Fans, Forward and a Decade of NWSL

The 2022 NWSL championship fell on Halloween weekend, and despite the costumed skeletons, minions and astronauts milling around Audi Field before the game, the best fan garb was, arguably, Crystal Dunn socks.

Dunn-- who, just five months after giving birth to her son, put the Portland Thorns through to the final with a 94th-minute goal in their semifinal against San Diego-- was a fan-favorite player at the pregame FanFest, hosted just steps from Washington DC’s Audi Field. “Get it Dunn,” read two fans’ shirts.

At the FanFest, we talked to fans of both teams who traveled across the country to watch their teams play live, plus impartial NWSL followers rooting simply for the chaos of a 3-2 match and players coming out to celebrate the league’s 10th anniversary. Our talks? All about what being one of the 17,000-plus spectators at Audi Field meant to them.

Lindsay and Eric Roach spent seven hours sleeping in the Denver airport, in-between their flight from Kansas City and their final leg to DC. They landed in DC the morning of the final. “24 hours in DC,” Eric said. Katie Fortuna and Jon Holloway rescheduled a trip to New York to include a stop in DC-- they landed in New York and got on a train to complete twenty hours of traveling, Holloway said. 

The game itself saw 2-0 win for the Portland Thorns over the Kansas City Current, thanks to an early breakaway goal from Championship MVP Sophia Smith (followed by an instantly-iconic Jordan-shrug celebration) and an insurance own goal early in the second half, coming off a cross from Portland’s Yazmeen Ryan. Current keeper AD Franch had a few big saves, but the Kansas City struggled offensively, recording zero shots on frame.

This win was Portland’s third NWSL title, a league record. The game was also the league’s first prime-time final, broadcast on CBS Sports, and the most-watched NWSL game in history, with 915,000 viewers up against a World Series game and college football. That’s a 71% increase from the amount of viewers who watched the Washington Spirit beat the Chicago Red Stars in 2021.

Beyond also winning a championship, Portland’s situation this season was somewhat similar to Washington’s. Last year, in 2021, the Washington Spirit won its first NWSL title to cap off a tumultuous season that saw its coach fired for allegations of verbal abuse, emotional abuse and racism and subsequent demands for ownership change. 

This year, Portland and its soccer community-- and the NWSL community at large-- are reckoning with the results of the Yates report, an investigation into sexual misconduct and abusive behavior in professional women’s soccer. Portland’s owner, president of soccer, and president of business were all named in the report, with the Thorns front office accused of protecting coach Paul Riley after he was fired from the Thorns for-cause. 

President of soccer Gavin Wilkinson and president of business Mike Golub were both dismissed, while owner Merritt Paulson stepped back from decision-making CEO duties but remains the owner of the club, despite calls to sell the team. He wasn’t in attendance at the final.

Fortuna and Holloway have been Portland Thorns season ticket holders since 2016. Holloway, sitting outside Gate A at Audi Field, just outside the FanFest, sported a jacket covered with an impressive amount of Thorns and Timbers patches. He wore his love of the team on his sleeve-- literally-- but knew that, in Portland, change is necessary.

Holloway and Fortuna are involved in the group Soccer City Accountability Now, which has been organizing protests for Paulson to sell Portland’s soccer teams. There’s been debates about how supporters groups should attend-- or not attend-- games in order to send messages to club ownership. SCAN’s messaging of choice, for the final, included bringing protest signs to the final in DC, and several in the stands made it on television, with bold letters reading, “Merritt Paulson protects abusers” and “Thank you, Mana,” the latter in reference to the former Portland player who first reported Riley. Shim was recently appointed leader of the US Soccer task force to prevent abuse.

“When it comes to match time, we're in it for the players, 100%,” said Holloway. “It's not about the owners, it's not about the front office, it's about what the club means to the city… The players obviously have been impacted more than anybody, but it's hit the entire community of Portland really hard in the entire league really hard… I think the players have gone through so much, then it'd be really awesome for us to celebrate [a title] as club and community together. Our owner is not here, and that says something.”

