magicJack (stylized with the first letter in lower case) was an American professional soccer club based in

Boca Raton, Florida Boca Raton ( ; es, Boca Ratón, link=no, ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It was first incorporated on August 2, 1924, as "Bocaratone," and then incorporated as "Boca Raton" in 1925. The population was 97,422 in the ...

. The team competed in

Women's Professional Soccer Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...

(WPS) for one season until legal challenges caused the team's owner, Dan Borislow, to be banned from the WPS, which folded in 2012.

History

Freedom era

In 2001, magicJack was founded as

Washington Freedom Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Germantown, Maryland, that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's Unite ...

, a team of the defunct

Women's United Soccer Association The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000, the league began its first season in April 2001 with eight teams in the U ...

(WUSA). The Freedom were the only team to continue as an organization after WUSA folded, first playing exhibition games, then joining the W-League. The Freedom were a founding member of WUSA's successor,

. In 2011, the team was purchased by Dan Borislow, the owner of the phone tech company

magicJack MagicJack is an Internet-based telephone service (VoIP) provider in the United States and Canada. It offers nationwide VoIP and cellphone services. MagicJack VOIP service is a computer peripheral that, in combination with telephony servic ...

, renamed, and relocated to

First season

The team opened its 2011 season with three wins, and was the only team with a perfect record for the first month of the season. Despite this, coach

Mike Lyons Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documenta ...

was then dismissed, beginning a long period of coaching controversy, while both Borislow and Christie Rampone functioned as team coach at various points. During the

2011 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup was the sixth FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the world championship for women's national association football teams. It was held from 26 June to 17 July 2011 in Germany, which won the right to host the event ...

, magicJack lost in a WPS-record 6–0 defeat, falling to the

Philadelphia Independence The Philadelphia Independence was an American professional soccer club that was based in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pennsylvania. The team joined Women's Professional Soccer as an expansion team in 2010 and played its home games at West ...

. On July 22, 2011,

Abby Wambach Mary Abigail Wambach (born June 2, 1980) is an American retired soccer player, coach, and member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. A six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award, Wambach was a regular on the U.S. women's na ...

was named as magicJack's player-coach for the rest of the season. The team was the visiting side when the

Western New York Flash The Western New York Flash (WNY Flash) was an American soccer club based in Elma, New York that competed in the United Women's Soccer league. They have won league championships in four different leagues: the USL W-League in 2010, Women's Profes ...

of Rochester (Wambach's hometown) set the new WPS league record attendance of 15,404. magicJack ultimately finished third in both the regular season and the playoffs.

Battling with the league

In the waning months of the season, Borislow sent an e-mail to his players telling them that WPS was threatening to terminate the team before the season was over, and he filed a suit in Florida courts. The league denied this accusation, and agreements were made for the suit to be dropped. On October 25, 2011, the Women's Professional League Governors voted to terminate the franchise, accusing owner Dan Borislow of violations ranging from "unprofessional and disparaging treatment of his players to failure to pay his bills." WPS also stated, "Mr. Borislow's actions have been calculated to tarnish the reputation of the league and damage the league's business relationships." All players were able to sign with new teams when free agency started on November 9, 2011. Forward

Ella Masar Ella Copple Masar (formerly Ella Masar McLeod; born April 3, 1986) is an American-Canadian former professional soccer player who is currently an assistant coach for the Chicago Red Stars in the National Women's Soccer League. She previously pla ...

was the only magicJack player to publicly condemn the team owner, Dan Borislow, accusing him of mistreating players, including her.

Exhibition team

Borislow again filed suit in Florida courts; on January 10, 2012, the judge ruled that the league could not terminate the team's franchise without following its own procedures, and a hearing was set for the following week. Before adjudication resumed, WPS and Borislow reached another deal, this time allowing Borislow to keep his team as an exhibition team, guaranteeing magicJack at least seven games for each of the next two years, one at each of the WPS teams' home grounds and two in Florida. This quickly became moot as the WPS announced on January 30 that it was suspending the 2012 season; on May 18, 2012, the league ceased operations. Borislow died in 2014.

References

External links

{{Florida Sports Women's Professional Soccer teams Women's soccer clubs in the United States 2011 establishments in Florida 2012 disestablishments in Florida Association football clubs established in 2011 Association football clubs disestablished in 2012 Soccer clubs in Florida Sports in Boca Raton, Florida