US Soccer is launching a new club competition that will feature all sanctioned professional women’s teams across the country, The Cutback can reveal.
There are currently 24 sanctioned professional women’s teams in the US, 16 in the NWSL and eight in the USL-Super League.
The new competition is to be called the Arthur M. Blank Crest Cup and it will be a single-elimination knockout format, culminating in a championship final. The trophy is named after Arthur M. Blank, owner of MLS side Atlanta United and the incoming Atlanta City FC NWSL franchise.
The cup will serve as a pathway to qualify for the Concacaf W Champions Cup and feature a total prize pool of more than $1.5million, with the winner receiving $1.1 million.
Work to finalise the plans for the new domestic tournament is ongoing, with details surrounding timing and regulations still being discussed between US Soccer, NWSL clubs and the NWSL Players Association (NWSLPA).
US Soccer announced the new competition on Wednesday. In a statement, Cindy Parlow Cone, US Soccer president, said: "Women's soccer continues to be one of the most dynamic and inspiring forces in sport. The Crest Cup will create meaningful impact by bringing people together, attracting investment in the future of the game, and ensuring that excellence, inclusivity, and opportunity remain at the heart of women's soccer in the United States."
Women’s football in the US has not previously had an inter-league cup competition where teams from different professional leagues have the opportunity to compete against each other in a formalised event.
US Soccer’s US Open Cup is the country’s oldest men’s knockout football club competition, mirroring that of England’s FA Cup, it features teams from across the professional landscape in the US.
The NWSL has run the Challenge Cup as an additional domestic club competition since 2020, when it was initially introduced as a one-off summer tournament during the Covid-19 impacted season.
Since then, it has been tweaked multiple times and since 2024 has been a one-off game between the previous season’s winners of the Championship, the team that wins the playoffs, and the Shield, the trophy awarded to the team that finishes top at the end of the regular season.