Dear reader, this week is going to go a bit differently than my first six articles. One, five of the seven matches this week ended in a draw, though some happened in more dramatic fashion than others. That’s the third week in a row that over half the matches in the league have ended in a tie, and there are only so many puns one can make. Two, and more importantly, there comes a time when pressure must be released, and that time for me is now.
Credit: Orlando Pride
This weekend, Match Day 16, featured the marquee matchup of the one seed Kansas City Current and the two seed Orlando Pride. Unfortunately, this match was scheduled at 3 PM CST, which meant Kansas City was under a heat advisory, and that the pitch was too hot to allow play. We learned a lot about the wet bulb that is used to measure pitch temperature, and we also learned that at least five (5) people were treated for heat exhaustion in the stands while waiting for play to resume. Play took over three hours to resume, which created a dangerous and unsafe situation for players, fans, staff, and officials. By the time the match began, the league lost its valued television spot and station, and the match lacked the energy expected of a top-of-the-table battle. Most importantly, it seemed to be the tipping point of the collective’s frustration and anger with the league. As a writer that covers the league, I am a part of that chorus and have been for several months.
My Fearless readers, I understand that no league is perfect, and that is an expectation I extend to the leadership of a given organization. As much as the league has grown over the past few years, I understand it is still new in comparison to other sports domestically and deserves the space and grace to try new things and fail at them. No person or collective grows in comfort, and the NWSL is no exception. But I cannot accept a continued show of inhumanity from a league that lauds itself as the best in the world and upholds player safety as a part of that claim. At the top of the league, there is no humanity, and the NWSL cannot allow that to be the case if it wants to be the best version of itself. The commissioner, Jessica Berman, must stand fully accountable for the harm caused by the league this season, and a failure to do so should lead to her resignation.
I do not say this lightly. I understand the gravity of my words in this time, and I am not saying them without deliberating on my words carefully.
I was at the Angel City FC vs Utah Royals match on Friday, May 09, 2025. I was present in the stadium, in the press box, when Savy King went down, died, and was resuscitated long enough to be driven to the hospital by ambulance. Fortunately, the work of the medical staff, and other forces, saved her life, and she is with us today to tell her story. And, I want to state, I in no way blame the sport, the league, or anyone else for what happened to Savy. It was a heart defect; it was always going to happen to her. In many ways, being on the pitch where a medical team had a direct line to her likely saved her life. Being under contract and on a team with a fantastic medical staff allowed them to find the problem and fix it with an operation. In that regard, everything players and their union fought for, worked in that moment, and a 20-year-old young woman has a second chance at life, and likely football. I witnessed a miracle and that is not lost on me.
My choice of words, my specific use of humanity, comes with the decision to continue playing that match. Everyone who had a say in that moment was fine with ending that match. That match continued because of the league, and its commissioner saying it should. In that moment, I and everyone in that stadium, was shown that the leader of our league, our sport, lacked human decency. And because the match was continued then concluded, it meant that I and other journalists had to ask football questions to traumatized players and staff. We had to navigate an unprecedented situation. We had to swallow our own trauma and meet the moment. We should not have been asked to do that. The players, the staff, and the officials of this league should not have been asked to do that, especially while the commissioner was nowhere to be found and did not speak with anyone that evening.
This moment must be a turning point.
Read our full statement below.
— NWSL Players Association (@nwslplayers.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 11:00 PM
No one in the employ of the league or an organization within it should be asked to do business as usual in the most fragile of moments. It is why the NWSLPA put out a statement condemning the decision. The league has stated that the situation will be handled differently should it arise again, but I do not trust anyone who must be told not to play a match after a moment like that. A young person lay dying, even briefly. Over ten thousand people held their collective breath. To my knowledge, not a single resource was provided to the people outside of the players and staff on those teams that night. If fans and staff are a part of this league and what makes it great and unique, they were not treated as such after this moment.
