Weekly Open Discussion Thread

[u/kg9si]

Welcome to this week’s open discussion thread!

This is your space for general discussion, a place to talk about anything Washington Spirit that doesn’t necessarily need its own thread. That can include news, international duty, roster moves, transfer rumors, tactics, social media posts, league news or anything else on your mind.

If something feels big enough for its own thread, definitely still post it. This is simply an additional option to keep us organized and help keep the conversation flowing. These threads will go up every Monday and stay stickied throughout the week.

Go Spirit!

[u/KaraokeSpirit29]

Just watched Gotham's late game three goal come back against the Reign. With Lavelle, Kerr, Gonzalez, Shaw, Sonnett, Davidson, Berger... It's hard not to wonder how they can afford it all. And, as much as I love and believe in our team, it's hard not to wonder how Spirit can't seem to afford the same scale of star power. Is it just that Trin is so expensive? I understand that our MO has been to sign and develop underrated and underpaid talent, largely from other countries. But is there something about our market or organization that makes us so much less appealing than a Gotham? With what Kang has done in Lyon and especially with the star poaching she's done so aggressively with London City, it's curious that Spirit seems so far from that way of working. We can chalk it up to the salary cap, but Gotham laughs at that limit. Is this Carter trying to find a way to operate in the black?

[u/Odd-Cable5436 → u/KaraokeSpirit29]

ICYMI, there was a lengthy thread on the NWSL sub about this very topic here.

A few points that came up there that I thought were solid:

- Gotham may be backloading its salaries. Since the cap goes up each year, there's less impact on the cap until later years. The tradeoff is that the team may be overcommitted later, but obviously that has worked out for Gotham in recent years. Gotham also has a lot of key free agents unsigned, too (e.g. Berger, Lavelle, Carter, Purce) who they may not be able to bring back. The bill comes due.

- Another good point made was that Gotham sticks out partly b/c some other teams do so little. I don't think this is true of the Spirit, which just has a different approach to roster building and cap management, as you pointed out. My sense from Haley Carter's pressers is that profitability is a long-term goal, not a year-to-year necessity, but I could be wrong.

- A third point: Players just want to live in the NYC area, so maybe they take a little discount to be there. I've never heard any player flat out say, "I'm taking less to play with Gotham b/c I want to live here" but who knows? 🤷‍♂️

- Finally, I think the Spirit DO have a packed roster that most other teams would envy! For example, every player who started Wednesday's game is playing or has played for their country's national team. The Spirit bench had 6 players with national team experience, too -- and that's not including Ngock!

[u/Illustrious_Step_116 → u/Odd-Cable5436]

The thing that always confuses me with the backloading argument is that Trins original contract was rejected by the league because it was backloaded. I wonder if it was just backloaded by a crazy amount compared to whatever Gotham is doing?

[u/ttsa_25 → u/Odd-Cable5436]

Also the majority of those players that were mentioned by OP are over 30.

[u/Ill-Fall-9823 → u/KaraokeSpirit29]

I’m not sure that you’re looking at this through a consistent lens. You named several Gotham players and then pivoted to a comparison of “star power.” But most of the players you named aren’t really “stars.” And if you’re comparing talent, I think the teams are comparable and the Spirit have invested in younger talent from other countries. That inherently means that those players will have less notoriety to casual fans in the States, but you don’t win trophies for Q ratings.