For the 2025 NWSL season, all 14 teams have a new secondary kit and as is tradition for these releases, each of those kits is accompanied by design explanations that range from touching to truly baffling.

The primary kits that debuted last season will carry over for this year, with Bay FC being the only club to get two new kits for 2025. Goalkeeper kits will also be available to purchase at launch and authentic versions of every jersey will be purchasable for the first time. However, the replica versions will now have embroidered badges. Leaguewide kit maker Nike is also offering expanded women’s and men’s sizing this year, and, for the first time, NWSL kits will be available for purchase in the UK.

In this year’s rundown of new releases, The Athletic’s Meg Linehan, Jeff Rueter, Emily Olsen and Brooks Peck sort through what the clubs say about each one and offer their own assessments.

Angel City

Brooks: I appreciate that they tried something different and it’s a perfect time to honor Los Angeles, but … this looks like the wallpaper in the powder room at my parents’ house. Also, the design is just so faint. This is an issue that goes beyond the NWSL, but I never understand why kits have a unique design that’s difficult to make out from afar or on a broadcast.

Meg: That’s toile, baby! At least they have the best collar out of the batch (I will have thoughts on this later) and it’s a love letter to LA, which obviously is the right call at the moment.

Bay FC

Meg: Bay’s new primary is one of the real standouts, which has sent me on a journey of self discovery because it’s one of the first times I’ve tolerated a central badge. The texture and the pop from the poppy red (yes, I looked up the color name from their brand guide, you’re welcome Bay FC) are perfect.

Brooks: Yeah, I think the primary kit is my favorite of the bunch and like you said, Meg, this is a rare instance where a central badge works well.

Jeff: This is such an upgrade over last year’s off-the-rack designs, and that’s probably my favorite “orange on blue” look in a nation with many sports teams utilizing those complementary colors.

Chicago Stars FC

Jeff: From the club that brought you “the ball, representing soccer” in its crest explainer, we have “the drips, representing … liquid mercury?”

When a team commits to a rebrand, it’s important to establish a clear identity to help your fans flock to the ensuing designs. When I see this, I neither see “Chicago” — a civic identity that the club had seamlessly incorporated into past designs — nor “Stars.” I’m not sure if it was deliberate to not depict a red star in the year they’ve abandoned a name chosen by their fans, but it does leave this jersey without a clear tie to the club’s identity.

Brooks: What part of this is supposed to be menacing? Is it because the design looks like a T-1000 mid-transformation? This is a strange one.

Houston Dash

Meg: Not content to keep the kit wars between Houston and Orlando limited to The Space Race, now Houston is coming for purple too! The description is maybe a little too on the nose considering the general state of the Houston Dash over the past year. I’d be down for this concept if the pattern felt more like a cosmic storm rather than looking like neon spray paint.

Emily: Houston has been through it. And what happens when you go through it? You do something drastic. I equate “Cosmic Storm” to the Dash’s crisis platinum blonde dye or break-up bangs look. I’m here for their chaos chapter — neon hook ‘em horns and all.

Jeff: The jersey and shorts design is a welcome departure from their past looks, although I’m still working to regain my vision after glancing directly at those socks.

Kansas City Current

Meg: The people have been demanding a teal kit, and they finally did it. Very much a “it does what it says on the tin” sort of kit.

Jeff: Maybe people should have demanded “a teal kit, but with some nice accent features that pop, too.” The white detail is almost entirely lost at a quick glance, but we all know how much Midwesterners loathe confrontation.

NJ/NY Gotham FC

Meg: Oh noooooooooooooo. When I took my first spin through the folder of photos for all of the new kits, when I hit Gotham I truly gasped. What is this badge? What are the shoulders? How did they get this so wrong?

Brooks: I have to say I admire the commitment to going all the way in on whatever this is. It kind of looks like elements of the kit were redacted. I’m going to call this the “Redacted Kit.”

Jeff: It’s like they’re protesting their own employers, with Nike’s full support. Even if they swap out the badge for the technicolor alternative, this still looks like more of a training top than a match jersey given other designs’ attention to detail.

North Carolina Courage

Brooks: Oh wow. I like the color. But, “a battle cry”? Really?

