# WUSA, WPS and Super League history data

Research checked September 12, 2026. Dataset: `lib/data/womens-earlier-history.ts`. Crest provenance and file hashes: [women's earlier crest sources](/data/womens-earlier-logo-sources.json). The NWSL is maintained in a separate dataset.

## Scope and season keys

These are separately selectable professional leagues, not a claim that they were one continuous competition. Include a club if it played a competitive league season, even if it stopped during that season. Do not include unplayed seasons, exhibition festivals, amateur successor teams, or announced future clubs. Historical club names are shown as used in the selected season.

| League | Dataset year | Display label | Participating clubs |
| --- | --- | --- | ---: |
| WUSA | 2001 | 2001 | 8 |
| WUSA | 2002 | 2002 | 8 |
| WUSA | 2003 | 2003 | 8 |
| WPS | 2009 | 2009 | 7 |
| WPS | 2010 | 2010 | 8 |
| WPS | 2011 | 2011 | 6 |
| USL Super League | 2024 | 2024–25 | 8 |
| Gainbridge Super League | 2025 | 2025–26 | 9 |
| Gainbridge Super League | 2026 | 2026 Fall | 8 |

The two fall-to-spring seasons use their **starting year** as the URL/data key. The league then changed calendars: **2026 Fall is a standalone short season, not 2026–27**. Its eight clubs began August 15, with 14 regular-season games each and playoffs planned for December. The announced spring-to-fall 2027 calendar does not extend this dataset beyond the current confirmed season. See the league's [June 18, 2026 season announcement](https://www.gainbridgesuperleague.com/news/2026/06/18/gainbridge-super-league-unveils-2026-fall-season-kickoff-slated-for-august-15/) and [August 13 opening-week notes](https://www.gainbridgesuperleague.com/news/2026/08/13/catch-up-on-storylines-stats-and-the-record-book-before-kickoff-news-notes-week-1/).

## WUSA membership and identities

All eight clubs participated in each of the three seasons: Atlanta Beat, Boston Breakers, Carolina Courage, New York Power, Philadelphia Charge, San Diego Spirit, the CyberRays and Washington Freedom.

The CyberRays played in San Jose throughout: **Bay Area CyberRays in 2001**, then **San Jose CyberRays in 2002–03**. Carolina moved from Chapel Hill to Cary and changed its crest for 2002. Atlanta's move from Bobby Dodd to Herndon Stadium remained within Atlanta. These changes are reported together in the contemporary [WUSA April 2002 opening-week release](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/wusa-kicks-off-saturday/n-1965079), published by the league and syndicated by OurSports Central.

Membership is cross-checked against the league's [July 2001 news and results](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/wusa-news--notes/n-2708347) and [official 2003 schedule announcement](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/wusa-announces-2003-schedule/n-1981121). The latter schedules all eight returning clubs. WUSA suspended operations after 2003; the subsequent exhibition festivals are not mapped as another league season.

| Club | Primary home community used |
| --- | --- |
| Atlanta Beat | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Boston Breakers | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Carolina Courage | Chapel Hill, North Carolina (2001); Cary, North Carolina (2002–03) |
| New York Power | Uniondale, New York, at Mitchel Athletic Complex |
| Philadelphia Charge | Villanova, Pennsylvania, at Villanova Stadium |
| San Diego Spirit | San Diego, California |
| Bay Area / San Jose CyberRays | San Jose, California |
| Washington Freedom | Washington, District of Columbia, at RFK Stadium |

The [current North Carolina Courage's historical account](https://www.nccourage.com/history/) also documents the original Courage's Chapel Hill-to-Cary move; it does not make the original WUSA team the same franchise as the modern NWSL club. Archived [original 2001–03 team media-guide covers](https://funwhileitlasted.net/womens-united-soccer-association-media-guides/) provide contemporary identity checks, including the Bay Area wordmark in 2001 and Carolina's later crest on both its 2002 and 2003 guides.

## WPS membership and home changes

**2009:** Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, FC Gold Pride, Los Angeles Sol, Saint Louis Athletica, Sky Blue FC, Washington Freedom. **2010:** Los Angeles leaves; Atlanta Beat and Philadelphia Independence join, making eight actual participants. **2011:** Atlanta, Boston, magicJack, Philadelphia, Sky Blue and Western New York Flash play; Chicago and FC Gold Pride are no longer in WPS.

