Racing Louisville FC, already making history in the city, preps for NWSL expansion draft

LOUISVILLE — The fastest horses alive race every year in Louisville. Some of the very best college athletes compete in the Derby City, too. But for the first time in nearly half of a century, a roster full of the best professional athletes in the world — the ones playing at the pinnacle of their sport — will call Louisville home, as Racing Louisville FC, the newest member of the National Women’s Soccer League constructs its roster with an expansion draft Thursday.

The NWSL is the top women’s soccer league in the United States and, arguably, the world, and in 2021, Louisville will field a team at Lynn Family Stadium, bringing major professional team sports to the Bluegrass for the first time since 1976.

It’s a hectic time. The brain trust of coach Christy Holly — who used to coach NWSL side Sky Blue FC — and club vice president James O’Connor have spent recent days piecing together who they’ll pick in the draft, and there’s a madness to the method. By midday on Friday, Holly had already been on 33 phone calls since early that morning, and he spoke with The Courier Journal while simultaneously on a Zoom call with colleagues — muted, of course.

More:NWSL releases protected, unprotected lists ahead of expansion draft

They’re speaking with dozens of agents a day, with players, with ex-teammates and ex-coaches of prospective picks. There’s also film to be watched and statistics to be analyzed. It’s a time filled with permutational possibility: Louisville could go any number of ways as they build their roster from the ground up, aiming for a strong foundation for years to come.

Working with a blank canvas is exhausting, but it’s also exciting.

“How often in pro sports do you get to say you have the actual honor of being able to paint your own picture?” Holly asked.

Major pro sports, back again

It’s been so long since Louisville had major league baseball that few residents are aware that six — yes, six — Major League Hall of Famers played for the National League’s Louisville Colonels in the 1890s (or that one of the team’s staples for years was a local named Chicken Wolf).

The city had NFL football in the 1920s, and from 1967 to 1976, Louisville was home to a major pro basketball team. But even the Kentucky Colonels’ 1975 ABA championship banner, which was once hung in Freedom Hall, no longer dons the rafters anywhere in the city.

However, Louisville — the 29th biggest city in the country and with a television market bigger than the likes of New Orleans, Memphis and Buffalo — will now field a team that competes at the highest level in the country in its sport.

“It’s been a long time coming, right?” said Karl Schmitt, a Louisville native and the President/CEO of the Louisville Sports Commission. “45-plus years from the days of the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA. It’s fabulous for the community.”

“I think it’s great, I really do,” said legendary Louisville sports writer Billy Reed.

More:Racing Louisville FC to participate in NWSL Expansion Draft. What’s the NWSL?

And while the NWSL is not nearly as popular as more established sports leagues like the NFL and the NBA, it’s shown promise. Women’s soccer has gained attention from the U.S.’s success on the international stage — more Americans watched the 2019 Women’s World Cup final than the average NBA Finals game that year — and the league saw booming attention this summer: 653,000 tuned in for the league’s championship.

In 2019, its 7th year of existence, the NWSL averaged 7,337 fans per game and seven of the nine teams set record-highs for attendance.

Plus, the top women’s soccer players in the world — including American stars like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan — will visit the Derby City, drawing the eyes of soccer fans across the country and world.

Steve Higdon, the Chair of the Board of Directors for NBA2LOU, idolized the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels as a kid back when the world’s top basketball talent often played in Louisville. That will happen once more, but this time, with women’s soccer.

“To have major league professional sports return to Kentucky,” he said, “is a very big deal for the state.”

Reminder:Racing Louisville FC's NWSL Expansion Draft begins Nov. 12

Origins of fanhood

Kentucky might be more commonly seen as a basketball state rather than a soccer one, but Dr. Dan Wann — a Murray State professor who has studied sports fandom for more than three decades — doesn’t totally consider that a barrier to Racing’s success.

“I don’t think anyone would say soccer is at the top of the list,” he said of sports in Kentucky. “But if you think that that means it won’t have a good following, you’re just kidding yourself because there are too many exceptions to the rules.”

He pointed to teams like the popular Nashville Predators — ice hockey in Tennessee — as examples of sports thriving in non-traditional locales. Plus, he said that supporters of soccer are often fans of both the men’s and women’s game. That bodes especially well for Racing, as the men’s United Soccer League team, Louisville City FC, drew more than 9,000 fans per game in 2019, the fourth-best mark of the league’s 36 clubs.

In a way, Racing will have to compete with already established sports teams in the area, most notably, the University of Louisville —  “People only have so much time, and so much dollar that they can spend on their fandom,” Wann says — but unlike most expansion teams, Racing will be the only major pro sport in its new city.

That could be the origins of interest.

“Maybe they do some investigating,” Wann said of future fans, “and find out, ‘Well, gosh, soccer doesn’t really get any better than this, evidently,’ and so in some ways, it sort of attaches them to it.”

In his many conversations with potential players, Holly, the coach, has appealed to Racing’s uniqueness to the sports landscape in Louisville.

“This city and the state has been screaming out for a pro team and a high-level pro team,” Holly said.

Transactions:Racing Louisville FC picks up 2 forwards, the first players to join the team

Framing a foundation

Thursday’s expansion draft isn’t quite a game of poker. But it is a game of daring, and it is one of money.

Each NWSL team — with the exception of the Chicago Red Stars, who already cut a deal with Louisville for immunity — were permitted to protect 11 of their players, including up to two players who are on the U.S. Women’s National Team. The remaining players are fair game for Racing to draft.

At least, in theory.

For example, Racing could select unprotected OL Reign forward and Team USA darling Megan Rapinoe, the face of last year’s World Cup-winning squad, to don the lavender and violet. But it’s incredibly unlikely that the 35-year-old Rapinoe, who recently got engaged to fellow Seattle superstar Sue Bird (of the WNBA’s Storm) would be happy to join Louisville.

