Culture
NWSL infrastructure is the ‘hardest problem to solve’. Here’s how things stand around the league
All eyes will be on Kansas City, Missouri this weekend when the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit face off in the NWSL championship on Sunday. In a way, it will bring the season full circle with CPKC Stadium hosting an action-packed finale.
The stadium’s opening in March marked a historic moment for the NWSL, raising the standard for a club’s stadium experience. With its 11,500-seat capacity, the Current became the first NWSL club to sell out every home game in the regular season.
Although privately financing a stadium might be an unrealistic goal for some clubs, or even an unnecessary one, what the Current has accomplished with CPKC Stadium makes room for a larger conversation about infrastructure in the NWSL. Last year, league commissioner Jessica Berman described that as “probably the hardest problem to solve long-term, and one of the most important problems for us to solve as soon as possible”.
That being the case, The Athletic has taken stock of some of the biggest infrastructure-related wins and losses of the 2024 season.
Most teams are using shared facilities
Nine NWSL clubs in the 2024 season shared a venue with an MLS club. That will increase to 10 teams next year as a new MLS team comes to San Diego. Four teams share training facilities, too. Some teams also share space with a lower-division men’s team, from MLS Next Pro or USL for example.
The only team not to share its venue was the Kansas City Current, which largely used private financing to build its own stadium and training facilities.
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While sharing resources has its upsides, there can also be friction between teams. Take the disagreement between DC United and the Spirit over their long-term deal in 2021, forcing the Spirit to train at a local high school while the matter was resolved.
Three years later, the Spirit is now in a very different place, heading to another NWSL championship after winning its first title in 2021. It now has American businesswoman Michele Kang as majority owner, and Audi Field is its full-time home venue after splitting time between multiple stadiums in previous seasons. This year the Spirit sold out three matches, with its semi-final win against NJ/NY Gotham drawing 19,365 fans.
Rodman celebrates during the 2024 NWSL Playoffs semi-final match at a sold-out Audi Field (Amber Searls / Imagn Images)
Kang has not been shy about expressing her goal of Spirit one day having its own facility. This seems especially pressing now, given that USL Super League’s DC Power, partly owned by DC United, also calls Audi Field home.
In other instances, as for Racing Louisville and USL club Louisville City, having a shared facility means also sharing ownership, which makes it easier to make last-minute decisions, like when deciding to offer your venue as an alternate with only a few days’ notice.
Issues of being a tenant, and not an owner
Earlier this month, San Diego Wave FC was forced to move its final home match of the regular season across the U.S. to the aforementioned Louisville at Lynn Family Stadium because of poor playing conditions at its home, Snapdragon Stadium.
“The safety and wellbeing of all players is our top priority, and the current field conditions at Snapdragon Stadium, which are the responsibility of a third party, have not met the standards required for a safe playing environment,” the club said in a statement.
The Wave had a series of planned celebrations, including a fan appreciation night, a ceremony for Emily Van Egmond’s 100th NWSL appearance and a ceremony for Alex Morgan’s retirement. All of which had to be moved following the venue switch. Morgan’s celebration will happen next year. The venue also will host two games in the SheBelieves Cup in February.
Megan Rapinoe sustained an ACL injury during the first half of the 2023 NWSL Championship match at Snapdragon Stadium (Orlando Ramirez / Imagn Images)
Field issues in San Diego are not new, with multiple season-ending injuries for NWSL players happening at Snapdragon last year, including Megan Rapinoe’s injury in the early moments of the 2023 NWSL championship. These issues extended into the 2024 season, with former interim coach Landon Donovan saying that “outside of replacing the whole field” there was little to be done to remedy the issue.
Because the Wave is only a tenant, it has limited say over what San Diego State University does and soon cedes next priority to MLS expansion team San Diego FC.
The MLS team will have priority in scheduling, despite the Wave having a loyal fanbase and averaging 19,575 fans per game. Only one other women’s team in the world averages higher attendance, according to the club: Arsenal Women in the Women’s Super League. The university’s contract with the MLS club, though, specifies there will be an annual meeting at the start of each contract year to discuss topics such as “stadium maintenance and capital improvement plans” and “field of play quality”.
The crowding at Snapdragon has led at least one team, the professional rugby team San Diego Legion, to relocate in the new year. The team announced Tuesday it would move to the 6,000-seat Torero Stadium to make way for more weekend home matches.
Public land and public funds – or private financing?
A similar availability snafu happened in Chicago, when the punk rock festival Riot Fest announced it would be held at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois, on the same day as a home game for the Chicago Red Stars. The stadium is publicly owned by the Village of Bridgeview, and the hope was that both events would happen concurrently.
“It is unfair and unfortunate to have our club put in this situation, shining a light on the vast discrepancies in the treatment of women’s professional sports versus men’s professional sports,” Red Stars president Karen Leetzow said at the time.
The problem resolved when Riot Fest announced the festival would be relocating to Chicago proper, bringing an anticlimactic end to the months-long drama. The timing of this dilemma unraveled just after the Red Stars had packed Wrigley Field in a historic game against Bay FC on June 8.
