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Graham HaysESPN.com

ShutGraham Hays covers faculty sports activities for espnW, together with softball and soccer. Hays started with ESPN in 1999.

Hollywood stars and greater than a dozen former members of the U.S. ladies’s nationwide team (USWNT) have fashioned an possession group to bring ladies’s skilled soccer to Los Angeles in 2022.

The new team, which has but to be named, was introduced on Tuesday.

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Led by enterprise capitalists Alexis Ohanian and Kara Nortman and entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, the possession group additionally contains actresses Uzo Aduba, Jessica Chastain, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria and Natalie Portman, in addition to discuss present host Lilly Singh.

Tennis star Serena Williams, who’s married to Ohanian, can be a part of the possession group.

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Among the 14 former USWNT players who’re a part of the group are Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Lauren Holiday and Abby Wambach.

“I am proud to be a part of this wonderful group working to bring a women’s professional football club to Los Angeles,” Ohanian mentioned.

“Chiefly, because I’m a fan of the game, but also because I believe there is massive potential for the sport and it’s been absurdly undervalued by too many people for far too long. As someone who spends hours kicking around a football with my two-year-old daughter, I want her to have a front row seat to this revolution.”

Most of the previous U.S. players are both Southern California natives or have ties to the realm, as within the case of Hamm, who can be a part of the Major League Soccer (MLS) LAFC possession group.

The Angel City group didn’t point out a direct affiliation with an present MLS team or different entity and mentioned a venue associate, in addition to the membership’s official title, can be introduced at a later date.

Six of the 9 present NWSL groups are affiliated with males’s skilled groups, 4 with MLS groups, one with a United Soccer League (USL) team and one with Olympique Lyonnais of France.

The NWSL’s latest team Racing Louisville FC, which was introduced in October and will play within the 2021 league, is affiliated with the USL’s Louisville City FC.

Los Angeles had lengthy been seen as a touchdown spot for the NWSL, which is now in its eighth yr of competitors and doesn’t have a team based mostly in California.

Both the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) and Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) leagues, earlier iterations of the ladies’s skilled soccer league, had groups in Southern California — the WUSA’s San Diego Spirit and WPS’ Los Angeles Sol.

“We’ve long sought the right partner in LA considering the NWSL fanbase that already exists in the region and the massive interest in women’s soccer in general,” NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird mentioned in an announcement.

“Those factors, along with an incredible ownership group make this an ideal situation and we couldn’t be more thrilled to move forward.”

Spanish superpower Barcelona publicly indicated its curiosity in fielding an NWSL team within the Los Angeles market in 2017, however no deal was ever reached.

Either as a part of a enterprise with Barcelona or independently, LAFC has additionally been regularly linked to NWSL curiosity. Aduba, Ferrera, Garner, Longoria and Portman attended when the USWNT beat Belgium at LAFC’s Banc of California Stadium in 2019.

The different former nationwide team players within the possession group are Shannon Boxx, Rachel Buehler, Amanda Cromwell, Joy Fawcett, Tisha Venturini Hoch, Angela Hucles, Shannon MacMillan, Saskia Webber and sisters Lorrie Fair Allen and Ronnie Fair Sullins.

The Los Angeles team would be the NWSL’s 11th team, following Racing Louisville’s debut in 2021.

Neither the WUSA nor WPS ever fielded as many as 11 groups. The NWSL started play in 2013 with eight groups and reached its earlier excessive water mark of 10 groups within the 2016-17 seasons, earlier than the Boston Breakers folded prior to the 2018-19 season.