It's time to name Pittsburgh's USL W League team

If you haven't heard, Pittsburgh is getting a women's soccer team — and they'll be called either the Confluence, Renegades, Riveters, or Strikers depending on what fans choose over the next two and a half weeks.

"We didn't want something that was being copied from either another city or from a previous team," the Riverhounds' director of communications Matt Grubba tells Pittsburgh City Paper (Hounds ownership was responsible for establishing the new USL W League team and sorting through preliminary naming options). Grubba said the four finalists were winnowed from more than 1,000 entries that included everything from "Boaty McBoatface"-style pranks to names of defunct teams from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s in addition to numerous creative suggestions.

"Actually, Riverhounds was one of the top four names people suggested," Grubbs says. "But ... we'd already determined we want to go with it with a distinct brand for them."

Voting in this final round will be limited to one vote per fan.

Grubba expects the team's name to be announced within approximately the next four weeks. "After that comes design of jerseys design of secondary logos, wordmarks, you know, more enhanced things," he says. The team has some preliminary design ideas ready for each of the four club identities so it can hit the ground running between the end of voting and the W League team's planned launch in 2025.

The W League is a preprofessional league that began play in 2022. It sits below the USL Super League in the U.S. women's soccer pyramid and functions as an incubator for college and even some high-school breakout talent. Grubba says the W League strengthens the national pipeline for women's soccer, noting that "many players from the League have gone on to end up getting drafted in NWSL [or] gone overseas to play in Europe." The league's shorter season typically runs from May to July.

The addition of a W League team locally also means more opportunities for Pittsburgh-area talent. The Riverhounds recently announced plans for a multi-field soccer complex in North Huntingdon that would greatly expand the team youth academy's footprint. The W League team would mean girls building their skills at the academy have an additional option when they age out.

"Right now, after the age of 19, girls just graduate out, go to colleges, or go their separate ways," Grubba says. "And so this bridges that gap from that to the professional level."

While the Riverhounds themselves have scuffled this season, going winless over their last nine fixtures, the team has nonetheless deepened its talent pool and fostered a welcoming fan culture at Highmark Stadium for soccer fans across the region and beyond. Grubba says the emergent W League deepens that commitment at a time when interest in women's soccer is sky high.

"This vote is the last chance for fans [to name the team]," he says. "We want to see many people get involved." Potential Confluence, Renegades, Riveters, or Strikers fans have until Fri., July 19 to do so on the Riverhounds website.