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The National Women's Soccer League

U.S. Women's Professional Soccer Leagues

Women's Professional Soccer League

Just four years later, right on the cusp of what would become a global financial crisis, a new league was founded, and in 2009 the 7-team Women's Professional Soccer League (WPS) began to play. Different from the single entity structure of the WUSA, the WPS was built on a franchise model. Investors could buy a team from the league for $1.5 million and solely own and operate it. The league provided governance and oversight. To keep spending under control, the WPS implemented a $565,000 salary cap for the league's inaugural season.

Like its predecessor, the league never found economic stability. Each season saw the introduction of new teams and the collapse of established ones. In addition, the WPS was involved in a public dispute with controversial team owner Daniel Borislow, founder of magicJack, who filed two lawsuits against the league.  Due to WPS policy infractions, the league's Board of Governors terminated his franchise after the 2011 season. The 7-team league eventually became five and folded a few months after announcing the cancellation of its 2012 season due to financial troubles.  As Sunil Gulati, who was president of U.S. Soccer at the time, explained, "You needed really deep-pocketed investors who were willing to do this for a very long period of time and absorb huge losses coupled with a realistic economic model. The key is to have those two things merge".

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  • line 7225 of /lib/moodlelib.php: call to debugging()
  • line 7292 of /lib/moodlelib.php: call to {closure}()
  • line 71 of /lib/classes/hook/output/before_footer_html_generation.php: call to get_plugins_with_function()
  • line 987 of /lib/classes/output/core_renderer.php: call to core\hook\output\before_footer_html_generation->process_legacy_callbacks()
  • line 97 of /mod/book/tool/print/index.php: call to core\output\core_renderer->footer()