When U.S. Soccer awarded USL Super League Division I status in accordance with Professional League Standards on February 9, 2024, league president Amanda Vandervort was already anticipating the ensuing headlines.
Would her new league be competition for the existing NWSL?
The USL Super League’s proposal checked all the boxes, establishing a baseline operational standard that met the federation’s highest level of requirements. Super League teams will play in venues that can hold at least 5,000 fans instead of the second-division requirement of 2,000; a club’s principal owner must have an individual net worth of $15million instead of $7.5million; the combined net worth of ownership must be at least $25million instead of that $7.5million minimum.
It was a move to minimize the potential for substandard club operations. However, the fact that U.S. Soccer has now awarded Division I sanctioning to two leagues begged comparisons.
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Fast-forward to late May and Vandervort is seated behind her desk at USL headquarters in Tampa. Over three months have passed from the sanctioning decision until that day’s conversation with The Athletic. Much of what will make the Super League distinct (and familiar, in cases like professionalism) has begun to come into focus.
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“I think that the narrative will become about the Super League and what it delivers once you see the product — once it’s live,” Vandervort told The Athletic. “The NWSL has been incredibly successful, and look where they are after 12 seasons. They’ve had 12 years to build and grow to where they are. I have nothing but compliments and confidence for them.
“We’re just launching the Super League this year and we’re doing it differently. I think that people will start to see the Super League not in a comparative way but this is why the Super League is. This is what we’re delivering for the players, for the communities, for the cities that we’re in. It just looks different. Hopefully, that focus becomes more about who, when, what and why we are — because I think we’re doing something innovative and special and looking towards the future.”
The 2024-25 regular season will kick off on August 17, seven days after the gold-medal match for Olympic women’s soccer. It also comes over six months after the nation learned that the Super League would operate as a sanctioned first division.
“It feels like it’s part of the journey and part of the process to make sure that we’re launching successfully,” Vandervort said of the runway to the season opener. “We just think of ourselves on the international calendar, so it makes sense to us that the WSL just completed, that almost all the leagues around the world are just completing their season. For us, we feel really in tune with that. Bringing players into preseason on July 1 is right on schedule for us. I wouldn’t call this at all any kind of break or delay or slowdown — in fact, I feel like we’re ramping up right into August.
Since its announcement, the Super League has had to contend for attention with the dawn of the USWNT’s Emma Hayes era, the ongoing 2024 NWSL season and fans’ habitual following of various competitions that are more established in the sport’s zeitgeist. There have been major announcements, however. In mid-June, the USL announced that every Super League game will be streamed on Peacock in a multi-year agreement.
The Official Home of the USL Super League is here 📺
We are proud to announce a multi-year broadcast agreement with @NBCUniversal's @peacock to stream every regular season and playoff match of our inaugural season.
➡️ https://t.co/QP79jlZcWk pic.twitter.com/VSYpGSdztl
— USL Super League (@USLSuperLeague) June 13, 2024
Teams have also gradually announced roster additions. Vandervort made a point of personally calling each club’s first signing, as well as other players who are joining the league’s nascent ranks.
“There’s nothing but excitement from all these players,” Vandervort said. “The opportunity that they have — a lot of them are coming home to play in their hometowns. A lot of them might have been Americans playing abroad that want to return to the United States. A lot of them are top collegiate players who want to play and negotiate with a club directly rather than be drafted into a league system. Their questions have been more like, ‘When can we get started?’ rather than questions about the league itself.”
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For decades, and especially in the NWSL era, there has only been one sustainable pathway for players to get into the professional ranks stateside. That pathway doubles as a grueling funnel: a 2024 study published by the NCAA said there were 377,838 high school girls playing soccer in 2022-23. That same year, 29,959 women participated in NCAA soccer’s three divisions — 7.9 per cent of the high-school figure.
