The Week in Women's Football: Spotlight on Spokane Zephyr and their impressive performance in the USL Super League - insights from Women's football expert, Tim Grainey

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This week, we feature the first year USL Super League and the eight team league’s western-most franchise—the Spokane Zephyr FC—who play in a city of less than a quarter of a million residents but are establishing a ground-breaking approach to developing a top-tier women’s professional football franchise for smaller markets.AdvertisementAdvertisement

Spokane Zephyr FC and the USL Super League—Establishing Major League Credentials in their First Season

The USL Super League launched in August of 2024, making history as the second fully professional Division 1 women’s league in the U.S.—equal in status to the twelve year old NWSL as far as U.S. Soccer and FIFA are concerned. We have been focused on this new league since last summer.The Super League is the first league—men or women—in the history of soccer in the U.S. to share that official status with multiple leagues and, to this writer’s knowledge, is the only top tier league in the world—again men’s or women’s—to share that designation.

This writer has been around the game for a long-time, dating back to the late 1960’s and, every time a new league or franchise starts, the inevitable question emerges: “Will it last?” along with, “Will they pay their bills?”.

The USL Phoenix Wolves started as a division two men’s team in 2014 at Arizona State University’s fine dedicated stadium for women’s soccer (now shared in the off-season with women’s lacrosse); in that first season—after being booted from ASU for not paying their rent—the Wolves bounced around the city to two other venues (and explored many other options as well), finishing at a soccer park with seating for only about 500 spectators. At the end of that first season, one of the international players who I was close with absolutely ruptured to me just minutes after the last match ended about how bad the team’s organization was, their inability to pay players on time and other grievances.

The team went through a few different owners and is now rebranded as Phoenix Rising, the reigning USL Championship side in 2024. At a Premier Development League or PDL (now USL League 2) game some years ago in Ohio, a team that I covered and was helping to find sponsors for had six people in that stands.

Prior to kickoff, the coach and owner came over and said to me: “I’m so embarrassed by this crowd.” I responded: “I am more embarrassed—I bought a ticket, even though I’m media.” I have always been a proponent of leagues and thus it’s always a huge setback when one folds, such as the original North American Soccer League which folded in 1985, the 50-year-old American Soccer League in 1983 and then two previous women’s pro leagues—the big budget Women’s United Soccer Association in 2003 after three seasons and the financially underfinanced Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) in 2011, also lasting only three seasons after launching at a bad time—right at the start of the Great Recession—and was always too dependent on the whims of some owners whose commitment to the sport was well below freezing.

At the beginning of October, this author spent three days in Spokane, Washington, the home of the first year USL Super League Spokane Zephyr FC and League 1 (Division 3) men’s side Spokane Velocity FC—both in their first seasons. Full disclosure: This writer grew up in Spokane and played college soccer at Gonzaga University in the 1970’s. I haven’t lived in the city for decades and approached the trip with an open mind.

The purpose of the journey was to evaluate the concerns of those who are worried that the Super League will survive and that a small city in a remote part of the country (Northeastern Washington) would not thrive and would in fact hurt the league. Let’s start with the Super League. I found that the opposite is the case, that the league has had a tremendous start with some fantastic crowds—including over 10,000 in Dallas to see the Dallas Trinity play 2023-24 Women’s Champions League winners Barcelona in an exhibition (a 6-0 win for the Spanish champions). The Barcelona game sent a message of the legitimacy for the Super League as their other game in the U.S. likewise was against an expansion franchise in their first season—the NWSL’s Bay FC (a 5-2 win for Barca in front of 14,187 at Pay Pal Park in San Jose, California).

Someone who follows the Spanish Liga F closely who I know well asked me about the Trinity game as he did not understand why the reigning UEFA Women’s Champions League winners would play a Super League team—the simple answer is that both teams play in major leagues. Barcelona saw the teams from the two leagues as challenging enough to meet and thus gave the new league a boost of credibility in their first month of play.

In addition, the opening weekend of the Super League saw sell-outs at all three games, with an average of just under 7,000 fans, compared to 4,271 fans per game in the NWSL’s first season in 2013, when it also had eight teams to start, and only 3,321 in their first four league games—ranging from 6,784 in Kansas City to 1,255 for the Red Stars opener in Lisle, Illinois (a community which we will discuss further below).