These fields are documented by original team publications: [2009 Los Angeles Sol media guide](https://funwhileitlasted.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2009-Sol-Media-Guide.pdf), [2010 Atlanta Beat media guide](https://funwhileitlasted.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2010-Atlanta-Beat-Media-Guide.pdf), and [2011 Boston Breakers media guide](https://funwhileitlasted.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2011-Media-Guide.pdf). The 2011 guide's league timeline records the Sol's closure, Athletica's shutdown, FC Gold Pride's closure and Western New York's entry.

| Club | WPS seasons | Primary home community used |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Boston Breakers | 2009–11 | Boston, Massachusetts; Harvard Stadium in Allston |
| Chicago Red Stars | 2009–10 | Bridgeview, Illinois; Toyota Park |
| FC Gold Pride | 2009–10 | Santa Clara, California (2009); Hayward, California (2010) |
| Los Angeles Sol | 2009 | Carson, California; Home Depot Center |
| Saint Louis Athletica | 2009–10 | Fenton, Missouri; Soccer Park |
| Sky Blue FC | 2009–11 | Piscataway, New Jersey; Yurcak Field |
| Washington Freedom / magicJack | 2009–11 | Boyds, Maryland (2009–10); Boca Raton, Florida (2011) |
| Atlanta Beat | 2010–11 | Kennesaw, Georgia; KSU stadium |
| Philadelphia Independence | 2010–11 | West Chester, Pennsylvania (2010); Chester, Pennsylvania (2011) |
| Western New York Flash | 2011 | Rochester, New York; Sahlen's Stadium |

Specific modeling decisions:

- **Athletica remains in 2010.** The club stopped on May 27 after six matches, rather than before kickoff. Seven clubs finished the season. The league's [contemporary shutdown release](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/saint-louis-athletica-to-shut-down/n-4017692) confirms the midseason departure. Its initial 2009 home was in Edwardsville, Illinois; the map uses Fenton following the permanent June move. A [June 7, 2009 Sky Blue match report](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/cinalli-goal-for-athletica-sinks-sky-blue-fc-on-the-road/n-3837648) identifies Soccer Park in Fenton.
- **Freedom becomes magicJack in 2011.** One WPS identity changes its name and moves from the Maryland SoccerPlex to Florida Atlantic University. The [April 27, 2011 WPS weekly release](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/wps-weekly--week-3/n-4192653) records magicJack's home debut at FAU Soccer Stadium in Boca Raton. Washington's occasional RFK doubleheaders do not replace Boyds as its main WPS home.
- **A year is one map snapshot.** Permanent moves use the later principal home that season. Gold Pride's temporary early-2010 matches in Castro Valley and Sky Blue's first two 2009 matches in Bridgewater are not separate map stages. The 2009 Sol guide identifies Sky Blue's planned switch to Yurcak, and the 2010 Atlanta guide identifies Pioneer Stadium in Hayward.
- **Use actual home communities.** The 2010 Atlanta guide gives Harvard Stadium's address in Allston, Boston, even though some WPS schedules call the venue Cambridge. Philadelphia moves from West Chester to Widener University's Leslie C. Quick Jr. Stadium in Chester for 2011, as confirmed by the contemporary [April 16, 2011 match report](https://equalizersoccer.com/2011/04/16/still-elusive-weather-halts-magicjack-unveiling/).
- **Unplayed 2012 is excluded.** WPS suspended that season and did not resume league competition. Amateur seasons played by former WPS organizations are outside this selector.

Shared WPS/NWSL club identifiers are `boston-breakers`, `chicago-stars`, `gotham`, and `western-new-york-flash`; their names and crests remain era-specific. The separate WUSA Boston and Atlanta clubs are not merged with the later WPS businesses solely because their names match. `wps-freedom-magicjack` tracks the WPS relocation without suggesting that the two home cities fielded concurrent clubs.

## Super League membership

The inaugural eight were Brooklyn FC, Carolina Ascent FC, Dallas Trinity FC, DC Power FC, Fort Lauderdale United FC, Lexington SC, Spokane Zephyr FC and Tampa Bay Sun FC. See the league's [December 2024 all-eight-clubs finale preview](https://www.gainbridgesuperleague.com/news/2024/12/11/all-eight-clubs-face-off-in-the-fall-finale-news-notes-week-18/). Sporting JAX joined for 2025–26, with the club's [May 6, 2025 inaugural schedule announcement](https://www.sportingjax.com/news/2025/05/06/sporting-jax-announces-inaugural-usl-super-league-schedule/) explicitly identifying a nine-club field. The league adopted the Gainbridge title for that second season.

