NWSL spokesperson Mark Jones said that the league completed the 16-day group stage of its Challenge Cup in Utah on Monday "without anyone testing positive," according to Kevin Baxter of the L.A. TIMES. The league said that there is "no interaction between players on different teams, apart from the games," and with just eight teams, the league "has fewer than 300 people inside its bubble." By contrast, MLS has "more than four times that many." Another factor: Utah has had "slightly more confirmed COVID-19 cases in four months than Florida has had in the past two days." None of that "detracts from the marvelous job the league did in getting its Challenge Cup off the ground." Much of the credit for the tournament "goes to freshman Commissioner Lisa Baird, who didn't start in that job until March 10." Baird's first task was "uniting the league and its players' union over a plan to hold a single-site tournament in place of a normal regular season," and Baird "got that done before any other league commissioner." Key to that agreement was a provision "guaranteeing players they would be paid for a full season, at pre-pandemic levels, whether they played in the tournament or not." Portland Thorns D Emily Menges said that Baird "earned the players' trust by listening to their concerns on a wide range of topics, from pay to health and safety issues." Menges: "This is really the most impressed I've ever been with this league" (L.A. TIMES, 7/14).
