With the newly named Northern Super League (NSL) officially set for kickoff, Canadian women can finally launch their careers in the beautiful game without leaving their home turf.

Previously referred to as Project 8, the NSL will debut in 2025 as the first professional women’s soccer league in the country.

Shannon Kerwin, Associate Professor of Sport Management at Brock University, says the NSL offers a much-needed pathway for women who play to develop in and through the Canadian system.

It may also serve to encourage young women to pursue their dreams of playing professional sports here at home, says Michele Donnelly, Assistant Professor of Sport Management.

The opportunity for women athletes to both “continue their careers beyond university and earn a living playing their sport ensures that girls understand professional sport as a possibility,” she says.

Record-breaking viewership of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and increased attention to qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and other friendly matches point to a “healthy appetite for women’s professional soccer in Canada,” says Assistant Professor of Sport Management Taylor McKee.

“It is beyond question that Canada has desperately needed a domestic professional option to stem the churn of talented players of all ages to all corners of the globe,” he says. “There is no doubt that the calibre of soccer will be high and if the overall product is relevant, thoughtfully marketed and engaging to fans, it will draw significant interest.”

The new league presents “remarkable opportunities for women to be involved — and stay involved” off the field, too, says Kerwin.

Rather than the historically competitive and exclusionary spaces often encountered in professional sports, the NSL was built with inclusion and collaboration as its core guiding principles.

“This type of environment of inclusion and collaboration is where women thrive,” Kerwin says.

The announcement comes on the tailwinds of a groundswell of milestones in professional women’s sports this year.

In addition to the launch of the NSL, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) recently concluded its first season and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) announced its expansion into Canada with a Toronto franchise earlier this month. Women will also play at the World Lacrosse Box Championships for the first time in the fall.

“Many of us are reacting to the events of 2023 and 2024 with an ‘it’s about time’ response,” says Donnelly.

While this wave of interest has been “an exciting moment for women’s sport in Canada and beyond,” she says recent milestones should also be viewed as part of a long-term, but inconsistent, effort to advance women’s sports.

The Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games being referred to as the “Women’s Games” is one example of a similarly positive and hopeful moment in women’s sports history, Donnelly says, and it will ultimately take “consistent, intentional action to achieve gender equality in sport.”

Each professional sports league must also be given “the grace to succeed, or fail, without it serving as the final determination of the sport’s future in Canada or whether women’s sport can occupy a substantial place in the sporting marketplace,” stresses McKee.

Kerwin adds the demand to play, watch and lead women’s professional sports teams should also not be seen as “a trend or fad.”

“The ability to connect with women’s sport and athletes within these leagues is far greater than anything we have seen in other leagues across the globe,” she says. “If we continue to see women’s sport leagues as leagues on their own merit — and not compare to men’s leagues in terms of their fan base — we can start to embrace the collective movement and sustainability of women’s sport leagues that are founded on excellence, collaboration and a unique value that is not, but should be, comparable to traditional sport leagues.”

The rapid growth recently seen in women’s professional sport should not be “interpreted as the end of the story,” either, adds Donnelly.

“Rather, the story must continue with increased, sustained and intentional investment of resources in girls’ and women’s sport at every level in Canada and globally.”