I cried on the phone to my mother the following weekend once it was announced that Savy was released and healing. I did not realize how much trauma I had, and how much it was exasperated by having to cover the rest of the match. Furthermore, I had to do my job the following week, and this time I was the only journalist present. I had to interview a team and staff that were still traumatized, that was in the room, but not in the room. This was after a match in which the commissioner was present, at which she had to be questioned about her accountability regarding how her decisions were made. “Respectfully, you’re the commissioner” was a phrase that signified she did not meet the moment, despite ample opportunity to do so.
Dear readers, I could write more about my thoughts on that match and the aftermath, but there is only so much vulnerability I can muster in one night, and I’ve realized I still have emotions to work through. What’s more, I want to keep focus on why the theme of the league this season is a lack of humanity. In addition to the thoughtlessness of not postponing the Kansas City vs Orlando match, when a precedent had been set early in the season for a match in Houston, it has come to light that the conditions during the Cascadia Rivalry were equally inhumane, and that that match should not have been played when it was. Players had burns on their feet due to the excessive heat of the turf. For those who do not know, turf cannot breathe, because it is not a living thing. It holds the temperature and intensifies it, meaning the heat is hotter and the cold is colder for the players.
Artificial turf gets hotter than asphalt.
It’s plastic.
The plastic can get hot enough to leave kids with thermal burns.
Risk of dehydration & heat exhaustion also escalates.https://t.co/qekIMLI9Al pic.twitter.com/1ZbrOAkMN6
— Ban Plastic Turf (@BanPlasticTurf) August 17, 2025
Post game and even into the next week, the teams, particularly Laura Harvey, spoke about the toll that match took on the players. Two teams played the league’s biggest rivalry in unsafe working conditions. No explanation has been given as to why the match was played at that time, so one can only conclude it was due to the television spot. Just like with the Kansas City vs Orlando match, it seemed the most important thing for the league was to keep the time slot. That is unacceptable and runs counter to all the league says it is in 2025.
Edward Abbey once said, “growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” This league cannot grow in a cancerous way just because growth comes with money. We must hold ourselves to a standard, one that cares for the labor and the supporters of this league. We must be good and faithful stewards of the game; of this chaos league we hold so dear. I am not asking for perfection. The owners, the GMs, the players, the fans, the staff, the officials, none of us as a collective are asking for perfection from the league or the commissioner. We are asking those who run it, who get to lead this precious and imperfect thing that we love with all our hearts, to do their job.
Protecting this league as it grows is a part of the job description. Jessica Berman, I am asking you to meet the moment. I am asking you to meet the moment about on the field issues only. I am not asking you about botched investigations, or lawsuits, or corporate supporter groups right now. I am asking you to tell us, then show us, that you love this sport and this league half as much as those of us in it, every day. I do not get paid to cover this league. I have spent more to cover the beautiful game than I will likely ever make doing so. I do it anyway, because I love this league, its culture, its players. I want the NWSL to be the best league in the world, but, more importantly, I want it to be the best version of itself. I want this sport to be for everyone, in word and in deed. I will say here what I would say to you if you were in the room with me now. Show us, or get out of the way, so someone who does love this league and those in it, can help it move forward to that goal.
Thank you in advance to the Fearless team for having my back in writing this. I am positive this will not curry you favor with the league. I am positive it will do no such thing for me. But I am the hope and dream of a slave, and I cannot be silent when harm is done, especially to those people and things I love. We deserve a prosperous league, but we deserve a safe league more. Not a comfortable league, because again, no one grows in comfort, but a league that is safe and accessible, that takes you on your merit. That is what sport is supposed to be. Please stop destroying that.
—
Sylvia Bullock is 1/2 of Shea Butter FC and the world’s foremost Christen Press and Crystal Dunn truther. She’ll be covering the NWSL every week for Fearless SC. You can find her on BlueSky at Southern Sylvs.
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