#nwslwiki

How does US Soccer feel about this? source

How does the USWNT Players Association feel about this? source

How does the NWSL Players Association feel about this? source

What are the safety protocols? You can find the links for the PDFs detailed here.

Where is the official announcement?/What are the details? Here.

How can I watch? Games will be streamed on CBS All Access. You can get a 1-week free trial and one month costs only $6, so you can watch the whole tournament for $6! The opener and final will be aired on CBS as well as streamed on CBS All Access. source 

How do I get CBS All Access? Here.

Will this be the extent of the 2020 season? Most likely, yes. More on that in this twitter thread.

What does this mean for Season Ticket Holders? To see the options Sky Blue has set out, you can look here. If you are a season ticket holder, you have likely received an email from the club or will soon.

Do we know who all will play and who will opt out? Unknown as of now. All we know is that the Washington Spirit has confirmed everyone will play (source) and Dash players reportedly “all desperately want to play” (source)

Any other questions about the tournament? You can respond to this post or send me an ask and I will do my best to answer! For other information as I post it you can check my covid tourney 2020 tag 

what is the draft? the draft is where nwsl teams get to select former college players to play for their team in the following season.

when is it? the draft itself will take place on january 16th, 2020, at 11am et in baltimore, maryland. the list of eligible players should be finalized by/on january 15th because that is the last day players can declare for the draft.

will it be streamed? yes! streaming information has not been made available yet, but in previous years it was done through the league’s youtube page. 

if i live in the area, can i attend? if you’d like, sure. the draft is open to the public and the media. if you want more information about location, go here. 

how does it work? the nwsl college draft operates in a series of 4 rounds, with 9 “picks” per round (1 for each team).

how is order established? order is determined by the standings from the previous season. the last place team gets the first pick, second last place gets second, and so on. this order is repeated exactly for each round. ex. orlando was last place in the 2019 season and gets the first pick of each round for the 2020 draft. ncc was first place, so they get the last pick.

why doesn’t it look like that in the actual draft order? teams have traded their picks over the last few seasons. picks are traded by round before you know where they fall, referred to as a “natural pick”. natural in this case simply means wherever the pick ends up being based on that team’s standing in the season before. once the standings have been determined, you can know where the picks will be exactly and make more specific trades (ex. trade the “fifth pick in the draft” as opposed to just trading by round) ex. chicago recently traded their 2021 “second round natural pick” to utah in exchange for the rights to makenzy doniak. we don’t know where in the round that will be yet because we don’t know the results of the 2020 season. 

so teams can have more than one pick per round? yes, if they traded for it then they could have more than one pick per round.

actual draft order (as of now, january 5th, 2019) is this:

can this order still change? yes! teams are allowed to continue trading picks up until and even through the draft itself. 

what does the process look like? each round is composed of 9 picks. with each pick, the team gets a set amount of time to discuss at their table who they want to select as well as discuss possible trades they would like to make. the first round, each team gets 5 minutes for their pick and in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round the teams get 3 minutes for each pick. note:  this is how it was in the 2019 draft. i have not seen anything saying that this year will be any different, so unless it is announced, it is safe to assume it will be the same.

who is eligible to be selected in the draft? the list of people who have registered for the draft (so far, as of the list made public on december 30th, 2019) can be found here. 

who can register for the draft? for details about who can register for the draft and how to do it, go here. 

what happens if a player is not selected in the draft? players who registered but were not selected in the 2020 draft will qualify to be selected as a discovery player by a team throughout the 2020 season, meaning that a team can add them to their discovery list to eventually add them to their roster.

if a player registers for the draft then isn’t selected, can they then go back to college and play? no. when a player registers for the nwsl draft, they forego any college eligibility.

what if a player does not register for the draft? players who do not register for the draft and don’t otherwise qualify as a discovery player will not be eligible to play for any nwsl team until the 2020 season concludes.

***if there is interest, i can make a post explaining more about what a discovery player is and what that process is. let me know here if you would like me to cover this topic.***

if a player is selected by a team, does that mean they will play in the upcoming season? not necessarily. once selected, a player’s rights are owned by that team. the player does not have to be played by the team or be put on contract if the team does not believe they’re ready to play with the full team. nwsl teams can only have 20-22 players on their roster throughout the season under contract and can have a supplemental roster of an additional 4 players. most teams have players that practice with the team that aren’t included in this (max) 26 players either due to injury or they are trying to work their way towards the full roster. ex. hailey harbison was not under contract with ncc last season but still trained and practiced with the team as she rehabbed from a torn acl in preseason. also, adelaide gay is a goalkeeper who trained with ncc all season long but was only signed to the full roster during the world cup, when labbé was away for international duties. 

what happens if a player is selected by a team they don’t want, do they have to go there? if they want to play in the nwsl, yes. their rights are owned by the team that selected them and unless they are traded to different team, they have to play for the team that selected them. however, if they want to leave the nwsl to play in a different league, they can do that no matter who owns their rights. ex. hailie mace of ucla was selected by sky blue but chose to go fc rosengård instead of play for sky blue. if hailie mace comes back to the nwsl, her rights will still be owned by sky blue unless they trade the rights away. 

I’m glad you asked! that’s why i’m here! & you are not the first person to ask me today! 

I’ll be using ncc as an example:

this is what ncc released as the status of their 2019 roster going into the 2020 season. 

but what do these terms mean?  good question!

