{"id":343093,"date":"2026-06-02T16:21:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343093\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T16:21:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:21:22","slug":"bay-fc-the-local-womens-soccer-team-has-a-month-off-because-of-mens-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343093\/","title":{"rendered":"Bay FC \u2014 the local women\u2019s soccer team \u2014 has a month off because of men\u2019s soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published Jun. 2, 2026at6:00am<\/p>\n

In less than two weeks, the Bay Area will serve as a premier stage for one of the largest global sporting events. As men\u2019s soccer teams arrive, the local women\u2019s team is \u2026 pressing pause?<\/p>\n

The National Women\u2019s Soccer League is taking a monthlong break through June as North America hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup, leaving Bay FC (3-6-2) idle until July 5.<\/p>\n

The NWSL announced earlier this year that it would adjust its calendar to accommodate the men\u2019s World Cup, citing stadium demands across the league. Seven of the league\u2019s 16 markets are hosting World Cup-related activities this summer, though just two NWSL venues are hosting matches \u2014 the Seattle Reign\u2019s Lumen Field and Gotham FC\u2019s MetLife Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NWSL is proactively adjusting its scheduling framework to accommodate expected stadium demands,\u201d the league said in a statement. This came after commissioner Jessica Berman made efforts to keep the NWSL in play through the marquee men\u2019s tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Levi\u2019s Stadium, temporarily renamed as San Francisco Bay Area Stadium due to FIFA regulations, will host six World Cup matches \u2014 five group stage contests from June 13-25, plus a round-of-32 knockout match July 1. The scheduled slate features the Qatar, Switzerland, Austria, Jordan, Algeria, and Australia teams. The United States could play in the Bay Area if it finishes atop Group D.<\/p>\n

Bay FC\u2019s shared stadium PayPal Park, also home to the San Jose Earthquakes, is not a World Cup site. But the event\u2019s footprint extends beyond the home of the 49ers \u2014 Paraguay will train at San Jose State University, where Bay FC currently practices, while Australia will set up camp at the Oakland Soul and Oakland Roots training facility in Alameda. Across the U.S., a variety of events are consuming fields, facilities, security, and stadium resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the logistics,\u201d said Bay FC season-ticket holder Pam Farmer, who drives down from San Francisco for every home match. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a men\u2019s team, a women\u2019s team, and now the World Cup, and so something\u2019s going to have to give.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farmer said the pause feels manageable because Bay FC packed plenty of its home schedule into the spring \u2014 and because the Golden State Valkyries play a packed June slate at Chase Center before going on the road for the majority of July. But Farmer, who also holds Valkyries\u2019 season tickets, compared Bay FC\u2019s reality to the WNBA team\u2019s displacement from Chase Center<\/a> for the 2025 playoffs due to the Laver Cup tennis tournament: purely logistical, yet still a slight.<\/p>\n

The interruption is hardly unprecedented in American sports. Pro leagues break regularly for international competitions \u2014 MLS is taking two months away from May 25 to July 26 for the World Cup and the NHL stopped play for the Winter Olympics in February. The WNBA breaks during the Olympics and will pause again for three weeks in September for the FIBA Women\u2019s World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s different this time is that the NWSL stoppage isn\u2019t to accommodate opportunities for its own players or competitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The NWSL halted play for the 2024 Olympics, when the U.S. women won their fifth gold medal in Paris, and again last July for various major international women\u2019s competitions, including the UEFA Women\u2019s Euros.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ABay FC won\u2019t play its next home game until Saturday, July 18. | Source: Kate Hua for The Standard<\/p>\n

For some supporters, NWSL players being pushed to the sidelines and watching from afar as the men\u2019s tournament takes place is disappointing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a bummer because you get out of rhythm even as a fan,\u201d Bev Benson, a Bay FC season-ticket holder, said. \u201cI imagine it\u2019s probably even worse for the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have thoughts on this story?Start the conversation<\/p>\n

Bay FC will take at least a couple weeks of the break off before resuming training in the second half of June. The franchise, in its third season, must use the layoff wisely as first-year head coach Emma Coates is looking to turn around a club that sits in 13th place in a 16-team league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The U.S. women\u2019s national team will play two friendlies on June 6 and 9 in Brazil during this window, and Bay FC star midfielder Claire Hutton will participate.<\/p>\n

Despite the interruption, Bay FC is embracing the opportunity to have the sport\u2019s largest tournament in its backyard. Coates said the club hopes to capitalize on the excitement generated by the men\u2019s World Cup\u2019s presence in Northern California and the potential impact on the next generation of players \u2014 just as the women\u2019s World Cups routinely bring a wave of interest in girls youth soccer participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super excited for it to be here, and putting Bay on the map with the international football that\u2019s going to happen here, the connection to the game, and the legacy that goes with that,\u201d Coates said. \u201cI know how inspiring that can be to young fans and I think football can connect people in a way that other things can\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The NWSL is also leaning into the moment, launching a \u201cSummer of Soccer\u201d campaign designed to keep fans engaged during the break and connect the domestic women\u2019s game with the surge of attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until the women return to the field, there will be plenty of quality soccer in the Bay Area. Whether there will be more afterward depends on how Bay FC and the San Jose Earthquakes emerge after a long break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published Jun. 2, 2026at6:00am In less than two weeks, the Bay Area will serve as a premier stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[10708,88,90,89,127,8859,5393],"class_list":["post-343093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-fc","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sports","tag-womens-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}