2023 KC Current Regular Season and Challenge Cup Schedules Released

At last, we have a schedule! The Kansas City Current and the National Women’s Soccer League released both their 2023 regular season schedule as well as the new and revised 2023 Challenge Cup schedule.

The season starts on the road on March 25th as the KC Current travel to face the North Carolina Courage. This is an interesting matchup as KC are loaded with tons of former Courage players, including Kristen Hamilton, Hailie Mace, Sam Mewis (out injured) and new superstar signing, Debinha.

They have their home opener at Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday, April 1st. It’s a rematch of the 2022 NWSL Finals as the Portland Thorns come to town for an 11:50 AM CT kickoff. KC will look to get one back against Portland and they’ve certainly stacked their roster in preparation.

The Current will play all their home games at CMP before opening their new downtown stadium ahead of the 2024 season.

In total, the KC Current will play 22 league games, 11 home and 11 away, along with another six in the NWSL Challenge Cup (three home, three away). The Challenge Cup has changed as well. It is now interspersed throughout the season, instead of being in preseason and overlapping the start of the season. That makes for a minimum of 28 games for Kansas City this year, not including any post-season action.

One big scheduling issue to be dealt with was the Women’s World Cup being held in Australia and New Zealand this summer. That tournament will go from July 20th through August 20th. The Current only have one game, August 18th against OL Reign here in KC, that falls in that window and there is a nearly two-week gap before the start of the tournament. Kansas City looks so incredibly deep they were unlikely to be impacted by the competition anyways, but this should take the strain off most teams during this time.

Any stretches that look especially tough? Any road trips you are planning? Let us know in the comments below.

Update 10:29 PM: I was in a rush to publish this on a break, and I failed to point out a few things that feel worth adding, some of which were posted in the comments.

• All the teams play at the same time (4:00 PM CT) for a Decision Day to close the season. Remember that wild scenario last year where there could be some crazy number of ties in the standings if things had gone just right? That’ll just add to the drama with all the games mattering more by happening simultaneously.
• The KC Current are actually the very first game of the entire season with only the San Diego Wave and Chicago Red Stars also playing on March 25th, but not until the evening. My KC bias meant I forgot to look at the other team’s schedules.
• There are no broadcast details yet, but that mid-day KC Current opener feels ripe for something outside of just Paramount+. Big CBS perhaps? At least CBS Sports Network?
• Also, the World Cup break does have several Challenge Cup games, but that’s fine in my opinion. It’s a chance for the depth pieces to play and KC have plenty of starters unlikely to be on National Teams which could set them up for an early season trophy (and some well-deserved prize money).