The Carolina Ascent’s crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the league's inaugural game was 10,553, better than cross-state (Raleigh/Durham/Cary) NWSL side North Carolina Courage has drawn in eight years in the state (the Courage has eclipsed 10,000 fans only twice—with 10,434 watching the final regular season game last season and 10,227 attending the 2019 NWSL Final when the Courage defeated the Red Stars 4-0 for the franchise’s third league title, including their years as the Western New York Flash). One important benchmark for league stability and success are attendance figures. The average game attendance in the NWSL surpassed 10,000 fans per game for the first time in 2024. The Super League is not likely to hit that mark in 2024-25 with some teams based out of smaller stadiums, but they certainly have started well and generated interest among soccer fans.

So, we are not seeing the Doomsday Prophecies about the league not surviving as we saw with WUSA, WPS and even the NWSL in the early years. Discussions about improvements for the Super League have focused on increasing team scoring (these teams are all brand new and that is to be expected) and the fact that D.C. Power is playing their home matches at Audi Field, where the Washington Spirit plays—but complicating matters is that MLS’s D.C. United is a partial owner of the Power. We feel that situation will be worked out over the next year or two, and perhaps the Power would be better off playing in the suburbs of Northern Virginia or Maryland. No one however questions that the Super League is legitimate and definitely not a “short-term” venture.

There is a split decision among pundits on whether the NWSL and Super League are competitors, who are still puzzled by the dual Division I status, and the Super League has even taken on some NWSL players on loan for their first season, which is a good sign of cooperation. In a survey of NWSL General Managers, as reported by Jeff Kassouf in Equalizer Soccer and ESPN, one GM wrote: “I don’t think that (top Division I leagues) would ever happen on the MLS side.”

However, a precedence has now been set by U.S. Soccer, which, unlike the rest of the world, does not have promotion and relegation to and from lower tier leagues—after all, the Super League did meet all of the standards the league had set years ago—and MLS’ sole status could be tested in the future, but the men’s game at the league level is in a much better financial place in general than women’s football.

The Super League is different in approach to the NWSL, particularly in the commissioner role. The NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman has done a nice job in her two and a half years in charge, having to immediately clean up the scandal of rampant player abuse by coaches and assistants. She has also exponentially helped to increase the value of teams and brought in new revenues from expansion fees and new television deals.

However, she came from professional lacrosse and still is learning about the global game. I met the USL Super League commissioner Amanda Vandervort for the first time at a FC Indiana game in 2008 just prior to the launch of UWS in 2009—along with another prominent person: Emma Hayes.

As Spokane Zephyr FC’s Community and Media Relations Manager Reilly Harnetiaux described them: “Two impressive people in the women’s game.”

She said that Vandervort came out and met with the Zephyr players, taking the time to talk individually with all of them. She has the advantage in that she played college soccer, was a senior executive of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) and a consultant with Major League Soccer and FIFA, was President of the U.S. Soccer Coaches Association and worked at FIFPRO (Global representatives of football players)—she has always been player-focused.

Reilly Harnetiaux said: “It’s been incredibly exciting—Amanda with the women (Zephyr players). She introduced herself to every player. It’s a special thing.”

Part of Commissioner Amanda Vandervort’s reason for starting the new league was to add roster spots for American and international players and there are now 200 additional professional women’s soccer positions across those eight teams, with interest coming from at least five other cities for future expansion franchises. In addition, the USL’s three year old pre-professional W League has seen 43 players move from 25 teams to join S League sides. On the coaching side, former FC Olympia (south of Seattle and the capital of the State) head coach Ben Willis led the W League club to an undefeated first half of the 2024 season before joining Lexington SC’s coaching staff in the Super League. 

Zephyr forward and Guyana international Sydney Cummings made the point that, in the U.S., more than one women’s professional league was needed: “In the U.S. we play quality soccer. One league isn’t enough. We’ve shown on the international stage that we are one of the best countries in the world…This league (the Super League) is just an elevated level of international football in general.”

One of the Dallas Trinity’s American-raised players told me the day after their game in Spokane on October 6 that she returned from playing in Europe because: “American leagues are better in the U.S. for women’s football”. The NWSL has always been praised as competitive from top to bottom and the Super League is certainly starting in the same way, unlike many countries around the world that have a few dominant teams with the others struggling to keep the scores down in a number of their games.

