Women's Soccer

Help me pick a team

If you have read my fledgling newsletter, you know that I like to use the phrase “Cult of Kansas City Sports.” Supporting your hometown teams is very serious there. This month will mark the start of my tenth year of living in the Pacific Northwest. To this point, I have remained loyal to Sporting Kansas City despite the Portland Timbers being a big deal here.

These days, I’m not so sure where I stand with the NWSL teams. The league formed in 2012 and Kansas City had one of the original franchises. In 2017, FC Kansas City and the NWSL announced that the team was folding. All the franchise rights were given to the expansion team in Utah—the Utah Royals FC. I was living in Portland at the time, so I proclaimed that my team was now the Portland Thorns. (That’s kind of a Cult of Kansas City Sports thing. You have to proclaim things like that. Or maybe that’s just me.)

And then THE DARK TIMES. The pandemic really changed my viewing habits, and most sports fell off my radar. In the midst of the lockdown, the NWSL announced that Kansas City was being awarded a new franchise. But I had already made my proclamation! The waters were muddied, though, by the fact that Brittany Mahomes was part of the ownership group for the Kansas City Current. A year or so later her husband Patrick Mahomes (holy is his name) also bought a stake in the club.

On the one hand, I feel like I should stick with the Thorns. I rooted for FC Kansas City, but that team folded. I was a free agent and chose to go with the Portland team. On the other hand—The Cult of Kansas City Sports. It’s hard to go against that. For all I know, they will label me a Suppressive Person and make my family sever all ties with me.

And so I ask: