The team behind The Offseason knew exactly what they were doing when they dropped a clip of their upcoming docuseries teasing revelations about romantic relationships between soccer players. The clip spread like wildfire through TikTok and group chats all over this spinning planet. In the clip, Taylor Smith acknowledged the fan-built and only marginally accurate chart of relationships between soccer players that exists on Al Gore’s internet. Nikki Stanton wondered if there was any team without a dating couple on it.
“What if they bring it on the field?” Midge Purce imitated concerned fans worried about the rampant lesbian action. “What if this happens? What if that happens?”
Midge then transitioned into being herself: “Honestly, everyone’s been very professional, that I’ve seen.” She then paused, reconsidered — “That’s a lie. I just lied. I forgot. No. They haven’t. It has messed up teams.” Collectively we all understand what she’s talking about because she is friends and former teammates with Ali Krieger and played for Gotham with Ali and Ashlyn.
The six-episode half-hour docu-series, co-created by aforementioned Midge Purce and Angel City FC cofounder Alexis Ohanian (Mr. Serena Williams) and produced by Alex Baskin of The Real Housewives, promised to deliver “an unfiltered look at the lives of these professional athletes beyond the pitch.” Filming over two weeks in Miami, the series brought together 11 NWSL players to showcase their talents and personalities.
The idea was rooted in Purce’s lamentation of “fantastic high-level offseason environments” for elite athletes to train their muscles and ball skills. Ohanian was like “if you build it, they will come.” Then Purce decided to marry her desires for aforementioned elite training facility with her desire for better storytelling around the incredible athletes in the NWSL and called up all her friends to ask them to be in her show, and they were like “no ❤️.” But also, 11 of them were like “yes 😝”
The “Yes” Girlies
This morning the first episode of The Offseason dropped on fledgling fascist-owned social media webpage X, formerly known as Twitter. As reality television goes, it was a pretty low-stakes 29 minutes, but with plenty of personality and humor to delight women’s soccer fans.
Midge Purce (cited in the show as a player for Gotham FC, but she tore her ACL in March and isn’t playing this season) and Ifeoma “Ify” Onumonu (cited in the show as a player for the Utah Royals, but she has since parted ways with Utah and signed with Montpellier HSC in France) are the first to arrive in the house. There are two chefs present who’ve already prepared a resplendent spread of fruit plates and shrimp cocktail.
The first queer to arrive is Nikki Stanton (Seattle Reign FC, gay, famously the ex of Sam Kerr and Rachel Rapinoe), who declares, “holy frick a dooley, it’s like a modern castle,” which is the exact same thing I said the first time I went to Medieval Times.
So who all’s gay here?
Nikki says she heard there are crocodiles here and Midge says she doesn’t fuck with Florida. Then Midge and Nikki get trapped in the elevator which is bad because Nikki has to pee.
Luckily it is a glass elevator, so they can still say hi from their little sky box as everyone else arrives — Michelle Alozie (Houston Dash), Lo’eau LaBonta (Kansas City) and our second gay, Paige Nielsen (Houston Dash).
I am always saying this
In the elevator, Nikki, undoubtedly inspired by a Zazu/Scar scene from The Lion King deeply embedded in her subconscious, begins singing a song about the trouble she’s seen. Midge tells Nikki that it’s a slave spiritual. 120 minutes later a mechanic arrives and rescues both of them from the elevator. I can’t believe Nikki had to pee all that time.
Then our final gay, Taylor Smith (cited in the show as a NJ/NY Gotham FC player, but has since signed with the Brooklyn Football Club of the USL Super League) arrives and remarks that the backyard lake (?) is teeming with small fish. She is my favorite character on the show.
This is my kind of lesbian
The next arrival is Kelli Hubley (Portland Thorns FC). Midge says Kelli is crazy and loves to have fun. Kelli tells Paige that she looks like she’d be from Nebraska. Next through the door is Taryn Torres (NY Gotham FC) and then Ally Watt (Orlando Pride FC) and then Midge promises everyone that someone else will show up tomorrow. It will be a big surprise. Maybe it will be Nick and Vanessa Lachey. Nikki (I think that’s who it is, she’s offscreen) asks if it’s gonna be one of her exes and then we get the little talking heads — Taylor saying, “The lesbian world, in the league. It’s ridiculous.”
“The drama!” says Paige Nielsen. Unfortunately that is all we get for now on this topic.
Midge says they’ve got training the next morning at 10 AM so everybody does tequila shots to prepare. The next morning Taylor takes a long time to pick out her chain, perfume and sandals and Ify says she’s the most dramatic person in the world.
This is how lesbians have sex
“I think people just like to throw that out there,” Taylor says. “You know who else is dramatic? Ify. You know who else is dramatic? Nicky. You know who else is dramatic? Midge. So I feel like that’s just the pot calling the kettle black.”
When the girls show up 15 minutes late for practice, music changes here into a tone that I think is supposed to make us feel like these 15 minutes of lateness is really serious and important, but ultimately everybody continues to live and breathe and experience free life.
So what do you guys think of Boston? Too many balls, right?
The final housemate arrives. It’s Maria Sanchez and she just signed a $1.5 million dollar contract with the Houston Dash and is buying a house in Houston so everyone loves her but also kinda hates her a little bit. The remainder of the episode is focused on the absurd injustice of Lo’eau LaBonta‘s life — the Stanford engineering grad began her pro career with an under-$10k salary and apparently remains extremely underpaid. In an April 2024 with The Huffington Post, it’s suggested that Lo’eau possibly negotiated a better salary for her current season.
At dinner after Nikki thanks Midge for bringing them all together in this nice house where they can eat lobster tail and chill in the hot tub and try on sandals, Midge asks the group for their long-term aspirations, if anybody would consider coaching or managing. Lo suggests a personal interest in managing, insisting she’ll stand up for her athletes despite being unsuccessful in doing so for herself, which’s when everybody realizes Lo doesn’t have an agent and they’re all like — “Lo, get an agent!”
“After you got best 11 and you were captain and you led your team to the NWSL final, they didn’t renegotiate your contract?” Midge asked.
“No. I asked them and they said no,” says Lo.
Aja, your car’s small.
It’s a little cramped but, it’s fine.
Fine? When you became MVP once, was that fine? No, you did it thrice.
They built you a statue.
But you’re fine with this tiny car when you could just sell it to Carmax?
You’re right, it isn’t fine.
Then Midge is like, “is anybody gonna leave their team?” and then she’s like “I might leave Gotham.” This is I believe the cliffhanger.
I have a question though which is …. why is this show airing on X? Like what does that even mean? Also I realize that it’s quite possible you’ve read this entire thing and thought to yourself, “Hm, I think I know more about women’s soccer than Riese” and if that’s true, that’s fine and I accept that entirely and listen nobody is sorrier than me, and if you want to tell me stuff in the comments that you think I should know better about then that is okay because I love to learn! (Really, I do love to learn.)
Riese, you did a great job and I never once questioned your soccer knowledge!
SUSIE THANK YOU i feel so affirmed
I’m so excited you are covering this! I was actually at a launch party for this, which Midge attended, and she framed the X platform as the only place that would give her full editorial control, and that the vision of the show was to bring out the storylines that already exist in women’s soccer, not create new reality drama (and that they had to fire multiple producers because they were trying to manufacture drama). Reading between the lines, I think this was a self-funded proof of concept given the producers don’t have any prior media experience, and hopefully if there are more seasons it moves to a better platform.