Spokane Zephyr and Argentinian international midfielder Sophia Braun said: “Everything takes time—it took the NWSL a long time to grow and be supported. It will take time but we have some amazing players in this league and it has been fun to watch. The fact that we have more opportunities for players to play in the U.S. and show off their skill is something I am grateful for and is special (She played last season with Leon in Liga MX Femenil). There is a lot of talent that doesn’t always get to play in the NWSL. This (Super League) has been a great stage for these types of players. A lot of people want to play here and having that opportunity for myself has been super fun.”

Zephyr forward and Panamanian international Riley Tanner added: “The USL has done a great job to push the league. Players have a great opportunity to continue to grow the women’s game.”

Now, looking at the league’s smallest city, again I saw huge positives as Spokane is actually blazing a trail for smaller cities to host women’s Division I pro soccer teams in the near future. USL Spokane, the parent organization of the Zephyr and Velocity, is redefining the definition of a major league soccer city while furthering the growth of women’s sports.

This vision and plan can be modeled not only in other smaller American cities but overseas as well. USL Spokane is doing it in tandem with a professional men’s team—marketing each team differently—and not short-changing one team at the expense of another (which WSL, Championship and Division 3 and 4 women’s team in England can only dream of as the women’s teams’ budgets are dependent on the men’s teams results, with relegation always a time to worry, but also involves the use of top quality fields, salaries for players, promotional budgets, etc.). 

Spokane (population of 228,000) is a regional hub of the Inland Empire—Eastern Washington, North Idaho, Western Montana and Southeastern British Colombia—which combined conservatively takes the population number to over 3.3  million.

Despite its population of less than one-quarter of one million people, Spokane is the largest city between Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota and Seattle (east to west) and Calgary, Alberta and Salt Lake City, Utah (north to south). The only other major league franchises in the city’s history were in 1916-17 when the Spokane Canaries played for one season in the major league Pacific Coast Hockey Association (having to move to Seattle mid-season due to poor attendances in a small arena) and a professional indoor American football franchise in the Arena Football League from 2010-2015 (winning the league championship in their first season)—though Indoor Football is widely seen as a very small niche sport and centered in only a few regions of the country. 

The Super League’s Spokane Zephyr is thus ground-breaking. The city does have minor league professional baseball in the summer, amateur youth hockey and college basketball (most prominently Gonzaga University men’s and women’s basketball, who are nationally known and perennial NCAA playoff teams).

Note: The National Football League’s Green Bay (Wisconsin) Packers are in a city of 107,395 and is widely viewed as the smallest city with a major league franchise in North America—but they were an early member of the league in 1919 when smaller communities had teams—they are a community-owned, non-profit team and draw fans from throughout Wisconsin for their games.

It should also be pointed out that the NWSL’s Seattle Reign, with two-time Women’s World Cup Champion Megan Rapinoe on the side for years, brought her side positive attention in one of the best soccer markets in North America; the Reign made three title games in 11 years in the league but struggled consistently at the gate.

With new investors, including a MLS Seattle Sounders owner, they should draw larger crowds than they did under their previous ownership groups—which picked fights with the MLS Sounders from the beginning and, with owners from Olympique Lyon in France from 2019-2021, was stuck playing in a baseball stadium in Tacoma, Washington—which is a city that is actually smaller than Spokane as the third largest city in the state with a population of 219,000, but only an hour from Seattle and is considered part of that metropolitan area. The Chicago Red Stars played from 2013-2015 in Lisle, Illinois (population of 22,390)—in a stadium that seated only 3,000 fans; Lisle it is a Southwestern suburb of Chicago, but by itself, makes Spokane look like Mexico City in size.

Reilly Harnetiaux, the USL Spokane Community and Media Relations Manager, explained their vision: “For both of our teams, for our women especially, to be able to transition from not having these opportunities as frequently and consistently in other markets and now being so welcomed by such an inviting community, that has changed the game for them; it’s changed what the job means for us on the front office side, it changes what Spokane views as professional sports.

"They’re able to say: ‘These are pro athletes but we know them, we see them in coffee shops, we see them downtown, we see them in the parks.’ There isn’t this barrier between our athletes and the city. We wanted it to be a one united front. The players have done a great job of that and so has Spokane.”

Some followers of the game have worried that a smaller city will have an insufficient fan base and corporate support to survive in a smaller city. I found that there is absolutely no concern on that front with Spokane. After landing at Spokane International Airport, I immediately saw a full-color video display of midfielder Emma Jaskaniec in action under the headline “We are Home.”

