If you follow sports in general Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks got traded to the Los Angeles Lakers over the weekend that sent shock waves in the NBA. Is there a player not just in the NWSL but all leagues across the globe that may share the same type of shock?

https://www.gothamfc.com/news/a-letter-from-yael-averbuch-west

Received this email from Gotham this morning. Thought it was interesting.

With so many rights being taken away from women, LGBTQ+, people of color, immigrants…

For the record, so my opinion is clear, fuck trump!

Note: an version of this post with interactive plots can be found here, and interactive versions of my previous posts can be found here (I would particularly recommend looking at the Jenna Nighswonger post and being able to view information about the other players featured in the graphs). I plan on updating this post weekly as new information comes in on the interactive version linked above.

Also, I made a Bluesky to start posting smaller projects during the regular season, and it would mean a lot if you followed me @/ajsportstat.bsky.social :).

As a Gotham fan, the past two months have been absolutely devastating. After being spoiled with an offseason last year where hardly anyone left and some very big names came in, I was not prepared for the emotional distress of the 2025 offseason (the only thing keeping me going is remembering that it could be worse–I could be a Wave fan). I created this offseason tracker to see if Gotham’s situation is as uniquely terrible as it seems (it is), and will be updating it weekly until the March 12th deadline for teams to submit a final roster.

Some notes on my methodology:

• Data on players out only includes players that had regular season minutes in 2024 (so for example, Michelle Betos, who is retiring, isn’t counted as one of the players leaving Gotham since she didn’t play at all during the regular season in 2024).
• A player who is retiring is counted as “leaving the league”, as is a player who is actually leaving the league to go to another league
• New and leaving players include mid-2024 transactions
• A player is considered to have left their team if they have signed for another team and/or their team has posted a “thank you” message for them
• Player position is based on Fotmob for most players, and on the teams’ website rosters for college players/players from lesser-known leagues/U18 players

Visual #1: Number of players out by team

https://preview.redd.it/r1av4z6wduge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=9ffda80d08b73d7e7782712e78121866100e4428

This is so sad. Where is my team!! On the other hand, it’s a great time to be a Spirit, Courage, or Pride fan. I would say it’s a great time to be a Chicago fan, but honestly they could’ve benefitted from a little more roster movement.

Visual #2: Number of players in by team

https://preview.redd.it/k95lt4gyduge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=a284dd26d230b43a845708e96a0196a80f141ef3

Pride seems to be going by the philosophy of “if it ain’t broke…”. Meanwhile, already scary Spirit and Current teams are adding even more players, and suddenly kind of scary Dash and Royals are also adding a lot of exciting personnel. I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about Gotham (no one would've predicted the season that Spirit had last year after trading away star players for draft picks).

Visual #3: Players in by type of player

https://preview.redd.it/74ea1fl0euge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b2208072e77bf5562ac649f100e474da07f011a

Thankfully, there are only three new children being added to the league this year. The huge amount of college signings is a positive reflection on the new CBA–this time last year there were hardly any college players signed to teams, so this is really exciting to see! Finally, there’s quite a bit of intra-league movement, and an exciting amount of players coming from overseas.

Visual #4: Players in and out by position

https://preview.redd.it/v2b28cd2euge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=a79b3529781f9610304ac21a0ea527c3c844acd2

Interesting to see what positions teams seem to still have a need for, 6 weeks ahead of the start of the season.

Visual #5: Players out by number of goals and percent of team goals scored in 2024

https://preview.redd.it/qhjr0tn4euge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a28f170e15bf88c001522624864cc2d739593cc

Again, Gotham stands out here. Super scary that Spirit are so low, and it might seem scary that Dash are also so low until you remember that they didn’t really score goals.

Visual #6: Players in by goals scored (of players coming from other NWSL teams)

https://preview.redd.it/u0qqd178euge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a95456cf7ad1a7a2412ab62a584407dbd27e6b5

Six teams don’t have a single goal-scoring NWSL player coming in, although it’s important to contextualize this information in the positions of players being brought in (for example, the NWSL players that Gotham has signed during the offseason are a defensive midfielder and a goalkeeper, both of which are unlikely to score goals).

Visual #7: Goals added by players coming in/going out

American Soccer Analysis has this super cool statistic called goals added (g+), an explanation for which can be found here. This next graph looks at the sum of g+ of all the players leaving and all of the NWSL players coming in for each team.

https://preview.redd.it/ap3fjtmbeuge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=0440a8f77c953820c15ffe21548f538c0cc50150

Teams want to be in the bottom right quadrant and want to stay away from the top left. Two teams(ACFC and Pride) have not signed any NWSL players, so their g+ in is 0. Dash, Bay, and Courage have had great offseasons by this metric, and Gotham and Wave are floundering.

Visual #8: Free Agent Status by Team

https://preview.redd.it/ppxd1e8eeuge1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5265a34caa44e9642fd99d222a38b03d81326c7

The first bar of this graph is the total number of free agents, and the next three bars (re-signed, left team, status unknown) add up to the value of the first bar. The last two bars (left team, left NWSL) are subsets of the second bar (left team).

It’s interesting to see how each team’s offseason moves compare to each other’s–excited to see what this translates to once the season starts!

I'm going with (but I honestly have no idea):

EDIT: changing since it is apparently a 26 person roster

Goalkeepers: Murphy, McGlynn, Tullis-Joyce

Defenders: Girma, Sonnett, Davidson, Sams, Fox, Malonson, Dunn, Nighswonger

Midfielders: Horan, Coffey, Shaw, Sentnor, Hershfelt, Yohannes, Albert, Macario

Forwards: Wilson (Smith), Rodman, Ryan, Stevens, Thompson, Bieyendolo (Williams)

26th player Sears/Ryan Williams/McKeown/Gaetino

Leaving out Swanson due to not attending start of preseason with Chicago

Let’s assume NWSL has to plan for losing the monopoly on USWNT stars. Say they have to plan for a world where half the starters, half the roster, are in Europe at any one time.

What are some of the negative consequences NWSL has to guard against in that hypothetical?

• Less fan interest?
• Loss of prestige?
• Less interest from top internationals to join NWSL after the loss of the lure of getting to compete against all the top USWNT players?
• Lower ratings?
• Less attendance?

What would be counter measures? ADD: …to any consequences so as to maintain/grow fan enjoyment of NWSL itself…

Over Memorial Day weekend, I am thinking about doing a Three games in three days trip in Seattle, LA and San Diego. What are some suggestions for food and hotels near the stadiums? I am not doing a car during the trip due to all stadiums being close to transit.

I'm very much looking forward to watching the NWSL for the first time this season. From what I have seen, the American audience seems to be far more receptive to women's football than over here in Europe - which I hope that influence rubs off on us. I'm a Paris FC fan, but I've also watched Leicester play in the BWSL - now that my favourite female footballer has gone to America, I look forward to seeing how she fairs in a more competitive league than Arkema. Angel City FC is, of course, my team of choice to follow.

Honest analysis, how is Angel City FC compared to the rest of the league?

Marketing report by Morning Consult:

https://pro.morningconsult.com/analyst-reports/the-2025-sports-marketing-guide

Hey everyone! We are a brand new Discord server dedicated to uniting women's sports fans from the women's soccer community and other women's sports communities! We are an LGBTQ+ friendly server and are a safe place for people to talk about ALL women's! DM this Reddit account if you are interested in joining the server!