Icahn Stadium, which seats a mere 5,000 fans. Luckily, Gotham was able to avoid the conflict, as the Spirit were given the Saturday slot and Gotham was given the Sunday slot.

Unfortunately for the 2025 NWSL Champions, however, it just wouldn’t be that easy. Following the 1-0 win against Seattle, several complaints rose about the condition of the stadium’s field. Gotham had already been fined $10,000 for the conditions of the team’s regular season finale against Utah, a match played two days after the stadium hosted a rugby doubleheader, and an MLS game was staged on the same field the night before the quarterfinal. On Monday, Gotham confirmed the move to Icahn regardless of the lack of a schedule conflict.

Despite Gotham getting the Sunday slot and avoiding the conflict with the Red Bulls, there is still a massive issue at hand. The sheer amount of usage of the venue is taking away the team’s ability to use it even when it is available.

As the NWSL scrambled to make contingency plans, find alternative venues, and navigate TV slots, a clear issue reared its ugly head yet again. Despite all the national TV time, the big sponsorships, and revenue increases, women’s sports still aren’t a priority. This situation could have happened to literally any NWSL team, except for one. Only one professional women’s soccer team in the NWSL is not at the mercy of any other team’s schedule or field conditions.

Thanks to the organization’s ownership fully funding the Kansas City Current’s $140 million CPKC Stadium, the first venue in the world built primarily for a professional women’s team, the Current is effectively the only team in the NWSL that doesn’t have to deal with primary tenants and other teams leading to conflicting schedules and wear and tear on the field. Only Kansas City is in full control over what happens in Kansas City.

The problem is that Kansas City is an anomaly. CPKC Stadium was privately financed by owners Chris and Angie Long, with no help from the city or taxpayers. As a result, Kansas City has become one of the highest valued clubs in the league. But most other ownership groups are unlikely or unable to do the same. That doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for other teams though, as the Denver Summit, in its inaugural year, has already broken ground on a new stadium, which is mostly funded by ownership and partially funded by city grants. This path may be feasible for some teams in the near future, but it’s unclear how many clubs will actually be able to do so. Between ownership, city approval, and city funding, building a stadium for a women’s team is a tall ask.

This brings up one final, overarching issue, which is the general funding of women’s sports. As the scheduling issues arose, so did calls for more investment into the NWSL and women’s sports in general. Many claim that more money means more opportunity, more solutions to these problems. It’s hard to argue against that, as over two thirds of MLS teams, which on average make triple what NWSL teams make, are the primary tenant of their home stadium.

Moving forward, the biggest question is how that is going to happen.

Only time will have the answers to these questions, but until then, most NWSL clubs will be at the mercy of men’s sports teams and their schedules. Go figure.