Gotham FC are the reigning NWSL champions, and they haven't heard from the White House. A club spokesperson confirmed as much to Front Office Sports, and the team declined to speculate on whether they'd even go if invited.
That careful non-answer is doing a lot of work. It's the kind of response you give when the question itself is politically loaded — which, right now, it absolutely is.
A pattern that's hard to ignore
Gotham actually made history in September 2024 as the first NWSL side ever to visit the White House, doing so after their November 2023 championship under Biden. Since then? The 2024 NWSL champions Orlando Pride never got an invite. The 2024 WNBA champion New York Liberty didn't either — they met with the Obama family instead during a June Washington trip. And now the Las Vegas Aces, who won the WNBA title in October, are also waiting on a call that hasn't come.
During Trump's second term, the guest list at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has been busy — Inter Miami, the Panthers, the Dodgers, the Eagles, Indiana football, the US men's hockey team. Women's sports? The 2019 Baylor women's basketball team got a solo visit. Four women's NCAA champion programs were included in a group visit on April 21.
The US women's hockey team declined a State of the Union invite in February — citing scheduling — after Trump joked on a call with the men's team that he'd face impeachment if he didn't extend the invitation. That's the context women's champions are navigating right now.
What it means beyond the politics
Strip away the Washington optics for a second: Gotham FC won a professional sports championship. That's the story. Whether they get a Rose Garden photo op doesn't change what they did on the pitch, and frankly, the team's measured non-response suggests they're not losing sleep over it.
But the pattern across the NWSL, WNBA, and women's hockey is consistent enough that it's stopped being a coincidence. For anyone tracking Gotham's profile heading into title defence season, the absence of a White House invite isn't the issue — it's the spotlight, or lack of it, that comes with being a women's champion in this particular moment.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