Portland has, across the NWSL’s history, led the league in average game attendance and has seen especially enthusiastic fan support. This history, Holloway said, furthers the need for change.

“We're not going to give up the fight,” Holloway said. “We have to get a change in ownership… Portland is always at the forefront. We won the first [NWSL] championship. We've been one of the top teams the entire way through, and so we need to be an influence. We need to set that bar high [for] the rest of the league consistently.”

Ownership also was a hot topic of conversation for Kansas City fans. Early iterations of the Current saw their own share of mismanagement. Kansas City’s first NWSL team, FCKC, won two early NWSL titles in 2014 and 2015 but dissolved and had players transferred to Utah Royals FC, with new ownership in Salt Lake City. This was after an owner allegedly sent “sexist and demeaning” emails about players, per SB Nation. Another, who was based out of Minnesota, was accused of being absent, with the club on an insufficient budget. 

“That broke my heart,” said Melissa Ireland, one of four Kansas City fans who traveled from Missouri to DC. They group has been rooting for Kansas City women’s soccer since FCKC. “That hurt, especially because it was due to bad management. Amazing talent. Bad manager.”

Utah owner Dell Roy Hansen, whose misconduct was named in the Yates investigation as well, sold the team in 2020 after allegations of racist and sexist language and a toxic workplace environment. 

That December, the team was back in Kansas City-- soon to be named the KC Current, with new branding and ownership under Angie and Chris Long and co-owner Brittany Mahomes. 

Today, the community perception is that Kansas City management is anything but absentee, Current fans and family members told us. At the pregame FanFest, I spoke with Current defender Kristen Edmonds’ parents, who had driven down from New Jersey for the game.

“[They’re like] no ownership in the league,” Dan Edmonds said. “The facilities are second to none. They're actually treated like pros, like you would see on the men's side, and these players are bonded. I've just never seen her be on a team with players as close as they are.”

The Current have been making waves-- pun not intended, but indulged-- with its training facilities and upcoming stadium. A new $18 million training facility opened in June. The Current’s $120 million riverfront stadium, the first to be built specifically for an NWSL team, will open in 2024.

“If you manage a business to not lose too much money, you’re not managing a business to maximize,” Current owner Angie Long told The Athletic. “I think that in the history of the league, there’s just been a lot more of that, like, ‘well, let’s just not lose too much money.’”

As for the fan support: Kansas City was the top TV market for the final, leading United States viewership. The other pro sports teams in Kansas City sent the Current a video wishing them luck before the game, and there was an impressive amount of teal lined up to take penalty kicks and buy merchandise at the FanFest.

“Kansas City knows that we have a team now,” said Current fan Crystal Smotherman.

“We have our ‘red Fridays’ at work, and it’s usually [people wearing merchandise for] the [Kansas City] Chiefs, and I've been supporting my Current, all year,” Lindsey Roach said. “I've had a few people talking to me about it. I'm hoping more and more.”

“The entire town is lit up in teal,” Dan said. 

Not every fan in attendance had to travel across the country to watch the game and enjoy DC’s peak fall foliage, though.

Emily Sedlak and Andrew K. are Spirit fans from Richmond, in attendance to see who would inherit the title of NWSL Champions after Washington. Andrew said that, last year, a friend’s wedding fell on the day of the championship in Louisville, so the pair didn’t go, but: 

“I was in the wedding party [and] on my phone watching,” Andrew said.

Spirit fans have seen first-hand the impact of a new owner on a team’s investment.

“I think it's awesome to see Michelle Kang is the owner [of the Spirit] now,” Sedlak said. “It's been great to see more sponsorship, especially sponsors supporting the players directly… I love to see that as a fan.”

