Mary Lavelle was visiting her family’s home in Kenwood when three Girl Scouts knocked on the door.
Lavelle peered through the window, nervously the girls would be disappointed when she answered, and not her sister Rose.
Instead, Mary was greeted with exactly the opposite.
“How cool is it to be Rose Lavelle’s sister?” Asked the girls.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she replied with a smile.
Mary, 24, knows what her sister means to these girls, to Cincinnati, to women’s football, and most importantly, to the female athletes.
Lavelle’s key role in Team USA’s current Olympic soccer battle in Tokyo and in the 2019 US women’s national team championship has made her a household name for soccer fans across the country.
And a larger than life hometown hero here in Cincinnati.
More: Tokyo Olympics: Rose Lavelle in the Spotlight for USWNT Football
More: Tokyo Olympics: 5 Things You Should Know About USWNT Midfielder Rose Lavelle
But when he’s not on the international stage, Lavelle plays year-round for Tacomas OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League, the continually growing top women’s soccer league in the United States.
This league had its most successful year in 2020, Viewership increased by 493% and media coverage increased by 55.
So how come when Cincinnati has a professional men’s team, a big new stadium, a thirst for great football, and a claim to Rose Lavelle?, the city doesn’t have a professional women’s football club in the starting blocks?
Good question.
The history
First of all, professional women’s sport in Ohio has a checkered history.
Since Gordon Gund, the former owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, gave up ownership of the organization’s WNBA counterpart in 2003, professional women’s sports seem to have no home in Buckeye State. The Cleveland Comets represent the region in the National Pro Fastpitch League, but the state is not represented in the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBA), National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), or National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL).
In the meantime, the men’s teams of the NFL, MLB and MLS are of course also based in the state’s three major cities.
In Cincinnati, professional female athletes such as the Western & Southern Open and USWNT qualifiers or friendlies perform once a year, but a team that stays in town all year round has support and is not an inspiration to young athletes in the area realized.
So why not
In October 2019, Cincinnati FC President Jeff Berding sat down for a live interview with The Enquirer’s Beyond the Net Show, where he spoke about the potential of a NWSL team in Cincinnati.
“Are we interested? Yes. Have I had a few conversations? Yes. Is there anything to announce? No. Will there be (an extension) chase? No. When the time comes, I would share it with you, I think , it will just happen, “said Berding.
But will it?
“We still have a lot to do, so I want to make it clear: I don’t promise fans, ‘Take it to the bank, we’ll have NWSL.’ I’m not saying that, ”he emphasized. “Is our owner group and organization interested? One hundred percent. “
At the time of the interview, Berding said the club’s West End, now TQL, Stadium and Mercy Health Training Center, would be built with a future NWSL team in mind.
Now, almost two years later, FC Cincinnati turned it downa fresh one Interview about a future NWSL franchise landing here.
Instead, Berding made the following statement to the Enquirer:
“Football is a global and truly inclusive sport. As football ambassadors, we believe it is incredibly important to enable access to and participation in the sport at all levels. We are interested in women’s football and are planning a due diligence on what it takes to offer a program at both youth and professional level. “
Berding’s unspecific answer suggests the caution of NWSL expansion.
Jeff Kassouf founded Equalizer football 2009 to fill the gap in women’s football coverage. Kassouf reports extensively on each expansion of the NWSL and is familiar with the Cincinnati proposal.
“I know that Cincinnati has been talked about and the fans have been loud about it,” Kassouf told The Enquirer. “I’m always a little skeptical of clubs that say they will soon because I’ve heard this many times from a lot of clubs, but I know that they tease things that I think is the best way to put it . “
Kassouf said the expansion of the NWSL should be cautiously pursued as it has not been easy to keep a league in the country. So far there have been two failed attempts to establish women’s football nationwide – the Women’s United Soccer Association (2000 to 2003, $ 100 million debt) and the Women’s Professional Soccer League (2007 to 2012, property lawsuit and lack of investment).
