Small Market, Grand Designs – Sioux Falls City looking to expand

Sioux Falls City‘s jump to USL-W is an expansion in every sense, as an energized Sporting Director Joe De May told us this evening.

I think when the ownership group started out they had grand designs at that time… Things have evolved and the women’s sports landscape has really kind of taken off exponentially.

While WPSL PRO was “right in front of” the club and WPSL “has been a great platform for us, there’s a lot of things from the USLW perspective that align a little bit better with what we try to do on our end.” That included the ears of sponsors pricking up more at the prospect of D1 as opposed to D3. 

The club sees viable expansion models from the men’s side, most clearly with Minneapolis City. The top of their organizational pyramid would be a USL Super League professional team, with a professional reserve side in the WPSL PRO and a pre-professional team at the USL-W level. 

The WPSL has a clause in its membership manual allowing for a two year “pause”, which City are going to take advantage of, before re-opening that branch to “provide that level for those players who, are primarily focused more on their college development, and that’s probably going to be the end of their competitive soccer careers.”

The more teams, the more opportunities women have to play, but more clubs at more levels offers people a better chance of finding their level instead of warming the bench at a higher level.

How can you provide those players with those opportunities to play at a high level? But still be in a pro environment as well. So we think there’s a place for both leagues. 

Sioux Falls City is riding a wave but, like a well-coached team on the pitch, its shape remains. 

I think it can be adaptable, flexible, but as long as you’re keeping your core values and your main priorities at the core, then you’re okay. You know, it’s when you start bending your core values (that problems occur).

It is both a compressed and a fluid timeline, with a hopeful professional presence from South Dakota by 2027. With the Professional League Standards as they currently are written, division 1 women’s leagues need 75% of their teams in TV markets of 750,000 – which Sioux Falls is not. Super League’s got eight teams, but they have two teams that are underneath that 750,000 so they’re right at the 75%. 

We’re cheering for more big cities to join because even if we were already in 2025 to do that, unless they had another big city join the league to offset another small market club like us coming on board, we couldn’t do it.

De May is firm in his resolve that the club expands according to its needs rather than because of a league, with every league a possible destination for their sides. He is however, also insistent that they have an ongoing and healthy relationship with WPSL. 

We just think that both leagues have something to offer and we’re trying to navigate that the way through that to make it happen and At this point, we felt we needed to make the jump to USLW to do that with clearly stating to WPSL, hey, our intention is not to leave you.

In fact, De May foresees some professional reserve teams in the WPSL PRO.

I think that’s a very sustainable path for the league. We envision ourselves taking part in that.

We will be watching. Stay tuned to our coverage.