PHILADELPHIA — Jill Ellis has seen many milestones in her life in women’s soccer: national championships coaching UCLA, two World Cup titles leading the U.S. women, and now the presidency of San Diego’s first-year NWSL team.
On Saturday, she will witness another, based on more than just the field of play.
When the Wave kick off their first game at their new home, San Diego State University’s Snapdragon Stadium, they will do so in front of the largest crowd in NWSL history. In fact, the sellout of about 32,000 — announced 16 days before kickoff — will be the largest crowd to witness any American pro women’s soccer game since 2001, the first year of the country’s first pro women’s league.
You can be sure that potential NWSL expansion team owners will be watching and wondering if they could have the same spectacle in the markets they’re thinking about entering.
If any of those people are near Philadelphia — well, first of all, perhaps they’ll identify themselves one of these days. But in the meantime, if they believe that what works in San Diego might not work here, Ellis is ready to prove that assertion wrong.
“I used to say to my players after a great game, I’d be like, ‘I would have bought a ticket to see that,’ ” Ellis told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a recent interview. “It’s never lost on me that sport is entertainment, and that’s what fans want. … So everything’s strategic, from the type of coach you want to hire and how she sees the game, to the players you bring, to how you engage with the community — not just the fans that we know are going to come because they love soccer, but the fans that want to maybe experience something different.”
Some of the fundamentals are the same no matter the geography, weather, or population demographics. There needs to be a fan base, a top-quality stadium, a top-quality practice facility, and an ownership group ready to spend the money to bring it all together.
Everyone knows Philadelphia has the fan base and the stadium. Ellis witnessed both often while in charge of the U.S. women, who played here six times during her tenure.
The ownership question is the biggest that’s so far unanswered. But the practice facility question is also still open, and it matters too.
Facilities matter
Women’s soccer players know good facilities from bad ones, and they know which NWSL teams have which. In particular, expansion teams such as Racing Louisville and the former Utah Royals set a high bar for the rest of the league.
“It’s where they go to work every day, so I think it’s really important,” Ellis said. “You see it in the sales pitch when universities build infrastructure to to help recruit — it’s no different. The facilities matter, and the experience the players have in their workspace, I think, is very important to the success and the attraction of the club.”
The Wave don’t have their own practice venue yet, but plans are in the works for one. Until then, the organization spent $1.6 million on two fields at its current training site, a youth soccer complex half an hour from the city.
This is a point that the Union, the most prominent (at least for now) potential local NWSL team owner, are well aware of. President Tim McDermott told The Inquirer earlier this year that as part of conversations with NWSL stakeholders, he has studied how to expand the organization’s practice facilities to accommodate a women’s team.
The stadium question here has a matter-of-fact answer. Subaru Park is the only suitable venue, and everyone knows it. But that doesn’t mean a team can just open the gates and roll some balls out. The atmosphere should feel big-time for players and fans alike.
“You want fans to have a great experience — that’s not just in size and numbers, but it’s also in the visual, and top to bottom, the experience you can have there,” Ellis said. “Americans love big sporting events, and I think the venue is critical in that.”
Along with the physical infrastructure, there has to be a psychological one. On that front, there can be few better builders of a good culture than a two-time world champion manager of some of her sport’s biggest egos.
Ellis first came to the Wave as a consultant. But after her first meetings with principal owner Ron Burkle, she said she was “so, honestly, bought into what he believes the future of female sports can be that I literally said to him, ‘I don’t want to just consult, I want to run the whole thing.’ ”
Once she got the job, she knew what to do.
“The belief in it, having experienced it as a coach and seen the power of women’s sports, I think it starts with that,” Ellis said. “You hire amazing people, you empower them to do what they want, you build a culture of confidence and belief in terms of, ‘We can achieve this.’ Everybody here, from our director of ticket sales, to marketing, to merchandise, all the people on the business side, they wanted to come here because they believed in making a difference.”
Targeting big markets
That advice ought to work anywhere. But Ellis knew a question was coming about one part of the country in particular.
While she stayed out of saying too much about current or future NWSL markets, the northeast U.S. is terrain she has known since childhood. Ellis grew up in northern Virginia, after her parents moved the family there in the 1980s.
So she knows that when there’s a big game in this part of the country, the impact is multiplied. It isn’t a coincidence that San Diego’s games at Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit this year were the only regular-season NWSL games televised on CBS’ broadcast network.
“MLS has surprised me in ways, where you suddenly see a venue that you think, ‘Wow, is there a soccer market there?’ And there’s a rabid fan base there,” Ellis said. “But I think the bigger markets ultimately also bring — I mean, media is something that we really want to grow in this league. We want a media deal, and I think that part of that is going into large media markets.”
That will happen again next month when Washington hosts the playoff final. CBS will televise the contest in prime time on its broadcast network, the first time a pro women’s soccer title game has been in that big a spotlight. And with San Diego one point out of first place, it won’t surprise anyone if the Wave are in the game.
“Sometimes it’s convincing people that it’s a little bit of a leap of faith,” Ellis said. “But every other sport in this country benefited from the investment of people believing that there’s an appetite for this. We know there’s an appetite for this, now we need people in high decision positions to give us and create that opportunity. Because I think it’s deserved.”