Spokane's [May 20, 2026 official club statement](https://www.uslspokane.com/newstag/zephyr/) says it will not operate a professional women's team beyond 2025–26. It is therefore absent from the current eight-club field, which is confirmed by the [official league club directory](https://www.gainbridgesuperleague.com/league-clubs/) and the 2026 season announcements linked above. The club's future exploration of women's soccer does not establish a further professional playing season.

| Club | Season keys | Primary home community used |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Brooklyn FC | 2024–26 | New York, New York; Brooklyn is a borough, not a separate municipality |
| Carolina Ascent FC | 2024–26 | Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Dallas Trinity FC | 2024–26 | Dallas, Texas |
| DC Power FC | 2024–26 | Washington, District of Columbia |
| Fort Lauderdale United FC | 2024–26 | Davie, Florida; Nova Southeastern University stadium |
| Lexington SC | 2024–26 | Lexington, Kentucky |
| Spokane Zephyr FC | 2024–25 | Spokane, Washington |
| Tampa Bay Sun FC | 2024–26 | Tampa, Florida |
| Sporting JAX | 2025–26 | Jacksonville, Florida |

Fort Lauderdale United's [official stadium page](https://www.ftlutd.com/stadium/) places its home at Nova Southeastern University; the university's [facility address register](https://www.nova.edu/facilities/design-construction/documents/nsu-address-and-xy.pdf) identifies its athletic stadium as Davie. Sporting JAX's first-season announcement identifies Hodges Stadium at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. Brooklyn's temporary Manhattan games and later Maimonides Park home both lie within New York City and therefore share the same municipal anchor.

## Map anchors and artwork

Coordinates are representative home-community centers in longitude/latitude, using the same point-anchor method as the other history maps. They are neither exact stadium pins nor population centers. Unincorporated places such as Boyds, Uniondale and Villanova use named community centers; “city” is the shared data field name. The Boyds anchor is the OpenStreetMap/Nominatim hamlet point (`node158422270`, `[-77.3122325,39.1840886]`). Shared home communities use matching coordinates across the women's league datasets. OpenStreetMap data is available under the [ODbL](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright).

Map fill colors are illustrative choices based on club branding, not a claim of official standardized color values. They may be adapted by the shared map's adjacent-territory color treatment. Crest files retain the original designs; resizing and format conversion do not grant rights in the marks.

There are **31 locally stored crest assets**. Carolina's **2001** crest is intentionally missing: the league explicitly announced new artwork for 2002, and no suitably verified standalone 2001 asset was obtained. Its 2001 marker uses initials. Sky Blue's original **2009 no-star crest** uses [transparent native vector artwork](https://worldvectorlogo.com/logo/sky-blue-fc-1), checked against the badge geometry and lettering in the grayscale 2009 Sol guide (printed page 42); the championship-star version is used from 2010. A contemporaneous [Sky Blue 2010 club advertisement](https://njaap.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Newsletter-2nd-Quarter.pdf) verifies the star variant. Tampa Bay uses the original crest in 2024–25 and its club-published championship-star crest from 2025–26.

Web assets use transparent WebP files capped at 320 pixels on their longest side, with lossless transparency and high-quality color compression. Transparent originals are preferred. Where only an opaque historical scan was usable, its original artwork pixels were retained and only the surrounding background was made transparent; white badge details were preserved. Each file's dimensions, byte size, checksum, source and treatment are recorded in the crest manifest.

Boston's WPS crest is visible on its [2011 media guide cover](https://funwhileitlasted.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2011-Media-Guide.pdf) and in the [May 26, 2009 USPTO Official Gazette](https://www.uspto.gov/web/trademarks/tmog/20090526_OG.pdf). Chicago's original crest is checked against the 2009 Sol guide (printed page 34) and its [June 3, 2008 club unveiling release](https://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/hello-chicago-red-stars/n-3652488); it is the earlier blue-border design rather than the 2017 update. Where artwork is supplied by [SportsLogos.net](https://www.sportslogos.net/), the per-file manifest links to the exact source page. Club, league and event marks remain the property of their respective owners; the source manifest records provenance and does not assert an open license for those marks.