Will Racing actually select Rapinoe? That’s the daring game that the Reign is playing.

Several top-flight talents, known as U.S. allocated players because they are paid by the U.S. Soccer Federation, are technically available, but O’Connor said the club has been figuring out who is “truly available.”

“The first thing you want is people who want to be in the building and want to be a part of something,” O’Connor said.

Louisville can select up to two U.S. allocated players, and experts and fans have pegged Portland Thorns goalkeeper Adrianna Franch, a World Cup winner, as a potential allocated player to be picked. However, there’s also the possibility that players are selected and promptly traded.

“There are teams across the country that have allocated players that are available, and they’ve asked that we don’t take those players,” Holly said, “and we’ve told them that in order for us not to take those players, you’d have to offer us something substantial in return.”

A big-name player would seemingly be a good marketing move for a new team, but Holly balked at the idea of drafting a “glitzy” player just to “sell tickets.” Plus, there’s also a financial incentive for Louisville not to select any allocated players at all. If they take only one, they’ll receive $75,000; if they take zero, they’ll get $150,000.

“That might be a better option than actually taking one of the allocated players,” said Equalizer soccer writer Dan Lualetta.

That money could be used on the international market to attract a player to the NWSL. But perhaps more compellingly, even, the money could also be used on the first pick in the 2021 NWSL College Draft — a rule specifically outlined in the expansion draft rules.

That’s no mistake. There is a generational talent — one of the most hyped players this millennium — likely to be available in the upcoming college draft in Catarina Macario, a Stanford midfielder. She’s been awarded the best college player in back-to-back seasons, and last year, she scored more points in a single NCAA season than all but two players in history: Mia Hamm, considered to be the greatest American ever, and Christine Sinclair, considered the greatest Canadian.

Use any adjective you want. Macario has the potential to be a franchise-defining player, and Holly said Racing is hopeful the wunderkind will be playing for Louisville next season.

“I would probably say beyond hopeful. She’s the number one player in the draft, and we have the number one pick,” he said.

The top talent hasn’t yet indicated if she’ll enter the 2021 draft, and it’s not yet known if she’ll play in the NWSL, but if she does, it could be a boon for Louisville, especially if they have money to spend.

“This is a player where, yes, maybe not every single person on the face of the planet knows Catarina Macario’s name — it’s not like Megan Rapinoe — but this is a player that, if you lock in, and you’re able to build around,” The Athletic women’s soccer writer Meg Linehan said, “that is potentially a real coup for Louisville.”

Looking back:Christy Holly will lead Racing Louisville FC, the city's new NWSL franchise, in 2021

Expansion draft difficulty

Expansion drafts are tricky, and it’s difficult to find immediate success. Of the 14 MLB expansion teams, the best inaugural season was the 1961 Angels — who went 70-91. Every NBA and NFL expansion team has had a losing record in its first season, and the same was true for the NHL until the wild outlier that was the 2017-18 Las Vegas Golden Knights. There have been two expansion drafts in NWSL history, and those teams combined to go 12-29-4 in their inaugural years.

Lauletta said he expects Racing to be better than those previous expansion teams, and Linehan predicted it to be on the middle-of-the-pack side. Holly and O’Connor said they’re aware of the challenges of first year success, but that their focus is on building a strong foundation, not just for 2021, but for years to come.

“We want to be sustainable. We want this to outlive all of us,” Holly said.

Racing has already acquired three players, including World Cup winner Yuki Nagasato, and Thursday’s draft will further paint a picture of what the club’s first roster will look like. However, it won’t necessarily complete the roster construction, as the first major pro team the city has seen in decades continues to make moves into 2021.

“We’ve already signed a World Cup winner, and we intend to bring in a few more World Cup winners,” Holly said, “and I don’t know if the city of Louisville and the state of Kentucky has been able to say that for quite some time.”

Read this:Racing Louisville FC signs Cheyna Matthews to growing roster ahead of inaugural season

'How big this is going to be'

Leigh Nieves was 10 years old when the U.S. won the 1999 Women’s World Cup, which spurred a lifetime of love for the sport. “I just remember wanting to be Brandy Chastain,” she said this week of one of the team’s stars.

She remembers watching the NWSL from its inception in 2013, streaming games on YouTube and adopting the Reign as her favorite team. But when Nieves, who attended the University of Louisville and considers this city to be her home, learned Racing would be coming to Louisville, she quickly hopped aboard and now is one of nearly 3,000 people who are season-ticket holders.

She’s the president of a supporter group, The Lavender Legion, which has nearly 300 members across 11 states and three countries.

Around town, she often wears Racing gear — whether it’s a T-shirt, a scarf, or a hat, all of which she owns — and she’s pleased by the number of people who recognize the team and recognize its future in Louisville.

“It’s really cool,” she said, “to see people here in Louisville realize how big this is going to be.”

NWSL Expansion Draft

When: Thursday, 7 p.m.

Watch: NWSL’s Twitch Channel, https://www.twitch.tv/nwslofficial

Rules: 

• NWSL teams were able to protect 11 players, including up to two U.S. allocated players (members of the U.S. Women’s National Team)
• Other players are available for Racing Louisville FC to select, and the club can pick up to two players from each participating team — Chicago is exempt due to a trade — for a total of 16
• Louisville can draft up to two U.S. allocated players, but if it picks zero, it will receive a grant of $150,000 for roster transactions; if it picks one U.S. allocated player, it will receive $75,000

Hayes Gardner can be reached at hgardner@gannett.com; Twitter: @HayesGardner.