Jeff: *rising to give a battle cry with full Moira Rose gusto* COURAGE!

Orlando Pride

Meg: I don’t hate this central badge here either. Who am I??? These are simple and feel like a throwback to the early days of the NWSL, which were extremely template-heavy, but in a strange way that works for me. This is a shirt that says, “We won a championship and a shield and we don’t need to have our kits do the talking this year.”

Brooks: I’m not a fan of the central badge on this one. The design looks like what happens when a shirt gets hooked on something in the dryer and gets twisted up super tight, then when you unravel it, it’s the most wrinkled thing ever. It looks very wrinkled.

Jeff: There’s a promotional shot with all 14 teams represented in a line, which is very helpful in projecting the upcoming season’s best kit matchups. It also made one thing clear: while a few teams have a different color along the top elastic line, only Orlando has a full multi-color sock along the shin. Maybe it’ll be a new tradition for the defending NWSL champion: some cool socks.

Portland Thorns FC

Meg: The texture doesn’t come across as embers for me, but thanks to the new front-of-kit sponsor Ring, it does remind me of the static TV texture from 2002’s The Ring. Someone photoshop Samara in this for me, thanks in advance.

Brooks: I’m definitely getting TV snow from this. The Thorns have set the bar so high for their kits over the years and this one does not reach that bar.

Jeff: I will say that “red roses on black” is a design influence that can risk copying late-2000s vampire romance novels. Nike at least put a bit more into this with the dashes of red throughout the shirt.

Racing Louisville FC

Meg: Love the deep forest green, not a fan of the collar at all. The collars on the Nike templates used this year are sort of all over the place — most look oddly high up the neck, this weird one, whatever Gotham has going on. If the collar was more normal, this probably would have been my favorite. It’s a departure from the design identity and color scheme that Louisville has really adhered to since its inception — maybe if the NWSL actually had third kits, this would have been a perfect choice.

Emily: Hands down my favorite look. I can get past the collar. I love the two-tone socks, the deep green color and the subtle accent down the side. It has real style potential to wear out in the wild.

Jeff: There’s a detailing tag on the bottom corner of the front with the club’s slogan, “Run With Us.” Respectfully, that sounds very tiring and I think I’ll stay in my seat.

San Diego Wave FC

Brooks: Unlike Chicago’s drip-drop design, this one works for a club called the Wave. It feels a little more like swimming pool water than ocean water to me, but eh, close enough.

Meg: Big Nirvana album cover energy for me.

Emily: To be specific, this is an above-ground pool vinyl. I think I can actually smell the chlorine.

Jeff: A lovely tribute to the pond that accrued on Snapdragon Stadium’s field during that 2024 game between the USWNT and Canada.

Seattle Reign FC

Brooks: I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I think this would be better as a USWNT kit than a Reign kit. That shade of blue is maybe a little too close to denim, too.

Jeff: My first thought was of the secondary shirt from the 2023 World Cup.

Meg: A lot of these feel aggressively fine, but maybe Seattle captures that feeling the most. The return of the original crest did a lot for the Reign, but lean into the gold! Rough, since the Sounders had one of the few decent MLS kits this year in my opinion.

Utah Royals FC

Brooks: This is a strong one. The design is nice and the yellow trim really pops. I like it. My second favorite behind Bay’s primary.

Jeff: A really good set of drops for the 2024 expansion pairing, and I’m sure some fans will wish they’d debuted with these looks.

Washington Spirit

Meg: Trinity is doing her best to sell this but at the end of the day, this is a bad Australia kit.

Emily: There have been whispers of a rebrand for the Spirit since Michele Kang took over the team in 2022. Her acquisition of clubs around the world made me wonder if there would be an overarching theme. However, the Spirit has yet to find consistency in design from year to year. Are we watching market testing in real-time? If so, this one is a “next” for me.

Jeff: And I had just gotten my vision back after those Houston Dash socks…

Our favorites

Meg: Bay primary, Racing Louisville

Jeff: Racing Louisville, Utah Royals

Emily: Houston Dash, Racing Louisville (spontaneity and stability)

Brooks: Bay primary, Utah Royals

Verdict: With three votes, Racing Louisville overcomes its unpopular collar to be the overall staff favorite!

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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