Editor Carolyn Kent Women’s Football Hub
In this episode of the Women’s Football Hub, I had the privilege of speaking with someone who has been at the heart of the women’s game in the United States for over fifty years. Jim Gooley’s work with the New Jersey Wildcats, Sky Blue FC, and later Gotham FC has shaped not only clubs but also pathways, sponsorship models, and attitudes toward player care across the sport.
His stories are part history lesson, part business masterclass, and part love letter to the women’s game. This blog captures the key themes of our conversation: how franchises are built, why the women’s game requires a different approach, and what the future might hold for independent clubs and major leagues alike.
Player Protection: The Foundation of a Franchise
One of the most striking parts of Jim’s story is his belief that player welfare isn’t just a moral obligation it is a business model. From the early days of franchise development, he understood that sponsorships from healthcare providers were the backbone that allowed teams to survive.
In the U.S., the cost of medical care and insurance can destroy a club’s finances. Jim explained that workman’s compensation alone can skyrocket after a single season of injuries. But by working in partnership with local hospitals and health systems, franchises could secure essential medical support that players desperately needed.
These weren’t surface‑level sponsorships. They weren’t just logos on shirts. They were relationships built around trust, collaboration, and genuine value on both sides. In fact, Jim shared stories of how some of the biggest stars in the game Rose Lavelle among them chose their clubs based on reputation for player protection. Athletes talk, and word spreads fast when a club takes care of their own.
For Jim, player welfare is inseparable from performance. If a player feels valued, respected, and protected, she will produce her best football. If she feels expendable, her performance inevitably suffers. It seems obvious, yet the women’s game is littered with examples where this simple truth has been ignored.
The Realities of Injury and the Need for Proper Support
During our conversation, I reflected on my own early experience with injury my ACL tear at nineteen, suffered before I had ever touched a barbell or received proper athletic development or injury prevention guidance. Jim listened with the empathy of someone who has shepherded countless players through similar situations.
He has seen the best and the worst of how clubs handle injuries. Some offered players choices between high‑quality specialists and cheaper, less appropriate options tied to club relationships. In one of my examples, a surgeon outright admitted he specialised in hips, not knees, yet was put forward because he was a friend of someone at the club.
These moments reveal exactly why the professionalisation of player care has been such a defining theme in the growth of women’s football. As more clubs recognise the long‑term value of proper medical support, the standard of player health improves as does the overall quality of the league.
Marketing and Merchandising: Why the Women’s Game Is Different
One of the most fascinating threads in our conversation was Jim’s view on marketing. For years, the women’s game has attempted to sell itself as a softer version of the men’s sport. But as Jim argues, women’s football is not a derivative product its fan culture, its values, and the way supporters engage with the game are fundamentally different.
Women’s football fans, Jim says, love merchandise. Not because they want to cosplay as their heroes, but because identity and belonging mean something different in the women’s game. When a fan buys a shirt with Kelly Smith or Nadia Nadim on the back, they aren’t just supporting a team they’re aligning with a life philosophy, with values, with a community.
This is why women’s football merchandising must be designed for women: styles that fit real female supporters, colours that work in all settings, and items that reflect the culture of the game not simply scaled‑down men’s kits.
Jim shared countless stories of clubs refusing to stock items that fans were begging to buy, even when he proved demand right in front of them. At one point, he offered his own money to help fund visors and hats simply because fans were turning up in the heat with nothing to buy.
Marketing to women’s football crowds, he says, isn’t about traditional advertising. It’s about relationships. It’s about community. It’s about identity. And the clubs that embrace this will thrive.
Independent Clubs: The Hardest but Most Rewarding Path
We talked about the challenges faced by independent women’s clubs those without the safety net of a men’s counterpart. Jim views independence as something powerful: a sign of responsibility, creativity, and freedom. But it is also a struggle, especially in environments where men’s clubs receive disproportionate investment and visibility.
Independent teams, he argues, must lean into what makes the women’s game unique. They are not competing with men’s football they are offering something entirely different. Community engagement, social impact, strong role models, and accessibility form the DNA of successful independent clubs.
Jim’s advice is simple: understand your community, build deep relationships with local businesses, and embrace the culture of the women’s game instead of trying to copy the men’s playbook.
Ticket Pricing, Transfer Fees, and the Future of Accessibility
We also discussed the modern challenges of the game particularly rising transfer fees and ticket prices. Jim understands the need for financial growth but fears that elitist pricing threatens to exclude the families and communities that have built football from the ground up.
The paradox is clear: as the game becomes more commercially successful, it risks losing the very people who made it special.
International tournaments, however, are thriving. The Women’s World Cup and UEFA events are drawing enormous attention and attracting travelling fans who see the tournaments as cultural events as much as footballing ones. Jim and I both believe that global tournaments are poised for even more rapid growth.
The Gotham FC Story: A Full‑Circle Moment
Toward the end of our conversation, Jim spoke about what it felt like to see Gotham FC win the NWSL championship and claim the spotlight on a national stage. Standing on the podium, surrounded by club owners and confetti, he reflected on decades of work years spent fighting for sponsorships, battling for legitimacy, and protecting players when no one else would.
For Jim, it wasn’t just a club winning a trophy. It was proof that women’s football, when given proper support and belief, can flourish beyond anyone’s expectations.
Final Thoughts
This conversation was a reminder that the women’s game did not grow by accident. It has been built, painstakingly, by people like Jim Gooley people who fought for players, nurtured clubs, and created pathways before the rest of the world recognised their value.
If you are building a franchise, working in women’s sport, or simply invested in the future of the game, Jim’s insights offer a blueprint for success: put players first, honour your community, invest in identity, and never underestimate the power of genuine care.
Hashtags:
#womensfootball #woso #footballbusiness #NWSL #GothamFC #playercare #sportsmedicine #womeninsport #sportsleadership #footballculture #independentclubs #WSL
This blog was created from the podcast with the assistance of AI, then fully checked and edited by the podcast host.
Women's Football Hub 
Leave a comment