A few of the Dallas players noticed that as well and thought it was significant. People in the city told me about both teams and how happy they were that they had come to Spokane, and how they had met a player or two. The two teams are in a brand new stadium just North of the central city’s Riverfront Park, a jewel in the city thanks to Expo 74, the first environmentally focused world’s fair, which was held downtown.

The stadium adds to that special central city park that is the heart of the city and is a partnership of USL Spokane, Spokane Public Schools (which utilizes the artificial turf stadium for high school American football and soccer games) and Spokane Public Facilities District. The stadium seats 5,500 but can be expanded to 10,000 by adding a second two-story grandstand on the north side, where there is now a smaller set of bleachers. The previous stadium was in the extremely northwest part of the city—Joe Albi Stadium—which held up to 35,000 and was opened in 1950; it had a crown in the middle of the field to help drain rain from the artificial turf which a mountain goat wouldn’t feel comfortable on.

It was large enough to hold games for Washington State University’s American Football team in the Pac-12 Conference, based in Pullman (a 90 minute drive away), but they stopped playing in Albi Stadium decades ago.

 On Sunday afternoon, October 6, Spokane attracted an enthusiastic crowd of around 2,500 on a sunny, balmy day in Spokane to see the Zephyr play Dallas Trinity (a 2-1 defeat). Reilly Harnetiaux explained that for the Zephyr, being Division One: 

“It is about educating the communities, the cities and the state and to the league what does this mean to have a division I sanctioned team. It’s not a little deal. It’s not something to be celebrated one time and move on from. These are athletes who are at the absolute top of the game and play at the highest level in the country and we have them here in Spokane.”

The Zephyr has four Americans who are current internationals with clubs abroad:

Sophia Braun—Argentina

Sydney Cummings—Guyana

Emina Ekic—Bosnia and Herzegovina

Riley Tanner—Panama

Three other Zephyr players have connections to the State of Washington:

Jodi Ulkekul, a forward, played at Gonzaga University and grew up in Sammamish, a suburb of Seattle.

Haley Thomas, a defender, is from Kennewick in Southeastern Washington, a couple of hours drive from Spokane.

Taryn Ries, a forward, is from Ridgefield, in the Southwestern portion of the State near Mount St. Helens.

The day before the game, I asked Cummings, Ekic and Tanner about what they knew about Spokane—Braun is from Portland and played locally at Gonzaga University. Sydney Cummings, who is from the East Coast and played at Brown University and Georgetown, said that she had considered Gonzaga University for her graduate season along with Boston College and Georgetown University (her ultimate choice) but couldn’t visit because of COVID.

In terms of Spokane, she said: “I knew nothing of the city. Coming here was cool. I’ve only ever been on the East Coast and its different from I’m used to. Spokane is great. The people are really wonderful (and) very welcoming to us.”

Cummins said that an advantage for the Zephyr is that they did not have a lot of competition from other sports teams in Spokane: “Everyone knew what Zephyr is; in other cities, people don’t know the name or don’t care. Here (the city has been) really welcoming. It feels major league… Understand the market in D.C. is saturated, not just (with) the NWSL (D.C. Spirit) and (playing at) Audi Field was cool last week, but are you actually helping elevate your teams? We are not competing here professionally. We are growing the base, bringing something new and exciting.”

Cummings pointed out that when the Zephyr played the D.C. Power the previous week ( a 2-2 tie on September 29) it was nice to play in Audi Field but there was a very small crowd and that the Power needs to compete for attention against the NWSL Spirit, the MLS’s D.C. United, baseball’s Washington Nationals and the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals and other local teams.

She added that: “Spokane feels small but it draws in the community. The best experiences I’ve ever had were when I felt like I was welcomed. It creates a better environment from that. For me, it’s been perfect—a good balance.”

Sydney Cummins added that the players can help build something special in a nice part of the country: “We are provided a great opportunity to do our part to help elevate the game. How can what I do help others? I have lived in amazing places. But I never would have been in Washington ever in my life. I’m still getting that and my parents are only a three hour flight away. I enjoy it (here). It’s turned out way better than I ever could have imagined.” 

Emina Ekic said about playing in a new league: “Everyone is working through this because it is the first season and first for everything. We (the players) are way happy here, with the set-up, how adaptable everyone is, how receptive are the coaches to feedback so it’s not a toxic ‘environment. Everyone’s having a good time. It’s competitive but it’s friendly.”

