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Piece by piece, the details surrounding Ottawa’s entry into the Northern Super League — Canada’s new women’s professional soccer league — are coming into focus.
The club is set to make its first major splash in the marketplace next Thursday, with team and league representatives on hand for a series of announcements.
“Logo, look and location,” communications officer Jamie Deans said Friday in response to questions about what would be revealed.
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The city’s soccer fans will learn about ownership details, where the team plans to play and the colour scheme for the 25-game season that will begin next April.
The six-team league also features Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Halifax.
Why Ottawa, why now?
Deans is full of praise for the city, saying the combination of grassroots soccer programs and the success of Ottawa’s Professional Women’s Hockey League squad in its first season provides confidence that pro women’s soccer has a future here.
“It’s important that the national capital is represented in a national league,” Deans said. “The youth participation levels are through the roof and that’s such a positive. With the PWHL, Ottawa really showed that they will come out to support women’s teams.”
Ottawa’s PWHL squad — still operating without a nickname, like that league’s other teams — led the circuit with an average attendance of 7,496 at TD Place Arena.
What about previous attempts at pro women’s soccer?
The Ottawa Fury competed in the USL W-League and had a run of on-field success that included a 2012 league championship.
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The Fury went undefeated during the 2014 regular season and finished third in the championship tournament, but the franchise was shut down following that season.
In the decade since, however, Deans says the environment for women’s sports has changed drastically.
“The overall mood towards women’s sports has changed,” he said, also referencing the attention surrounding the Canadian women’s team at the Olympics in Paris.
“When you have stronger grassroots support, it becomes aspirational. It feeds into itself. There is a market for women’s sports.”
How is the Northern Super League different from the Professional Women’s Hockey League?
With a centralized ownership group led by multi-billionaire Mark Walter, who also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, the PWHL also consists of six teams, but three of them — New York, Minnesota and Boston — are based in the United States.
Unlike the PWHL, Northern Super League franchises will be owned and operated by independent ownership groups.
Details about Ottawa’s ownership structure will be revealed at next week’s announcement.
What sponsors are on board?
On a national scale, Canadian Tire, Door Dash, CIBC and Air Canada have signed on to advertise the new league. There has yet to be any announcements on specific sponsorship agreements within the Ottawa area.
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