The NWSL, which was founded shortly thereafter, survived longer than its two predecessors. A key factor is the league’s partnership with US Soccer. That The United States Soccer Federation invested around $ 20 million in the NWSL since its inception. This distinguishes the NWSL from other women’s leagues, which instead rely on funding from their male colleagues.
In 2019, the NHL donated a paltry one $ 100,000 to the NWHL in an attempt to throw a life jacket into a limp league after its Canadian counterpart, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, collapsed due to a financial collapse.
As for the WNBA, this league stays afloat by being subsidized by the NBA with annual sales of $ 60 millionis dwarfed by that $ 7.4 billion in the NBA.
In January, the NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird announced that the US Football Association would no longer administer the NWSL, but Aspects of the partnership such as investments remain.
“USA Soccer was instrumental in getting this league off the ground while they were a long way off at WPS,” said Kassouf. “That support was really what I think the league got through in the first few years.”
The NWSL also remained extremely conservative when it came to spending. The league’s minimum salary for the first season was $ 6,000, a number that increased to $ 22,000 in 2021.
To put this payday in perspective, the minimum wage for MLS senior squad spots is $ 81,375, more than three times that of the NWSL. Players with the minimum salary in the MLS Reserve will earn $ 63,547.
Both MLS numbers are higher than the NWSL League’s 2021 Maximum Salary of $ 52,500 and are only a fraction of what athletes in the NBA, MLB, and NFL, the leagues ranked among all high-level professional organizations in terms of salary, earn are highest.
As for the expansion, the NWSL is gone from eight to ten teams since inception in 2012, with teams in Los Angeles and San Diego en route for 2022.
The latter is just nine places ahead of Cincinnati in Nielsen TV market size rankings from Sports Media Watch. Unlike San Diego, Cincinnati already has an established MLS franchise in the city.
Good foundation
Becky Dean recalls when Rose Lavelle returned to a soccer practice at Mount Notre Dame High School just before the 2019 World Cup. Lavelle played goalkeeper on the field and role model next to it.
“To see people in a position of power, to have a role to look up to, and to see someone who looks like me, the sport I do now is at the highest possible level (is huge),” said Dean . “To have this role model, but to have a team based in Cincinnati would be so cool.”
Dean now plays soccer at Butler University and represents her hometown at Cincinnati Sirens FC.
That Sirens compete in the Women’s Premier Soccer League, an amateur league of the NWSL’s second division.
Sirens owner John Vogt received the WPSL franchise in 2014. Athletes on the Cincinnati Sirens are not paid, and the salary would be one of the main differences in a potential NWSL team.
Still, Sirens head coach Bridgit Reder said the goal is for the club to function as professionally as possible.
“When the day comes that Cincinnati puts a women’s team in the NWSL, we can say, ‘Hey, just take what we’ve already built,'” said Reder. “We want to be in Jeff Berding’s back pocket in the future. When the FCC decides to set up a women’s team, we want to be the first call that says, ‘It’s already ready for you’.”
Vogt and Reder both train girls’ soccer at Lakota West High School, which makes them known to the up and coming talent in the area. You have seen it first handthe thirst for a professional team that sets a good example.
Heather Mitts, who has won three gold medals in U.S. women’s football and is from Cincinnati, said she sees an NWSL team in town thriving.
“You have seen how successful Cincinnati FC is and how much the fans have supported it,” said Mitts. “It really makes the most sense to finally get a women’s team and I think it will happen.”
When Mary Lavelle thinks of a potential women’s soccer team in Cincinnati, she thinks back to them USWNT’s friendly game at Nippert Stadium 2017 and how much it meant to her sister to play in front of an audience in her hometown.
“She (Rose) absolutely loves Cincinnati, so I think she’d love nothing more than to be able to play outside of town and honestly just live here,” said Mary. “Of course, she will take every opportunity that presents itself.” Wise, but I know that would be really important to her. “
Sirens player Christy Zwolski thinks the city may be ready for a new, new team.
“I think the city is ready for any kind of women’s team, really and one that wins,” said Zwolski.
And maybe the team is already there, just waiting to thrive on the national stage.
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