Riley Tanner added: “The community has backed us so well. For our first game, all the little girl players were on the field with us (prior to kickoff, approximately 470 youth players, along with Gonzaga University women’s team players). We’re giving them a role model.”

Sophia Braun, who played at Gonzaga and knows the city well, was pleased to be back: “I’ve loved being back in Spokane. This feels like home for me. It is fun being part of a brand new league and a brand new team and building things in a community that I feel so deeply about. That has been special for me…. It’s been great being here. The girls (players) have been amazing and the staff and the club has been super supportive so I’m pretty happy.”

The key issue is that the players sincerely feel welcomed, respected and safe in Spokane and are treated as major league athletes. Perhaps not everyone around the country—including other players—see the league in the same way yet—but the Zephyr players feel that they are in a good situation—it’s new and exciting for them to be in Spokane and they see definite potential for growth for the league in the city.

Zephyr head coach Jo Johnson weighed in on the importance of the fan base in the city  and their support after their close 2-1 loss to Dallas Trinity on October 6: “It’s been absolutely amazing. You can see that atmosphere even on a Sunday afternoon. We had a good crowd with a lot of youth soccer players, which is really awesome to see. The team really wanted to leave a legacy with the community and we are already seeing that, with the support from the younger fans and the younger soccer players, who hopefully can see themselves out here one day to play.

"From the banners downtown, to people stopping us on the streets, to us going in and serving the community, everyone has embraced us and been so open to supporting us and made it feel like home from the first day.”

Reilly Harnetiaux talked about the special bond between the players on both USL Spokane teams and the community: “For Spokane, that was our entire vision—to fall in love with the women and to fall in love with these men and what we are doing here, because the first step in all of this is getting our players to feel supported and getting Spokane to support them, and both sides have been amazing. Spokane has shown up beyond words for these players. I think our players are really loving Spokane.”

The players that I talked with certainly agreed with her sentiment. 

One thing that people think can impede a major league franchise in a smaller city is that there is not a plethora of local sponsorship opportunities. Reilly Harnetiaux explained that in Spokane, even though they have major sponsors on board—including Davenport Hotels, Zappos (online retailer), Rosauers supermarkets and Windermere (real estate)—that there is still not a ceiling yet regarding sponsorship opportunities: “For Zephyr Division 1, (there were) specific elements we wanted to follow. We had a lot of people really excited that these women are at the top of their game and that this is a really big deal for women in sports for Spokane (and) for the community.” 

Uniquely, the Velocity men’s team has a different sponsorship list reflecting the teams’ different fan bases, which according to Harnetiaux, is reflected in their season ticket sales in which only 3% of their customers are subscribers to both teams, which is a testament that their separate marketing programs are working. In this way, both franchises—though part of the same umbrella organization—operate independently, with separate budgets and protection for both (as opposed to teams in England in particular but other countries as well).

 The two Spokane teams lead their respective USL leagues in sponsorship dollars—this is incredible given that much larger cities such a Brooklyn, Washington D.C. and Tampa are also in the Super League

I heard more about the growth of the women’s game in Spokane and the effect of the Zephyr on the market from some key college coaches in the city.

Gonzaga University head coach Katie Benz told me after the Bulldogs lost to Pepperdine, ranked number 14 in the country, at home 4-3 on October 5: “It’s cool (the Zephyr) is in town…Having that here for young players to see it and have it right in their back yard, in conjunction with us, it does a lot for Spokane.”

The presence of the Zephyr will further drive an increase in the number of local players that can ultimately play collegiately at home. On Gonzaga’s 28 player roster in 2024, four of her side went to high school in Spokane, one is from nearby Rockford in Spokane County, one player is from Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington and one hails from Whitefish in Western Montana. This is in stark contrast to previous years when only one or two players were local and the summer WPSL side the Spokane Shadow had to almost wholly import players from the west side of the state or from around the country to field a side.

Whitworth University (a NCAA Division III member for smaller institutions) women’s head coach Cameron Bushey is also the Director of the Spokane Shadow Girls Academy and coaches the U-17 side.

He explained that the Zephyr coming to Spokane will accelerate the growth of women’s soccer, which is developing nicely in the city: “The sport is growing a lot in the region. Young players are reaping the reward of long-term growth. They now have a chance to compete at the highest level from the Inland Northwest. It’s only a good thing for your players to pursue a game they love further. They can look up to players at the Zephyr. The game is in a good spot here.”

