With no cases reported during the tournament, the league's successful efforts have been noteworthy as other sports - including the NBA and Major League Baseball - embark on their return to play.
The NWSL was the first professional team league to return to play in the United States after the sports world had been shut down by the pandemic. The league had been riding high before then, boosted in the wake of last summer's World Cup by national sponsors and a new broadcast deal with CBS. Baird had also come aboard after a successful run as marketing director for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
That took the Challenge Cup field down to eight teams, and organizers had to hastily redo the schedule. As a result, all the teams made the quarterfinals, with performance in the group stage determining seeding. “We came in with an objective, I think, which was to raise the profile of the league and what we're about,” Baird said. “And remember the core of that is always about the quality of play, the outstanding players we have, including the more than 50 players from all around the world at play in our league. I think right now that what we're proving is that the awareness of who we are, what we are, has gone up.
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