Currently, there are only 14 NWSL clubs, and each can carry up to 26 players on their roster. That leaves just 364 jobs available for the top performers among those 29,959 college athletes. Of course, turnover for those openings isn’t a wholesale annual occurrence, and there’s competition for those positions well beyond the NCAA’s ranks. Of the 56 players selected in the 2024 NWSL Draft, only 35 have participated in a game this season.
“Today, there are 14 professional women’s soccer teams in the country,” Vandervort said. “There’s a delta there that needs to be filled — because if we don’t, we’re gonna fall behind.
“Hopefully, we start to see a change and a shift going forward, but we’ve got to fill that gap. In order to create competitive environments for these players on a day-in, day-out basis, to not only give them the opportunity to reach the national team level, but make the other people around them better consistently. That’s, I think, going to drive the future.”
The Super League enters atop the USL’s growing women’s soccer pyramid, atop the W League and its academy program. The W League provides pre-professional opportunities for players in the summer, having kicked off in 2022 with 44 teams. The 2024 regular season concluded on June 30, with 80 teams participating.
Vandervort said that the first two seasons of W League rosters included 70 players who have since gone pro. The league already has a very prominent alumna: Hal Hershfelt, who spent a season apiece with the Greenville Liberty and Indy Eleven before being drafted fifth overall in 2024 by the Washington Spirit. Hershfelt has been among the league’s best rookies, and was selected by Hayes as an alternate for the United States’ Olympic roster.
“That, to us, is an indication that these players are hungry for the pro game,” Vandervort said. “They want an opportunity, but historically, the collegiate system doesn’t facilitate that pathway. That really has been the pinnacle of women’s soccer in the United States for so long, but the model is shifting as collegiate soccer is shifting. We believe that the academy, the W League and the Super League offer a pathway for players that want to go pro in a succinct and direct manner.”
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As for roster and player specifics, Vandervort gave plenty of updates. The league has a standard 12-month player agreement, with the term mirroring the league’s calendar from July 1 to June 30. Teams must field at least 20 players, but there’s no cap on roster size or combined player wages — that is, no salary cap. Vandervort didn’t specify what minimum player compensation will be, but said it was “comparable to the NWSL.”
Teams will have seven international roster slots, per U.S. Soccer’s determination — although the league hoped it could incorporate a high number of international slots. (“I think that globalization of the sport has facilitated a need for more international slots in the United States.”)
Domestic players will be signed to either professional contracts or academy contracts. Teams can have up to five players on academy contracts, meaning the players are amateurs, thus retaining their eligibility. USL Academy signings have been part of the USL’s men’s leagues for more than a decade. It’s also likely that fans of W League teams will see familiar faces lining up in the Super League as it provides more opportunities for aspiring pro players.
Although players in the men’s leagues have a recognized union, the USL Players Association, Super League players will not be folded into that group.
“We didn’t work with the (USL Players Association) because they don’t represent the women in the Super League…” Vandervort said, “…yet.
“We don’t know how the women will choose to organize, so we’re excited about having those conversations with the players when they do organize. Obviously, given my experience with FIFPro and that kind of union movement, I’m a big advocate for having players’ voices at the table as we build this league.”
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The start of the regular season may be right on time according to the league’s calendar, but fans will still have to wait to see the concept of the Super League become actualized. Olympic women’s soccer will double as a countdown to kickoff.
From August 17 onward, attention will shift from sanctioning decisions to on-field play. That debut will give plenty of other ways for Vandervort to assess the success of the Super League’s first season, but there’s one measure that remains above the rest.
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“I want to know that the players have a great experience,” Vandervort said. “We’ll have a player survey that goes out at the end of the year. We want to know you know where the challenges have been for them, where the opportunities are, and that they’ve had a great experience.
“I really do believe we’re building a players’ league. If you can start year one with the player experience in mind, I expect long-term sustainability going forward. That’s really where we put a lot of our emphasis and focus.”
(Photo: USL Super League)
