How do you solve a problem like the NWSL Challenge Cup?

It's the most coveted trophy in the world, but it never looks the same. How should the league be treating their only non-regular season competition? Savannah McCaskill weights in.

Photo provided by Gotham FC

The Challenge Cup of Theseus

Ceci n'est pas une Challenge Cup

Schrödinger's Challenge Cup

Every year, the National Women’s Soccer League’s Challenge Cup trophy seems to take on a different form. From the 2020 bubble mini-tournament that gave us Kristie Mewis scooping up armfuls of beer bottles to the choppy pre-season stand-alone games that gave us nothing, it’s been seven iterations of this highly coveted trophy — but to what end?

“It’s taken on every form I think it could possibly take on,” Savannah McCaskill said to media at Gotham’s first availability following the team’s 2026 Challenge Cup win.

Gotham itself has had many near misses of this sought-after accolade. In 2020, the team made it to the semi-finals of the inaugural tournament, losing 3-2 to the Chicago Red Stars. In 2021, the league introduced an East and West division split with games throughout the season that saw Gotham win the East but fall to Portland Thorns FC in a heartbreaking penalty shootout that ended 6-5.

Gotham then found themselves in the Challenge Cup again in 2024. This time, the league had shifted it to a pre-season tournament played between the Shield winners (San Diego Wave) and the Championship winners (Gotham). The Wave bested Gotham on their home turf with a 1-0 win.

In 2026, Gotham had another go at the elusive trophy. With their participation in the inaugural FIFA Women’s Champions Cup to start the season, the league was forced to move the Challenge Cup to a different time, selecting the June international break.

This year, the players on the championship team received $3,500 and the runners-up took home $2,200 each for participation in the final match.

McCaskill herself has had plenty of experience with the Challenge Cup. The midfielder was with the Chicago Red Stars when they made it to the final in 2020, ultimately losing to Mewis’ Houston Dash. McCaskill was with San Diego Wave when they beat Gotham in 2024. Now, she’s a Challenge Cup winner with Gotham, which has been her favorite iteration for the stand-alone game.

“This year I think where the league put it, in the June break, was pretty good timing because it helps you get back into regular season,” she said.

Kristie Mewis 2020 Houston Dash Challenge Cup celebration

Regardless of the inconsistencies of this ever-evolving trophy, it does seem clear that having an additional competition outside of the regular season is something both fans and players desire. This season, the game was held in an out-of-market location in Columbus, OH and drew over 11,000 fans — about on par with the league’s average attendance so far this season. Clearly the appetite is there, and growing it seems like a no-brainer.

The problem here is that the Challenge Cup just seems to be sprinkled in wherever the league can find the time amidst a busy schedule, making it hard to find its footing as a fully respected knockout tournament. With the constant shift in format, it does not provide players with the same consistent goal for preparing for or winning the title.

“It’s always great to win trophies, but it has always been a different mindset or experience depending on here it’s placed in the year,” McCaskill said. “When it was the first game of the year, it was a whole different challenge because you haven’t really played a big game yet, you don’t really know who you are as a team.”

So, how do you solve a problem like the Challenge Cup?

Many would agree that the NWSL should endeavor to make the Challenge Cup mean something more as it continues to hold the competition — but this is of course more easily said than done.

Battling schedule congestion while navigating the availability of shared stadiums is no easy task as the league looks to give credibility to the desirable Challenge Cup trophy. Creating a sustainable, repeatable format is certainly something from which both the league and the players could benefit, especially as the league continues to grow.

If the idea is to keep it as a stand-alone match, it likely behooves the league to keep it consistently on the calendar, and perhaps the mid-season spot of this year’s game is the sweet spot. With teams in peak-form, this has the best chance to create a better playing and viewing experience for players and fans respectively.

With the league’s consistent expansion, more teams means more games. In a perfect world, shifting the competition back to a knockout tournament style throughout the season would give other teams the chance at a trophy and not just the previous seasons’ winners. Whether teams and players would be amenable to this is another story.

Gotham FC played 35 games across all competitions in 2025, the most of any NWSL team. The Washington Spirit played 34. If the league were to move the Challenge Cup back to a full tournament format, this could up their games played significantly, perhaps by another 5-10 games depending on how far they went in the competition.

As a comparison, Arsenal Women played close to 40 games across all competitions last season. On the men’s side of things, Serie A winners Inter Milan and MLS side Inter Miami played in over 50 games in that same period

Photo provided by Gotham FC

While adding more games is plausible, whether it’s healthy for the players is another story. It would probably take more investment in resources at the club level to ensure the players and teams could safety hit a 40 game season before that conversation could even begin.

So, for now, we can appreciate the Challenge Cup for what it is (or isn’t) or what it is yet to become. As McCaskill sees it, Gotham will use the momentum from this win to catapult them into the back half of what has been a very competitive NWSL season.

“Yes, [the performance] wasn’t perfect, yes, there’s things that we can still continue to grow on, but it really was a continuation from what we were trying to build on from the first half of the year,” she said. “And so to be able to get a game under our belt as a team before the regular season starts back up is really important, from a confidence building standpoint but also from where we want to go as a team and what we want to achieve the rest of the year.”

What’s next for Gotham FC?

Gotham will face San Diego Wave away at San Diego tomorrow at 8:45PM ET followed by a matchup with the Royals away at Utah on Friday, July 10th at 10PM ET.

The team will return home for the highly anticipated Queens Classic at Citifield on Wednesday, July 15th at 8PM (which will also likely be the debut of Sam Kerr!).

See ya then!