(note: before this year all player contracts were one base year plus 1 extension year option) 

option exercised: base year(s) of contract is up and the team has told the player they are going to keep them for the next yr, choosing the "one option year” that most nwsl contracts have after the base year. it is my understanding that the player does not have the opportunity to decline if the team chooses to exercise (select) this additional year option, because when signing the original contract they agreed to a possible additional year.

extended new contract offer: the contract and any extension years have been used completely. the team has offered a new contract which could be any the following: (no, as of now, we do not get to see which contract it is or any details abt pay or time)

one year term

one year term + one option year (note: those are the only two that existed before this year) 

two year term

two year term + one option year

three year term

three year term + one option year 

placed on re-entry wire: the club has stated that they do not wish to keep the player under contract any longer and they will be sent into the re-entry wire, where other nwsl clubs can pick up their rights. (if you want to, let me know and I can explain how the re-entry wire works at a diff time) the club does not get anything in return for players sent to the re-entry wire.

federation players: this player does not operate under normal nwsl contract and salary rules because their contracts are being subsidized by their federation. (only applies to us and canadian federal allocation players)

retirement: this player has stated they will not be a part of the nwsl season next year. if they come out of retirement eventually, their rights will be owned by their most recent club.

important to note: as of how it stands now, just because an nwsl team has a player's rights does not mean they can’t leave for Europe or another league.

additional qs: 

why do the option year instead of offering a new (longer) contract entirely? a lot of this side of sports is more “behind-the-scenes” and not necessarily information we are privy to. I don’t know what goes on in the owner’s or coach’s mind. if I had to guess, I would say they are trying to avoid a deal falling through because they can’t make a contract agreement. new contract -> new payment negotiations -> new problems. also, possibly, they could know the player only wishes to spend one more year in the nwsl so they want to use the rest of the contract instead of writing a new one. there may also be a rule in place for the league that a club has to exercise the additional year option and use that before they can offer a new contract. the multi year deals are brand new to the nwsl and 2020 will be the first season implementing them, so before it always made sense to use the “+ optional year” option.

does this mean the players can’t still be traded? nope! something i believe kind of unique to the nwsl is there isn’t really a “trade season”, trades can kind of happen whenever. what it does mean is that these players (the ones not being listed for the re-entry wire) are being offered contracts or continuing their contracts because they are viewed as assets to the team that will either play next season or be traded for someone/something before then.

if a player is continuing an already existing contract with the option year, does that mean they can’t be allocated by the team this year to receive a higher salary and they have to wait until a new contract is written? (note: different from federal allocation. allocation by team (this one) is explained in this post.) i don’t know! the allocation by team process is entirely brand new for the 2020 nwsl season and I don’t know how that will affect already-contracted players. I hope not! because if so that would suck for players like debinha or erceg who are very talented, huge assets to the club, qualify for allocation, but are having their option year exercised and not a new contract written.

What is it? There is an NWSL tournament happening next month. 

When? The tournament would run from June 29th through July 22nd. (source)

Where? It is expected to be held in Utah. Stadiums will be Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy and Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, the former being where the Utah Royals play during a normal season. Both are owned by Real Salt Lake, the MLS partner to the Utah Royals. (source)

Is it confirmed? The language in varying articles is a bit unclear and the league itself hasn’t announced it, but according to at least one source, yes. (source)

Will there be fans? As of now, it’s unclear. Rumors are that “a group of previously selected fans will be able to attend the first set of games” but that isn’t confirmed in any capacity. (source) A more recent article says that fans will not be allowed. (source)

Where will the players stay? As of now it is theorized that they will stay in dorms near the RLS facilities. Another possibility that’s been floated is nearby hotels with bare-bones staff. (source)

What about international players that aren’t with their teams yet? I haven’t seen any information about international players. I assume they would have to quarantine for two weeks before being allowed to train with the team, if they are allowed through immigrations. I will update if I find any further information. Yuka Momiki, a Japanese International recently signed by OL Reign, is scheduled to arrive in Tacoma this weekend, which could provide an example for how other players will travel in. (source)

Will it be safe? This is the real question. This tournament is still largely in the proposal stages, so nothing is verified or determined yet, but there are real concerns. The buzzwords “regular testing” and “controlled environment” are being used, but without any real details, it’s hard to make that determination. (source)

When will teams get there? An official date hasn’t been announced yet, but three teams with stricter guidelines for practicing in their own stadiums are expected to arrive earlier to allow adequate training time. (source)

What will the tournament format be? It seems like it will be three groups of three, playing each team in their groups twice. Eight teams would move on to a single-elimination quarterfinal-style tournament and the 9th place team would be left behind. (source)

Do we know what the groups are yet? Nope. Some people theorize breaking it up by location or by last year’s standings, but it’s unknown as of now. If it ends up being announced, I will update the post.

After the tournament, will the season continue or will that be it? The current intention is that a regular season in teams’ home markets could continue after the tournament, if the health situation allows for it. (source)

Is everyone onboard? The owners have all voted in favor. (source) However, at least a few USWNT players are supposedly not in agreement. The NWSL Players Association is reported to have an active voice in the process, but it is unknown how much weight that voice holds. (source)

Can players opt out if they’re uncomfortable? The current rumor is yes, they can. However, it is unclear what that means for their financial compensation. (source)

I have another question about this, where can I ask? You can reply to this post, send me an ask, or send me a dm and I will do my best to answer with any sources I can find.

I have a question about something else women’s soccer/football related, can I ask it? Yep! Send me an ask or a dm with your question and I will answer it as soon as I can. 

nccourage.com/blm