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COLUMN: Dissecting Adam Silver’s WNBA comments

Alex Simon|
WASHINGTON - JULY 14: (L-R) NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver talks with Alana Beard #20 of the Washington Mystics during the WNBA Nike Court Refurbishment press conference on July 14, 2007 at the Boys and Girls Club Clubhouse 14 in Washington, DC. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2007 NBAE (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON - JULY 14: (L-R) NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver talks with Alana Beard #20 of the Washington Mystics during the WNBA Nike Court Refurbishment press conference on July 14, 2007 at the Boys and Girls Club Clubhouse 14 in Washington, DC. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2007 NBAE (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)
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NEWPORT BEACH, CA – OCTOBER 4: Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe attend the 8th Annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit at Resort at Pelican Hill on October 4, 2017 in Newport Beach, California. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images)
NEWPORT BEACH, CA – OCTOBER 4: Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe attend the 8th Annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit at Resort at Pelican Hill on October 4, 2017 in Newport Beach, California. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images)

NWSL’s opposing trend to WNBA

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is currently in its sixth season and has nine teams in its league, with a possible expansion to 10 or 12 likely coming next season. The NWSL plays a 24-game regular season from April to September, which is concurrent with Major League Soccer (MLS).

Unlike the American professional basketball leagues, the NWSL and MLS are separate entities and operate independent of each other. But interestingly, the trends for the ownership of teams in soccer is going directly counter to basketball.

Up and through the early 2000s, every WNBA team was owned and operated in conjunction to an NBA team in the same market, even when the league had 16 teams from 2000 to 2002. But before 2003, the Orlando team relocated to Connecticut to become the Sun, the first ownership group (and location) independent of the NBA.

Since then, six more teams have been bought by non-NBA owners, including two (Seattle Storm and the Las Vegas Aces) in non-NBA cities. In addition, the New York Liberty’s ownership group, the Madison Square Garden Company, has expressed an interest in selling the team and moved them to the Westchester County Center for 2018.

Meanwhile, the exact opposite trend has been happening in the NWSL, as writer FourFourTwo’s Richard Farley took a deep dive into last month. Seven of the eight founding teams had independent ownership, but the success of the lone MLS-linked team, the Portland Thorns, inspired other MLS owners in Houston and Orlando to join as expansion teams.

In January 2017, the Western New York Flash was bought by the owners of the North Carolina F.C., a lower-division men’s team, to move down to Cary, N.C. and become the Courage. Then after the 2017 season, FC Kansas City was folded into the Utah Royals, owned by the same group in charge of Real Salt Lake of MLS, and the independently-owned Boston Breakers could not find an owner and folded in late January.

It leaves the nine-team league with five teams with connected ownership and four as independent owners. In addition, there are multiple ownership groups of men’s teams in both the MLS and in lower divisions that are considered serious contenders for the expected 2019 expansion in the NWSL.

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