Interview at the Chaos League

One of my favorite blogs for the past couple years has been The Chaos League, focused on covering the ins and outs of the NWSL. In between visits to /r/NWSL to catch up on the latest league news, I always check The Chaos League to see what they think of recent changes.

We did a quick interview about the book and the motivation behind it, including some details on our visits and things we saw from city to city, so be sure to check it out!

Here's my favorite bit, my answer to the question What was the biggest surprise we encountered on our nationwide tour of all the stadiums?

The biggest thing that annoyed us from city to city and that we mentioned often in the text is that at halftime at any game, my wife and I would usually both run to the restrooms before going off to get drinks or food during the half. It would take me a couple minutes to finish my business but the lines at the women’s restrooms were often so long that it took almost the entire 15 minute half for her to get back out into the concourse area where I’d already be in line for refreshments. I had seen it sporadically at Providence Park before but it really stood out as a real problem that was system-wide in almost every single stadium (Utah was the only place we never saw a line at any women’s restroom).

Part of me gets it, that sports stadiums were typically designed by men and made for men doing sports over the past 100+ years, but this is a women’s pro league that is over a decade old and when every venue seems to be surprised by a bunch of women showing up and overrunning the available restrooms, it’s kind of an embarrassing oversight on the part of the venues. It’s a very successful, popular women’s sport league, where over 2 million tickets were sold in 2024. Likely more than half of those 2 million people that purchased tickets and showed up were women, so why are there still lines around the stadium for just one side of the bathrooms?

Architecture moves pretty slowly, but I’d like to see venues do better in this regard so it’s more equitable at the half, making sure every fan has enough time to grab some food and drinks and not waste all their free time in glacial lines.