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When the final whistle blows in the Washington Spirit’s NWSL semifinal match against the Utah Royals on Saturday afternoon, stadium workers will quickly turn over the venue for a Division III college football game, kicking off just a couple of hours later.
The Spirit were not originally going to play at their home venue, D.C. United’s Audi Field, if they advanced to the semifinals, due to the stadium already being booked for the Secretaries Cup between the Merchant Marine and Coast Guard Academies.
During and after the team’s 4–1 quarterfinal win over the Portland Thorns last Saturday, Spirit leadership began to push to stay at Audi rather than relocate to Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, home of the NFL’s Commanders. The team announced it would play the semifinal in Audi the following day, though kickoff times for both games were not confirmed until later this week.
The answer was a NWSL semifinal at noon ET and a 4:30 p.m. college football game. Gates will open for the Secretaries Cup at 3:30 p.m., roughly 90 minutes after the end of the soccer match—if it doesn’t go into extra time or a penalty shootout.
Why CFB was scheduled during NWSL playoffs
A spokesperson for D.C. United tells Front Office Sports that the stadium agreed to host the Secretaries Cup in spring of 2025, before the NWSL publicly released its schedule for the 2026 regular season and playoffs in July 2025. (The location of the Secretaries Cup was publicly announced in August 2026.)
An NWSL spokesperson did not respond when asked if the league distributed dates to teams before the July 2025 announcement.
However, the NWSL playoffs have followed the same schedule for the past few seasons.
For the third straight year, the NWSL will hold its championship match on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, with semifinal matches the weekend before. Also for the third straight year, the Spirit will play on Saturday of the semifinal weekend.
Spokespeople for the Merchant Marine and Coast Guard Academies did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The game between the two schools, which was held last year at Fenway Park, is usually played on one of their two campuses.
The lines for both football and fútbol will be painted on the field Saturday, and the padded bases of the goalposts for the Secretaries Cup will be in the ground during the NWSL match.
Whether the Spirit win or lose Saturday, Audi Field will host the NWSL Championship on Nov. 21.
90-Minute Turnaround
Saturday will mark Audi’s first big doubleheader with a venue changeover.
The Spirit match needed to be during the day to fit into the NWSL’s broadcast window on CBS. But the Secretaries Cup also didn’t want to move into the night slot, in part because a late game would force the cancellation of the military flyover.
“Yes, it’s a 90-minute turn,” D.C. United’s president of business operations, Danita Johnson, tells Front Office Sports, “but within that, I think the original vision of both partners in this will be executed in the way in which we had wanted to from the beginning.”
Asked why the Secretaries Cup wasn’t moved to the NFL stadium, Johnson said: “Both partners wanted to be at Audi, and we found a way to make it work.”
A sponsor, Lafayette Federal Credit Union, will cover some of the costs for the venue flip in the low six figures, The Athletic first reported. D.C. United is taking on the rest.
“We are grateful to D.C. United, the Secretaries’ Cup, the NWSL and all the partners involved who came together to make both events happen,” Washington Spirit CEO Kim Stone said in a statement. “It means a lot to our players and fans to play the most pivotal match of our season at Rowdy Audi on Saturday. This shows the power of what can be accomplished when everyone works together, and we look forward to a festive environment for both events.”
Sprawling Stadium Issues
Heading into the past weekend’s quarterfinals, the top three teams in the NWSL all had scheduling conflicts on Saturday of the semifinals.
New York Red Bulls, the MLS team that owns No. 1 Gotham FC’s home stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, has a friendly against Mexican side Club América on Saturday night.
San Diego State has a football game on Saturday at the home of the No. 2 San Diego Wave, who were upset by the No. 7 Utah Royals. The college football game on Saturday took Audi Field from the No. 3 Washington Spirit.
On Sunday, the Spirit announced they had bounced the college football game from the afternoon time slot at Audi, sliding into the NWSL’s broadcast window with CBS. Gotham will play during the ESPN window on Sunday, though the team will move to Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York due to the poor pitch quality during Sunday’s quarterfinal in New Jersey.
Venue scheduling conflicts during the playoffs have plagued women’s sports teams this fall.
Three games of the WNBA Finals were rescheduled due to venue conflicts in Atlanta. The city’s 17,000-seat State Farm Arena, where the Dream will move full-time next season, had two Hawks games and a Sombr concert on the three dates the Dream were set to host Finals games. The WNBA changed one date and pushed up the other two tipoff times, resulting in a 12:30 p.m. start.
The Dream blamed the WNBA in an open letter to fans, saying their concerns about State Farm’s availability hadn’t been taken seriously in the two months since the league finalized its playoff schedule. But the WNBA had given teams in December of last year a list of “playoff hold dates,” according to The Athletic.
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