In her own words, Christina Litz—president of the new Northern Super League—explains how the new six-team women’s soccer league is pitching a whole new audience and why players like Christine Sinclair have given the NSL a preemptive boost.
Christina Litz, president of the Northern Super League.The Globe and Mail
“The highlight of my soccer career was scoring 10 goals in one game when I was nine. It was pretty downhill from there. We all have our skills. I’m not an athlete. I’m here to enable really good athletes.
The Northern Super League was born because Diana Matheson, former national-team midfielder and Olympian, and overall super-smart woman, wanted to stay involved in the sport after the end of her playing career. I was brought in to help operationalize the league—take the big idea and build it. We launched the name and brand last spring, and we signed a few major broadcast agreements, so next year our games will be carried on TSN/RDS, and CBC and Radio-Canada.
I see women’s sports going out to communities that haven’t always been welcome—whether it’s the LGBTQ+ community or others—and saying, “Come on in.” And guess what? Once you go to a game, you want to come back.
— Christina Litz
I’m from Winnipeg, and my earliest and fondest memories are around going to Bombers and Jets games. I’ve always been a casual fan, though, and I don’t think sport has done a very good job of welcoming people who aren’t avid fans into the experience. When I made the transition to the Canadian Football League from entertainment and women’s lifestyle, it was intimidating. I had a great experience, but it speaks to the fact that there’s so much opportunity to welcome people in, no matter what kind of fan they are. I see women’s sports going out to communities that haven’t always been welcome—whether it’s the LGBTQ+ community or others—and saying, “Come on in.” And guess what? Once you go to a game, you want to come back. That’s a good business model, and it’s embedded in the DNA of women’s professional sports.
We’re going to be in six markets across the country, and the majority of our roster is going to be Canadian. In Canada, in particular, women have led the way in the growth of the game—Canadians know the names of players like Diana Matheson and Christine Sinclair, even more so than on the men’s side, which is a tremendous advantage for us. And soccer is so international, so when we look at growth potential, we’re looking worldwide. We believe we’ll be a very attractive market for players around the world. Canada is a great place to live and has a great reputation. And out of the gate, we’ll likely be in the top five women’s leagues in terms of pay, with a salary cap of $1.6 million per team, a guaranteed minimum wage of $50,000, and one player on every team who can be paid outside that cap. And because this is a league built by a player and with players, we’ve got very friendly benefits: progressive maternity leave, access to mental health support, even benefits relating to fertility treatments.
It’s a very attractive market, and we’re seeing that in the players being signed to our league on the international front. They can potentially play here and then look at going to other, more developed leagues in the future. That’s an income stream for the clubs, but it also brings a tremendous amount of interest from international media, which is where most leagues make the vast majority of their money.
This is a country where people play so many different sports, and it’s only getting more interesting—obviously soccer, but also emerging field sports like cricket and rugby, which has always been here but goes through ebbs and flows. But we still get painted as being a hockey nation. I love hockey, and it will always have its rightful place in the ecosystem, but in the years and decades ahead, soccer will be right up there with hockey for popularity, engagement and good business."
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