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MIKAELA MACKENZIE \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Northern Super League Team co-founder Desiree Scott<\/p>\n
For Winnipeg\u2019s soccer community, the announcement was a most-welcome boost after the demise of the city\u2019s men\u2019s pro squad, Valour FC of the Canadian Premier League, last November, when the Winnipeg Football Club, which operates the CFL Blue Bombers, announced it was shutting down the soccer team after seven seasons.<\/p>\n
The demise of the Valour club was not unexpected. The CPL and the Bombers never seemed a good fit. But the city\u2019s soccer community \u2014 clubs, volunteer organizers, provincial and city associations as well as thousands of adult and youth players \u2014 firmly believes pro soccer will work in Winnipeg with a sport-specific facility, a team run by soccer people and a league with a sustainable business plan.<\/p>\n
Two of those three considerations are in place, and the third is on the way.<\/p>\n
The NSL Winnipeg franchise\u2019s public-facing co-founders are Desiree Scott and Rob Gale, two of the city\u2019s highest-profile soccer people, and both will take active roles with the new sporting enterprise.<\/p>\n
Scott is, without doubt, Winnipeg\u2019s most-decorated soccer player. She played professionally for clubs in three different countries, competed at three World Cups and won medals with the national women\u2019s team at three Summer Olympic Games \u2014 two bronzes, in 2012 and 2016, and a miraculous gold in 2021. She will serve as vice-president of community and player experience for the NSL Winnipeg team.<\/p>\n
Gale was the first coach and general manager of Valour FC, and last season coached the Portland Thorns of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League in the U.S. He\u2019s also the former technical director of the Manitoba Soccer Association and will be chief sporting officer of the new club.<\/p>\n
The Northern Soccer League, meanwhile, is on firm footing as a business enterprise. <\/p>\n
Last year, in its first season, the NSL\u2019s six clubs \u2014 in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Ottawa \u2014 generated over $30 million in revenue and drew 275,000 fans across 80 matches. <\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Just a couple of weeks ago, European sports investment firm Apex bought in to the league in a deal worth up to US$30 million in a transaction that valued the league at US$85 million.<\/p>\n
Co-founded by former national team player Diana Matheson, the NSL enables young Canadian players to earn a living while developing closer to home, rather than plying their trade in the U.S. or overseas.<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s timing is good, as the growth of professional women\u2019s sports leagues has been exponential in the past two decades. The WNBA has been going since 1996, the NWSL is the best-attended women\u2019s soccer league in the world and the rapid ascent of the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League has proven these ventures can be viable and, most importantly, that they will give female athletes opportunities to fulfill their dreams.<\/p>\n
The last big question for the NSL Winnipeg team is where it will play. Word is the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex on Waverley Street will be renovated to provide the seating and amenities required for fans \u2014 the intimate soccer atmosphere Princess Auto Stadium lacked.<\/p>\n
Those details will emerge in due course. Then Winnipeg\u2019s first professional women\u2019s sports team will face its ultimate test \u2014 proving that professional soccer will work here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North American interest in soccer is at an all-time high. No wonder, given that Canada, Mexico and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-813823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}