A few months back, a new fully professional US women’s soccer league was announced, called the National Women’s Soccer League, and luckily, Seattle has been chosen to have a team in this new league. And today, that team was named:  Seattle Reign FC. Regular season games start in April of 2013.

It may be a bit confusing, because we have a semi-pro league called the United Soccer Leagues W-League, for which the Women’s Sounders play. National Women’s Team superstars Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe, Syndey LeRoux and Alex Morgan played last year on that team in Seattle. This team will play again, but undoubtedly without these all-stars.

Bill Predmore, owner of the new Seattle Reign FC, said in a press release, the new name in this new league, is out of respect for a team that is no longer around:

“Today’s announcement is the result of a thoughtful process to identify the name that best represents the values of our club, articulates our long-term ambitions and celebrates the community within which our supporters live. Seattle Reign FC meets all of those objectives and at the same time honors the legacy of professional women’s sports in Seattle. Like the Seattle Sounders, whose fans selected a name that honored those who pioneered the sport of soccer in Seattle in the early 1970’s, Seattle Reign FC was, in part, selected to pay homage those visionaries—the leaders and players of the Seattle Reign women’s basketball team—who pioneered professional women’s sports in Seattle.”

(The Seattle Reign women’s basketball team, who played in the American Basketball League (ABL) from 1996 through 1998, helped lay the foundation for professional women’s sports in Seattle.)

As to which players from the Women’s US National Team (who play in the Olympics and World Cup) will play on our new pro team Seattle Reign FC, rumours abound, but nothing has yet been released..  Last year, for the semi-pro team, reasons for  Solo, Rapinoe, Morgan and Laroux, playing up here were that all had local ties to the Northwest. And, it’s been reported that Abby Wambach has purchased a house in Portland, where another pro team (the Portland Thorns) has just set up camp.

- Lee Callahan, CBS Radio Seattle