The National Women's Soccer League

National Women's Soccer League

Almost as soon as the WPS folded, discussions began about starting yet another league. In late June 2012, Gulati and a couple of owners from the WPS, including Arnim Whisler, owner of the Chicago Red Stars, as well as representatives from MLS, U.S. Soccer, and the USWNT, gathered in Chicago. While not at the meeting, MLS Commissioner Don Garber indicated that he was in support of a new professional women's league.

During the meeting, Gulati stated that in order to create a sustainable professional women's soccer league, stability had to come before growth. "It wasn't about growth," he recounted. "It wasn't about becoming a national league. It was about being around the following year and the following year and the following year". With no profitable professional U.S. women's sports league as a benchmark, and two failed professional women's soccer leagues, the group had no successful model as a guide.

As they drew up the blueprints for the new league at that first meeting, including rules, early schedule, and compensation structure, the group made two critical decisions that it believed would help the new league eventually become sustainable. The first decision came from a concept floated by Gulati. His idea was that U.S. Soccer would pay the salaries of up to 24 allocated national team players who competed in the new league – an amount that was more than $1.4 million in 2019. These players' salaries would include their guaranteed pay as members of USWNT plus a NWSL salary. The Canadian Soccer Association and the Mexican Football Federation would also be a part of the league and fund their national team players like U.S. Soccer.  These players would be under contract with U.S. Soccer, the CSA, or the FMF, not the NWSL. Recalling how "wild" the idea was when he proposed it, Gulati said, "My CEO at the time, if he had been close enough to me, he would have kicked me very hard under the table because, A, he and I hadn't talked about it, and B, he's the guy that's got to manage the money and make things work". But Gulati's idea was quickly agreed to by owners. As he noted, "The equivalent is you're running a for-profit, but you've lost money every year, and the government walks in and says, 'Hey, we're going to subsidize this thing in a big way,' that damn well better be a eureka moment. Everybody better like it, or they need their heads examined, right?" In addition to paying the salaries of allocated players, U.S. Soccer would pay for and manage the league's front office, including work pertaining to sponsorships and marketing, operations, player affairs, communications, and legal.

The second critical decision: structure the league as a single entity like the MLS and former WUSA. With the financial backing of U.S. Soccer from its founding, the new league was set up to control operational costs relative to expected revenue. League profits would be shared with the teams.

The financial and logistical role played by U.S. Soccer, in addition to the tight spending controls, helped ease the doubts of the league's eight initial investors. Out of those eight, a few were holdovers from the previous league - Arnim Whisler and Merritt Paulsen - and three, including Paulsen, also owned MLS teams. Paulson owned the Portland Thorns in the NWSL and Portland Timbers in the MLS. The investor group understood they would lose money, at least at the beginning. They recognized that in order for the league to succeed they would have to be in it for the long term.

On April 13, 2013, the first game of the NWSL featured the Portland Thorns and FC Kansas City. The sold-out match drew nearly 6,800 fans and ended in a 1-1 draw.