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WPSL PRO

WPSL PRO Interview Part 3: Empowering athletes, engaging fans

,   and  Northland Media
3 min read
LOI-Map-Apr-2025
This is part 3 of our interview with WPSL PRO Project Director Benno Nagel. Read part 1 here and part 2 here 
With no designs on Division 1 and amateurs at Division 4 level, Nagel explained to us how the new league is looking to empower athletes to advance. I think that was probably the most important group that we were targeting for that announcement. Just to show those athletes that, Hey, we're fighting for you. We're trying to create a world for you to continue to develop in. Keep playing, keep training, keep making the commitment to what you're doing because we're gonna build a pathway forward.
So I hope that there was a lot of soccer fans that saw it, but I really hope that there was a lot of soccer athletes that saw it and I hope they can keep 'em dreaming for what we can what we can build and what they can achieve 'cause ultimately the athletes have to step up and hit that next level.We're lucky that the WPSL has such a base of athletes already, to generate a couple hundred players that we would want to draw from to form the league. So I think we're in a pretty good spot, and I think a lot of credit, obviously to Sean (Jones, the WPSL President) and the folks that operate the WPSL and have for years and years. Even going back to Jerry Zanelli, the founder of the league. It's just a tremendous story. 


With a blank slate, the new league has chosen the US tradition of a Spring to Fall schedule rather than the International calendar followed by (amongst others) USL Super League. Nagel's response is refreshingly candid. For a lot of the country in those Winter months it's pretty harsh elements outside. And I just don't know if that's the right approach. I get it from the International calendar and what it does to unlock things within the summers.Obviously people live in those elements, it's not like people aren't living in Minnesota in January. But we just feel that the Spring, Summer, Fall time period is gonna be a lot more conducive to families and sports fans that want to come out and spend two or three hours tailgating before the game and get to their seats early and just really enjoy the elements and the crowd and the stadium without having to wear 20 layers of clothing and go take a warm shower for an hour after they get home. We just really wanted to make sure that the fan experience was gonna be as uniform as possible across the league and not create any circumstance where folks are playing in weather conditions. They just aren't the best for pro sports.


For fans unable to make it to live games, the presence of Gravitas Ventures as an investor is seen as key. This isn't where we're gonna exploit the fact that they're lower level athletes trying to strive for a higher level but I think the ability to tell their story, I think that they will also welcome it because they want to amplify their profile and they want to show who they are. I think there's a lot of good synergy that will allow us to tell some really powerful stories authentically and again, really make this a league where it's athlete first.If you think about that beyond just the game day broadcast, but the types of content that we can produce week in, week out, I think there's some really exciting stuff that we can do.We're really excited to tell the story of these athletes. I think that's the biggest opportunity for us in the market is to really personalize the journey from a high school junior or senior through a top college player prospect and how do they get to the professional level?  Who's gonna be the next superstar that we uncover? If you think to the MLS Next Pro as an example, you know who's gonna be the next Cavan Sullivan that comes through the WPSL PRO, and how will we tell that story?I think that's interesting to think about, who are those players? Because we really do feel that there's a lot of those players in this country that just have not been discovered yet. Maybe not players at his level, he's a very special player as a young up and coming men's player, but we feel that there's a lot of undiscovered talent in this country, and I think that people are very interested to learn about who those athletes are, where do they come from there's just a lot that hasn't been touched upon with women's soccer, just because there hasn't been enough teams to tell those stories.There hasn't been enough reach from the leagues to be able to get into those markets. I think that's why we're pretty well positioned to, to succeed with what we're doing. We wrap up our interview next week, with a look at the development piece. Stay tuned.

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