A Spirit season ticket holder but repping Portland for a friend who couldn’t make the trip to DC, Laura Heaven-- the owner of the Crystal Dunn socks-- said that ownership can influence who turns out to games-- even for longtime fans. Heaven has been following DC women’s soccer since the Washington Freedom days of the WPS.

“We have definitely thought about being season ticket holders again or not,” Heaven said. “I think we were not going to until Michelle Kang took full ownership, and then we decided to go ahead and renew. So definitely, [it’s] struggling with the idea of how to support the players with the problematic league. In the end, we decided, especially since we feel good about the way ownership went, that we could support.”

Luci Finucan and Vicky Baker, coming to the game from Pennsylvania and Maryland, respectively, wanted  just “a good game,” Baker said. “I just want chaos,” said Finucan. “That's all I want. It’s NWSL. We're gonna get chaos. We're gonna get drama.”

They too looked at the Yates report from the perspective of Washington Spirit familiars.

“'I’ve been a Spirit fan, so it's sort of like, we've been knew,” Finucan said. “We're here for the players. You know, not here for the assholes.”

For Baker, being “here for the players” means specifically supporting the NWSL Players Association and the Black Women’s Players Collective. “Monetarily, I've definitely put more money towards that as opposed to just buying tickets,” Baker said. 

The pair, which both began following the NWSL more closely after the United States’ victory at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, were hoping for another Dunn goal. “I scared my cat when that happened [in the semifinal],” Finucan said. “My cat went under a table.”

Cara, a San Diego fan from New York, also started following women’s soccer after 2019-- specifically, Alex Morgan’s five-goal performance against Thailand in the 2019 World Cup. Cara called it “an embarrassingly basic introduction to soccer,” but, hey, the NWSL’s fan growth comes from somewhere. 

“The 2019 Women's World Cup was like the first soccer I'd ever watched,” Cara said. “I was like, [Morgan] seems great, and rooting for her has not led me wrong. I think San Diego as a whole is a great, fun team.”

The San Diego Wave, which reached the semifinals in its first year in the league, set the record for NWSL single-game attendance in September, with 32,000 people watching the Wave’s 1-0 win over northern neighbors Angel City FC.

“I'll say that the [new expansion] California teams have brought a lot of media attention to the league as a whole, which has just been great for every team in the league,” said Madison Lee, a Spirit fan.

At the final, there were some spectators especially familiar with the NWSL-- experts, in fact. Current and former players milled about. We saw Tziarra King in the stands. I was able to introduce myself to Tori Huster for the first time in-person, after a Zoom interview last year. Midge Purce provided game analysis for CBS. I think I saw a player putting ketchup on a hotdog at concessions. There were players in attendance to receive recognition for their time in the league, players traveling from afar to watch the game, and, of course, plenty of local Washington Spirit players.

2021 NWSL Champion and Golden Boot winner Ashley Hatch was one of those players attending the FanFest before kickoff. Her score prediction-- 3-2, Kansas City-- was a popular pregame prediction scoreline. The people wanted chaos. 

“I’m super stoked [to have the championship in DC],” Hatch said. “I think it’s a great city, and we need to have more events like this here… There’s so many people here… It makes you excited for the future.”

“I was playing [in the final last year], so it’s different to be on this side of things, but it’s fun and it's really cool to experience. Obviously, I’d much rather be on the field, but I’m excited to be here and support Kansas City and Portland and the league in general.”

When writing about the 2021 NWSL final in Louisville, I began my half-article, half-essay with a contrived anecdote about a big purple bus that belonged to the Louisville supporters’ group. This year, I spared you the pain until the end, with an equally far-fetched metaphor: this one, about someone dressed up as George Washington.

Before the FanFest, I emerged from the underground metro station at Navy Yard around 4 p.m. About a half-mile from the stadium, there were plenty of fans wearing Kansas City scarves, and a whole group in Kellie Hubly Portland jerseys. But there were also Halloween revelers dressed as construction workers, or Buzz and Woody, or PBS’ Arthur. 

