Heather Mitts is working to bring pro women’s soccer back to Philadelphia

Former U.S. women’s soccer team and longtime Philadelphia-area stalwart Heather Mitts is leading a group that is starting a push to bring professional women’s soccer back to the region.

Mitts told The Inquirer that she is in talks with the USL Super League, which plans to launch next year, about getting a team here in the future.

“I want to bring women’s soccer back to the area. That is a passion of mine, having played in two previous leagues,” the former Philadelphia Charge and Independence defender said. “I realized that if it’s going to come back a third time, it needs to be done properly so that it can succeed.”

Mitts’ Philadelphia ties go beyond playing playing pro soccer here, as she still lives locally with her husband and former Eagles quarterback A.J. Feeley. She picked the Super League in part because the USL has something the NWSL doesn’t yet: a defined player development pathway through youth and semi-pro levels. A professional league will be the final piece.

“It really does align perfectly with our vision for women’s soccer in Philadelphia,” Mitts said.

A Super League spokesperson told The Inquirer that “we are in discussion with Heather Mitts and her group about their plans to bring professional women’s soccer to Philadelphia, and we are very supportive of their efforts.”

But there is a lot of work to be done before the team or the league kicks off.

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For one thing, it’s not clear where this team would play yet. U.S. Soccer’s minimum standard for stadium capacity in a Division 1 women’s league is 5,000. Mitts said her group doesn’t have a stadium location set yet, but it eventually wants to build its own venue in the region. It seems likely the team would play at an existing venue to start, but that also will take some work.

She admitted that “where do we want to play and where we can we play are two different things,” and said “we had a great conversation the other day, and we have some options now that we are considering.”

As of now, those options do “not currently” include talks with the Union, Mitts said.

Subaru Park is the only area venue of suitable size with natural grass. Villanova Stadium, where Mitts played for the Charge long ago, and Franklin Field might sound good to outsiders, but both have too-narrow surfaces with artificial turf — and not great turf at that — as well as gridiron and other lines.

“In an ideal world, we would love to play on grass, and I know that limits us a lot,” Mitts said. “But I think you always have to plan for grass. And then as an Option B, we see a lot of great turf fields nowadays.”

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The Union certainly are open to hosting a pro women’s team at Subaru Park, no matter the league, and are building space in their forthcoming new training facility that such a team could use.

“We’ve had conversations with Heather and we are very interested in a women’s professional soccer team playing at Subaru Park,” Union president Tim McDermott told The Inquirer. “Our facilities are ideal for it. We have also been very thoughtful throughout the development of the WSFS Bank Sportsplex and future-proofing it to ensure it has first-class office space, fields, sports performance, and locker rooms for a women’s professional team.”

Mitts said in turn: “I greatly admire everything that the Union are currently doing, and have done in the past, to get them to where they are right now. Obviously, their academy is something that really has changed their success, and it’s something that we’re hoping to apply to our own league.”

She added that the final decision on venue will be up to the team’s owner — and that owner is not in place yet. There’s another big puzzle piece that needs solving, perhaps the biggest.

“We’re actively putting together an investment group right now,” Mitts said, declining to name who’s in it.

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The Super League plans to launch next August, becoming the first major U.S. pro league to have a European-style, fall-to-spring schedule instead of a summer-centric one. That means there’s 10 months — probably fewer, all things considered — for U.S. Soccer’s decision.

“I particularly like the international calendar, just because as a national team player, whenever you’re playing in the World Cup or the Olympics, it’s smack-dab in the summer, and you’re missing a large chunk of play for your clubs,” Mitts said. A fall-to-spring schedule avoids that, though it has to contend with cold winter weather in a lot of places.

“People don’t want to go to sporting events in the middle of summer in Florida,” Mitts replied to that point, and the NWSL also has seen that in Texas and North Carolina.

The Philadelphia team would not be in the league at its launch. A target date hasn’t been put forth yet.

As of now, eight markets are confirmed for the league’s kickoff: Charlotte; Dallas-Fort Worth; Lexington, Ky.; Phoenix; Spokane, Wash.; Tampa, Fla.; and the D.C. area. Five markets are confirmed as on the table for future seasons: Chattanooga, Tenn.; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Fla.; Madison, Wisc.; and Oakland, Calif.

All of those except Dallas and Tampa have organizations in existing USL leagues that would run the Super League teams.

A USL spokesperson said there could be two other teams in the league at launch, but Philadelphia is not one of them.

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The USL has applied for Division I sanctioning for the Super League, which would put it on the same level as the NWSL. The U.S. Soccer Federation has to make that decision, and it’s not clear when it will happen.

There’s no guarantee the Division I application will succeed. From the outside, it seems more likely the league will end up at Division II, in part because there’s currently no women’s league at that level. The USL runs a Division II men’s league, the USL Championship, which has been quite successful.

How two Division I women’s leagues would coexist is quite a question when it comes to competition for top players. As of now, it’s for answering down the road, but it won’t be long before the time arrives.

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That isn’t Mitts’ concern for now. Her focus is on getting a team here, returning professional women’s soccer to Philadelphia for the first time since the Independence folded in 2011. Philadelphia is one of only two cities that had teams in the two previous pro leagues, the Women’s United Soccer Association and Women’s Professional Soccer, but doesn’t have one now.

“This is about creating more opportunities for women here in this great city, this amazing sports city, with the men’s World Cup coming here in 2026,” Mitts said, and maybe the 2027 women’s World Cup too.

“We’ve had so much success here for all the sports teams, we have the most passionate fans around, every single owner has just shown their dedication to winning,” she continued. “And I just hope that we can bring a women’s professional team here again, and to do it right, and I think that the USL is the answer.”