One of his youth players just recently returned to the city from the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Colombia; Aliana Vakaloloma started for Fiji as goalkeeper and is only 15-years of age (see our column earlier this month: The Week in Women's Football: Huge crowds & big surprise winner - reviewing U20 World Cup in Colombia - TribalFootball.com). Bushey said that Vakaloloma had just returned to play late in the Spring after recovering from a shoulder injury: “She has gone through challenges and her mentality is impressive and she came back to be herself and is a leader in the club.”

As we saw with Gonzaga, Whitworth’s roster of 31 players includes six from Spokane, four from the Tri-Cities in Southeastern Washington, two from nearby surrounding communities in Spokane County, two from the central part of the state and one from nearby Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Thus 15 players are either local from Spokane or from the Inland Empire region.

He also has five players from Hawaii and one—senior midfielder Katrina Costales, who is from Saipan—is a full international with the  Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (an unincorporated U.S. territory) that plays in the Asian Football Confederation events and regionally with the East Asian Football Federation—like Martinique, Guadelupe and French Guiana do in CONCACAF, but are not full members of FIFA.

Whitworth’s women’s team played the Zephyr in pre-season on their grass field on the northern edge of the city. Though Bushey’s team fell to the new pro team 7-0, he thought it was a good event: “We played mostly in defense and defended well. Athletically we were out-matched.”

Reilly Harnetiaux summed up the launch year of the Zephyr and the Velocity and her hopes for future success with USL Spokane’s long-term planning: “Soccer fans should know that this is not an overnight project. We’re not going to change things overnight. It starts with the Zephyr, Velocity, League 1, the Super League (and) the NWSL. We will not make this change overnight.… It starts by putting Division I sanctioned teams in smaller markets like Spokane.

"It starts with seeking out markets that are able to back it, support it and get excited about it and using those markets to say: ‘We’re supporting women in sports; we want to give you the top of the top players and let’s grow the market, grow soccer in America and grow it outside of it’  and let’s give women and girls and youth opportunities to say, ‘I’m a young girl growing up in Spokane and I have a professional women’s team down the street from my house’…

"Younger fans will talk to our players after the game about having to go to Portland to see the women’s professionals (Thorns) or Seattle to see men’s professionals (Sounders). Now these young athletes are able to go just down the street or they are able to go 20-30 minutes to a stadium as opposed to flying or driving hours. That has been huge for families here in Spokane, the accessibility to giving their kids the experience of a professional soccer environment, which is very special.”

This reporter’s view is that the new USL Super League and the Spokane Zephyr FC, its franchise in the Northwest corner of the country—one of only two teams west of the Mississippi (with Dallas)—are both doing just fine in their launch seasons. The USL Spokane owners have a well-conceptualized vision and are mapping a path for teams from smaller cities to aspire to and gain a major league professional women’s team.

As Reilly Harnetiaux closed by saying that they had launched two teams in one league in their inaugural season: “Come see us in 5 years.”

The Zephyr already is turbo-charging the growth of women’s soccer in an area of the country that lagged behind for many years but is improving and developing and fostering future professional playing aspirations for youth players.

The Zephyr is also growing women’s sports in the city, region and uniquely, not in competition with a men’s side, and have blown away the traditional definition that a major league city needs to have millions and other major league teams in other sports. Spokane has shown the way with a hugely supportive partner in the USL and is a beautiful part of the country for their players and opponents to live in and visit. As the sign in the airport said, “We are home” is so true, not only for the Zephyr, the Velocity but the Super League and League 1 as well. It is hugely inspiring to see the city embrace the clubs and an organization that has been building purposefully and is making such an impact on the sport.

Note: I must give a special thank you to Reilly Harnetiaux for her time throughout the weekend and massive assistance in providing access to the Zephyr players—including Sophia Braun, Sydney Cummings, Emina Ekic and Riley Tanner, who’s thoughts on their international teams and playing for clubs abroad we will include in the weeks to come—her media team and the USL Spokane ownership group, including Ryan Harnetiaux and Katie Harnetiaux. This is an exceptional organization and are special people to interact with.

Note: This column will continue to focus on the Super League in its launch season and focus on the next smallest market in Lexington, Kentucky (322,000 and 60th largest city in the nation) over the next few months. 

Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football.  His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women’s football.  Get your copy today. Follow Tim on X: @TimGrainey