FC Kansas City, the New Women's Team in Town

Today US Soccer held their press conference on the new women's league being established in the United States and after the announcement we learned the name of the Kansas City team, FC Kansas City, "The Blues."

Kansas City will be one of 8 teams in the league, the Chicago Red Stars, Boston Breakers, Western New York Flash, DC United women, Sky Blue FC, Portland, and Seattle.  The league will kick off this spring.  According to a release from the Seattle team, the schedule will apparently be 22 games, playing each team 3 times and 1 more against what would be considered a "rival" so for KC this will probably be Chicago.  The season is set to start around the March/April time frame and go into September/October.  Many of the rest of the rules of the league are still being ironed out, but the federations and owners wanted to get the word out.

The league is a join venture between the USSF, CSA, and FMF to help build all 3 of the countries' national teams.  As part of that, the federations will offer support in regards to some of the salaries.  The USSF will cover salaries for up to 24 US players, the Canadians up to 16, and Mexico will pay for at least 12.  From listening in on the press conference today, it sounds like the majority of the contracts will not be full time, instead players will likely need offseason or second jobs to help along with their league salaries. 

US Soccer will be the ones that will be footing the bill and running the, as yet unnamed, league.  Right now the plan is for teams to play in smaller venues, for example, Chicago will not play at Toyota Park and Boston will not play at Harvard.  As for the Blues, their hunt for a stadium is apparently down to 4 locations, one of which actually is Livestrong Sporting Park.  While the national team drew well there, I'm weary of how a professional women's team will draw there.  I have to wonder if locations like UMKC and Park are being considered as well in the process.