U.S. Soccer and the federation’s professional women’s leagues have engaged in preliminary discussions about an interleague competition that could begin as early as 2028, multiple sources told ESPN.
The National Women’s Soccer League and the USL Super League are both sanctioned as a first divisions by U.S. Soccer. WPSL Pro is expected to launch as a second-division professional league in 2028.
Whether and how amateur teams would be involved in the prospective competition remains unclear, sources said.
There are at least four nationally organized amateur leagues that serve as summer teams for college players, including the WPSL and USL W-League.
Sources said that details of a potential competition are still being ironed out but that, at minimum, all three professional leagues have been involved in the conversations with the federation.
Women’s soccer in the U.S. has long lacked an interleague competition akin to the U.S. Open Cup on the men’s side or England’s FA Cup, which also exists for women.
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A source with knowledge of the discussions, who is not authorized to comment publicly on the matter, said that the proposed competition is not expected to be called an “Open Cup.”
Details like format and structure of the potential competition are being approached with a blank slate rather than directly copying the men’s U.S. Open Cup, the source said.
A U.S. Soccer spokesperson declined to comment.
Scheduling would be one of the biggest challenges for the idea.
The NWSL currently kicks off near the beginning of the calendar year and hosts playoffs in November. After another recent push in the board room to flip the calendar to a fall-to-spring model — which drew backlash from players — the NWSL committed to keeping the schedule framework as is at least through 2030.
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The USL Super League kicks off in August and concludes in May.
WPSL Pro is expected to launch in 2028 as a spring-to-fall league like the NWSL.
Top amateur leagues largely utilize college players and only operate from May through July.
The NWSL is also ostensibly launching a reserve league, although there have been scant updates publicly or privately on that concept since the league announced its intent in April 2025. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in September that it would be 2027at the earliest before for such a league would launch.
The NWSL has unsuccessfully toyed with the idea of creating shoulder competition in the past.
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First, there was the Challenge Cup, which was a COVID-19 pandemic concept in 2020 that effectively expanded into a league cup in the following years. Since 2024, it has been a one-off game, largely driven by sponsorship, between the reigning NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship winners.
In 2024, the NWSL and Mexico’s Liga MX Femenil combined forces for a summer crossover competition. The execution was flawed and widely criticized by club executives on both sides.
The final in San Antonio, Texas, drew little attention in late October that year, by which time the future of the tournament had already been scrapped internally.
An interleague U.S. competition, however, could be beneficial to all the professional leagues and create meaningful games outside of the regular season. Other than the few teams that qualify for the fledgling Concacaf competition, those matches largely don’t exist yet.
NWSL and USL Super League teams have only played each other occasionally in friendly matches since the latter launched in August 2024.