Chicago hosted Bay FC at Wrigley Field in front of a record-breaking crowd. (Daniel Bartel / Imagn Images)
While the Red Stars have been tenants of SeatGeek Stadium since 2016, and are contracted through the 2025 season, club leadership has been outspoken about wanting to find a home closer to Chicago.
“Every week, we’re meeting with influential people here in the city who can help us get this done,” Leetzow said in August. “I have a whole series of talking points I’ve been refining and honing throughout the summer and into the fall as the (state) legislators go back into session.”
The hope is for city officials to commit public funding to a women’s soccer stadium like they did to renovate Soldier Field, where MLS side Chicago Fire FC currently competes. That might be a tall ask, though, as the Chicago Bears and White Sox are also bidding for public funding for stadium projects.
The Chicago Fire said last month they are considering building a privately financed, soccer-specific stadium in the city, and had already toured three sites for the project. The MLS team left SeatGeek Stadium, which is 30 minutes outside the city, by paying $60.5 million to get the Fire out of its lease with the venue early in 2019 after Joe Mansueto acquired a controlling stake in the team.
What about training facilities?
Investing in better infrastructure also means investing in training facilities that will help develop and prepare players.
Last year, the Utah Royals unveiled multi-million-dollar expansion and remodelling plans for an NWSL-specific training site at their Zions Bank Real Academy, a 42-acre campus with several grass and indoor fields that houses the franchise’s clubs, including Real Salt Lake in MLS. The Pride and Houston Dash have similar, dedicated spaces with their MLS counterparts.
NWSL expansion club Bay FC announced in September plans to build a training facility in San Francisco’s Treasure Island neighborhood, slated to open in 2027.
“Having a permanent dedicated space that is built specifically for our players and football operations staff will allow us to continue to attract the best national and international talent and continue our Club’s mission of being a catalyst for innovation and change for our athletes and the community,” Bay FC chief executive Brady Stewart said at the time.
The news drew criticism, though, for the decision to develop an area with a history of hazardous waste.
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More recently, Angel City Football Club unveiled plans to relocate to a nine-acre site on the campus of California Lutheran University, where they plan to upgrade and remodel a 50,000-square-foot training center. The center was previously home of the Los Angeles Rams and will undergo a multimillion-dollar remodel entirely financed by the club, serving as the team’s home for up to four years.
“The size of this performance center is incredibly important, because not only can we provide the resources and staffing and tools that they need today, but we have enough room to grow and evolve,” Julie Uhrman, president and co-founder of Angel City told The Athletic. “So, if we extend beyond from a first team to a second team to Academy, we have the ability to grow.”
The new facility will be exclusively for Angel City and feature custom lockers for players, coaches and staff. Other custom features include a dedicated locker room for players under 18, a children’s playroom to support players and staff, an onsite studio for content creation, a custom boot wall and a private outdoor relaxation lounge.
“Our commitment is that we are going to build a permanent Performance Center for our players, and we’ve actively been working on that since 2020,” Uhrman said. “Wanting something that’s 10-plus acres is challenging and takes time, and while we’re doing that, we wanted to build the best temporary training facility that we could.”
That search for a permanent home remains a “work in progress”, she added. So far, the club has “identified a couple of locations that we’re really excited about.”
Where do things stand for expansion clubs?
The NWSL is growing, with plans to announce a 16th team before the end of the year. The latest expansion club is expected to begin playing in 2026 alongside Boston. While the league isn’t hinting at which direction it will go, it’s safe to assume that having a concrete plan for a team’s facilities and infrastructure could be a deciding factor.
The ownership group in Boston proposed renovating George R. White Stadium in Franklin Park for the team’s home venue, where BOS Nation FC will play. This would be secured through equity and involve a public-private partnership with Boston Public Schools, which would retain ownership of the stadium for its own use.
As for a potential 16th expansion team, one ownership group in Cleveland recently announced the joint purchase of 13.6 acres of state land to build a $150 million, 12,500-seat stadium on what is currently undeveloped land in the city’s downtown. Cleveland Soccer Group (CSG) plans to pursue a public-private partnership, similar to Boston’s thinking.
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“I think it’s really important because most stadiums in this country have had some public financing element to them,” Murphy said. “If you look back in the state of Ohio even, maybe over the past 30 years, there’s been about $2 billion spent in this state across Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, (and) other cities on men’s professional (sports), and over the same periods it’s been $0 for women.”
Big step forward for soccer in The Land! ⚽️
The Cleveland Metroparks just approved a 13.6-acre land deal for a proposed stadium, part of Cleveland Soccer Group’s efforts to secure an NWSL expansion team.
Team bid results expected later this year! pic.twitter.com/h5ukBVHtQI
— I’m From Cleveland (@ImFromCle) September 19, 2024
Cleveland Metroparks purchased the roughly $4.2 million state-owned property, where the stadium will sit, from the Ohio Department of Transportation. CSG will fund the purchase, with the stadium remaining publicly owned. The purchase of this property, though, is contingent on CSG being awarded the NWSL expansion bid.
Some other potential expansion groups, such as a campaign that launched in Nashville last month, have not shared specific details on their own facilities plans. The local MLS club, Nashville SC, has however expressed interest in potentially sharing their stadium, Geodis Park.
(Top photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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