Women’s soccer through the years: from the history map to matchday

A new club can put a city on the soccer map. A closure can leave a much larger region without a nearby team. Our women's soccer history explorer follows those changes through the NWSL, WUSA, WPS and the Super League, with club crests and a season slider.

It is the companion to our MLS and USL history maps. All three use the same U.S. counties and cropped view of southern Canada, so you can follow one community through different parts of the game.

Start with the NWSL

Eight clubs took part in the first NWSL season in 2013. Move forward to see Houston and Orlando arrive, Western New York's place in the league move to North Carolina, and more clubs join on both coasts. The 2026 map includes Boston Legacy and Denver Summit in a sixteen-club field.

The logos tell a second story. Sky Blue becomes Gotham. Seattle's Reign identities change. Kansas City's and Utah's histories include closures, transferred operations and new clubs. The source notes explain those distinctions rather than treating every familiar city name as one uninterrupted team.

The NWSL's official milestones provide a starting point. We check club announcements and venue histories for the season membership, identities and home municipalities used in the map.

Earlier leagues have their own timelines

Choose WUSA to explore its 2001–2003 seasons, or WPS for 2009–2011. Keeping them separate makes it possible to see each league's geography without suggesting that the gaps between them were ordinary playing seasons.

This is a history of the selected professional competitions. Women's soccer continued in other leagues and settings between these dates; an absent layer is not an absence of the game.

Another professional map, alongside the NWSL

The Super League view begins with 2024–25. Its calendar matters: after the first two seasons crossed calendar years, it introduced a separate fall 2026 season. The selector and downloaded map use those season labels.

What a county's color means

We measure great-circle distance from the geographic center of each county to the club's approximate home-city center. This is a consistent way to compare seasons, but it does not measure driving time, population, fan allegiance or the nearest stadium to every resident. Large counties can produce results that differ from a search using your own address.

County boundaries stay fixed at the 2017 Census geography. The southern Canadian regions use 2021 census divisions and are compared with clubs in the chosen U.S. competition. Their full centers determine distance, even when part of a division is cropped from the picture.

The pandemic also needs context. The 2020 NWSL map represents the nine clubs that played in the Fall Series. It does not claim a regular season took place or relocate every team to the Challenge Cup's neutral venues. Read the methodology and linked source notes for the other season choices.

Turn a historical connection into a matchday

Keep your region selected and look below the explorer for its nearest current NWSL or Super League club. The history year does not change this current comparison. Open the club's ground on the SoccerMapd map, check its next home match, and save the fixture to your calendar.

For more options, browse pro games near you and the NWSL schedule. Find people to watch with through supporters clubs, then keep track of the grounds you visit in My Map.