The Women's Premier Soccer League Elite (WPSL Elite) was a women's semi-professional soccer league created by the
Women's Premier Soccer League
The Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL) is an amateur women's soccer league in the United States.
History
The WPSL is the longest-running active women's soccer league as it enters its 25th season in 2023. The WPSL is also the largest women ...
(WPSL) to support the sport in the United States, both from continued interest by WPSL teams in professionalism and as a response to the suspension (and ultimate demise) of the
WPS.
History
Inaugural season
For the 2012 season, the league featured former WPS teams,
Boston Breakers
The Boston Breakers were an American professional women's soccer club based in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. The team competed in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). They replaced the original Breakers, who competed in the defu ...
,
Chicago Red Stars
Chicago Stars Football Club is an American professional soccer team based in the Chicago metropolitan area that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). A founding member of the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league as the Chic ...
, and
Western New York Flash
The Western New York Flash (WNY Flash) was an American women's soccer club based in Elma, New York, that most recently competed in the United Women's Soccer league in 2018. They won league championships in four different leagues: the USL W-Leag ...
, in addition to many WPSL teams primarily located in the northeast and midwest regions of the United States. Six of the eight teams were considered fully professional though the actual status of several teams has been disputed. Western WPSL teams were expected to join the Elite League starting in 2013.
2012 Teams
League expansion
Before the announcement of the formation of the
National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a women's professional Association football, soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system#Women's leagues, United States soccer league system (alongside the USL Supe ...
(NWSL), a Western conference of the league was planned to begin competition in 2013. Five teams - the
San Diego WFC SeaLions, the
Los Angeles Vikings, the
California Storm
California Storm is an American women's soccer team, founded in 1995 as the Sacramento Storm, before changing its name the following season. The team is a member of the Women's Premier Soccer League and the USL W League, both semi-profession ...
, the
Bay Area Breeze, and an unnamed team from
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
- were reportedly committed to joining. Three other cities - Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston - had also voiced interest in joining WPSLE.
Hiatus
The
Boston Breakers
The Boston Breakers were an American professional women's soccer club based in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. The team competed in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). They replaced the original Breakers, who competed in the defu ...
,
Chicago Red Stars
Chicago Stars Football Club is an American professional soccer team based in the Chicago metropolitan area that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). A founding member of the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league as the Chic ...
and
Western New York Flash
The Western New York Flash (WNY Flash) was an American women's soccer club based in Elma, New York, that most recently competed in the United Women's Soccer league in 2018. They won league championships in four different leagues: the USL W-Leag ...
joined the NWSL for the 2013 season. Also, the
New England Mutiny,
New York Fury, and
Philadelphia Fever opted to return to the WPSL.
Originally, it was leaked that five teams were slated to join the
ASA Chesapeake Charge and
FC Indiana in the 2013 of WPSL Elite. Later, the WPSL Elite website revealed six teams - the Charge, FC Indiana, the California Storm, the
Houston Aces,
Jersey Sky Blues, and the San Diego SeaLions - would take place in the "WPSL Elite League Cup", a series of games played in addition to regular WPSL games; the Houston Aces even had these games on the schedule page of their website. However, organization apparently fell through, and the WPSL-Elite was ultimately disbanded.
Of the six teams, two (Indiana and Jersey) did not rejoin WPSL for the
2013 season. The other four all won their respective divisions and made it to their regions' respective finals (as did the New England Mutiny). There were unfulfilled plans to revive the WPSL Elite for the 2014 season.
Possible revival
Before the
2015 WPSL season, the
Real Salt Lake Women advertised that they would be participating in a 12-team WPSL Elite with 10 regular season games per team. Like the suggested WPSL Elite season suggested by the Houston Aces in 2013, though, the season did not appear to materialize. However, after the regular WPSL playoffs, a WPSL Elite Final was played between RSL Women and the
San Francisco Nighthawks, which was hosted and won by RSL. No official qualification to the match was ever announced, and the match score was not published on the WPSL site for weeks. Further talk of officially reviving the WPSL Elite has continued in the wake of the folding of the
W-League in the fall of 2015, though signs point to both Zanelli and a majority of WPSL teams against the idea of a tiered WPSL. RSL and Houston would join the newly formed
United Women's Soccer
United Women's Soccer (UWS) is a national pro-am Women's association football, women's Association football, soccer league in the United States. The league was founded in 2015 as a response to the dual problems of disorganization in the Women's ...
before the beginning of its inaugural 2016 season, joining former WPSLE member the Mutiny in the new league. FC Indiana similarly joined UWS the following year.
Organization
Playing structure
The Elite League featured a standard home-and-away
double round robin
A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...
format, with a separate postseason from the regular WPSL playoffs. The Elite League's playoffs involved four teams in two-leg aggregate series.
References
{{Major women's sport leagues in North America
Elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (, from , to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful or wealthy people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the ...
Defunct women's soccer leagues in the United States
Defunct professional sports leagues in the United States
2012 establishments in the United States
2013 disestablishments in the United States
Sports leagues established in 2012
Sports leagues disestablished in 2013