Build your own 2026 NWSL expansion club
Full Time: A show about women's soccer
The Athletic
4.8 • 807 Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2024
⏱️ 60 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this edition of Full Time, Tamerra Griffin and Meg Linehan evaluate what we know about the five expansion bids to become the 16th team in the NWSL. What is the league looking for when it comes to bids? How important is location, an independently owned stadium, an enticing media market or deep pockets?
While Tamerra and Meg try to answer that, they also play a quick game of build your own NWSL expansion club. Where will their fictional clubs be located? And, who will be their celebrity owner and marquee player?
PLUS: Previewing the final weekend of the NWSL regular season, what the three remaining playoff hopefuls need, a final Portland goodbye for Christine Sinclair, Ballon d'Or takeaways, and producer Theo hops on to try and make sense of the Summer Cup.
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HOSTS: Tamerra Griffin, Meg Linehan
PRODUCER: Theo Lloyd-Hughes
VIDEO PRODUCER: Lia Griffin
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Emily Olsen
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Ballon d’Or misses mark with timing … again. Plus, a breakout USWNT star?
What it’s like to vote for Ballon d’Or Feminin: The Athletic’s Steph Yang shares some insight
NWSL expansion: Where things stand as the league looks to add a 16th team
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome back to full time with Meg Linahan. |
| 0:15.5 | I am Tamara Griffin, and I am joined by my co-host, Meg Linnehan, who, along with |
| 0:20.8 | Steph Young, educated me on Melissa |
| 0:24.4 | Etheridge, who was just announced as the National Anthem Singer for the NWSEL Championship. |
| 0:29.9 | Meg, thank you for your service. |
| 0:31.4 | And how are you doing? |
| 0:32.4 | I mean, just as an elder gay, like, I feel like if you are at the geriatric scale of millennials, you know who Melissa Etheridge is. But it is, like, I mean, congrats to the NW.S.L. for hitting both the K.C. market and the queer market. Like, you nailed it. Good job. I do think there are probably a lot of, like, 12 to 25-year-olds being like, we don't know who this is, but that's fine. |
| 0:57.9 | Yeah. And to be fair, once I was educated, I do know that come to my window. |
| 1:03.6 | Yeah, I think as soon as like, that's why we were all just like, we put the song in the chat and you'll know who it is. |
| 1:08.2 | It's just like you might not have the name and the song associated with each other. |
| 1:13.7 | But it's fun. |
| 1:14.1 | She's still touring. |
| 1:14.9 | She's still going. |
| 1:15.9 | Wow. |
| 1:16.3 | It's still touring too. |
| 1:17.4 | Love that for her. |
| 1:18.9 | Well, speaking of NWSL Championship, that is going to be part of the theme of this episode |
| 1:24.7 | because we are approaching the end of the regular season. Somehow we've made it, |
| 1:30.6 | you guys. Somehow we've made it. We've made it. Yeah, that's true. There's still time. Still time for the |
| 1:36.0 | chaos to jump on our shoulders and just wreak havoc. But even as we're going to be talking about |
| 1:42.1 | what we can make of the seasons of the teams that are not going to be going to the playoffs, we are're going to be talking about what we can make of the seasons of the teams that are not |
| 1:46.3 | going to be going to the playoffs. We are also going to be looking ahead to 2026 expansion, |
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