Racing Louisville, after spending part of yesterday coyly flirting with Chicago Red Stars on Twitter, announced they’d be playing host to the first ever International Women’s Cup this coming August. The tournament will feature four teams, two being Racing and Red Stars. The remaining two are slated to be participants in the women’s UEFA Champions League, actual identities TBD.

This is great for a couple of reasons! First, we have no idea what the NWSL schedule is really going to look like in 2021, but it’s probably not going to be “normal.” So, it may serve to fill a gap in Racing’s league schedule. Second, it’s another date Soccer Holdings can use to fill (as full as the Metro Health Department allows) and show off Lynn Family Stadium.

More importantly, it’ll be a very rare chance to see how a couple NWSL teams fare against European competition. NWSL has been the best women’s soccer league in the world since its inception, but several clubs in France and England have begun spending lots more money on players in the past couple of years. Nowadays, many starters on the US Women’s National Team are playing overseas. This new mini-tournament is an opportunity to see what the playing field actually looks like, small sample size notwithstanding.

Of course, because this is soccer in the United States, there are already rumblings of legal proceedings being attached:

Relevant Sports owns the International Champions Cup, an ever-expanding preseason tournament held in the US every summer featuring some of the biggest men’s clubs in Europe and a few MLS teams. They’ve been sued by UEFA and US Soccer in the past because they don’t ask anyone’s permission to hold the event. They also have recently tried to host La Liga matches in Miami before an injunction stopped that from happening. So they’re no stranger to the US legal arena surrounding soccer tournaments.

Ostensibly, they might think the International Women’s Cup infringes on their ICC trademark or idea or something. I’m a lawyer, but not an intellectual property lawyer, but I’m a bit dubious about the viability of any of these potential claims. It may just be a ploy to wet RelEvent’s beak, it may have actual teeth. It may not even get filed. Who knows.

In any event, it’s exciting news for Racing Louisville, and I’m looking forward to it!