Across from Nationals’ Stadium, two costumed onlookers stood on an apartment balcony, drinks in hand, looking down at the street below. They were dressed in long colonial coats. “Thomas Jefferson!” someone on the street shouted up at them, enthusiastic.

“No, I’m Benjamin Franklin!” one yelled down, laughing.

“And I’m George Washington!” said the other. “Know your history!”

Know your history. I had been thinking about NWSL history that day (see: exhausting metaphorical tie-in. You made it.). The first-ever NWSL game took place on April 12, 2013, between the Portland Thorns and KC Current’s predecessor, FC Kansas City, before FCKC had spent a brief stint in Utah as Royals FC. The match, a 1-1 draw, took place in an overflowing high school football stadium in front of just under 6,800 fans. The teams’ coaches at the time? You may recognize their names. Vlatko Andonovski for FCKC, now USWNT head coach, and Cindy Parlow Cone for Portland, now USSF president.

The NWSL has seen growth and change in the past 10 years-- that’s obvious. Twenty-one players had been in the league for every season of it, there to see that progression. Those inaugural players were honored at a pregame ceremony on Saturday, given commemorative jackets with patches of the logo for each team they’d played for. Other players that shone this season were new to the scene-- Rookies of the Year in contention for MVP (see: Naomi Girma) and 22-year-olds winning MVP (see: Sophia Smith).

Some followers of the league-- including myself-- are younger than these new faces. The league’s history has been our childhood, or our teenage years. In my case, we’ve grown from elementary schoolers playing peewee soccer to starry-eyed preteens watching Jane Campbell and the Houston Dash and theorizing how we’d make it in the league ourselves to realizing that maybe we’re more cut out for this writing and reporting thing and that the league isn’t the picture-perfect place that a young fan might first believe. But it could be. Current and past players are working for a better future for the players to come. 

Lola McArthur, who flew from Portland to the final with her mom, Shannon, just played her last high school soccer game. She’s only a few years younger than me. She began playing soccer when she was six, then rooting for the Thorns shortly after. She cheered for Franch, when she was with Portland, then sadly watched her move to Kansas City. She loves Meghan Klingenberg, too. The NWSL has been around for more than half of her life, for nearly the entirety of her soccer career. She and her mom watched as Portland players stepped forward and spoke out about harassment in the league.

“A lot of our players were at the forefront of this issue,” Shannon said. “We saw Franch and her wife and her daughter at the hotel. This is for women. We have babies, we need to be supported when our bodies are healing. We shouldn't be expected to slam back there. We shouldn't be afraid to be sexually assaulted or harassed or bullied at our job. Anywhere.”

A decade after the NWSL’s first game, those same cities in the matchup were facing off again in the league’s tenth final. Christine Sinclair and Becky Saurbrunn, opponents in the inaugural NWSL game, took the field again, this time both for Portland. All four playoff games leading up to the final had cleared 20,000 in-person spectators; the final passed 17,000. 

“[Increasing attendance] makes the sell so much easier,” Cara said. “It's like, ‘Hey, I'm going to this game. Do you want to come with me? It'll be really fun, there’s going to be a lot of people, they're gonna be really excited.’ And that's just so much more exciting for a neutral [spectator] than just like, ‘Hey… there may be people there, there may not be, I'm not sure. We can buy beer, we'll see how it goes.’ It's just so much more fun when it's like a movie full, a theater full of people.”

The league had spent the past year seeing growth in attendance and viewership, looking to expand to more cities, but also reckoning with the systemic abuses revealed in the Yates report. 

That history doesn’t go away just by looking forward, turning blinders on, and ignoring the players harmed, the warning signs ignored, and the abusers protected. But, there’s also a need to look forward to see the type of league that the NWSL could be, the league that it should be, for the players and fans. Both of those truths were present at the 2022 final in DC, and both of those truths will undoubtedly shape the next decade of NWSL soccer.