The Stars are investing in the future, with the Chicago NWSL team announcing on Tuesday that it's planning to build a club-owned training and performance center on a 10-acre site in suburban Bannockburn, Illinois.

"This facility will set the standard in women's professional soccer by providing the infrastructure our players need to develop to their highest level of performance," said executive chairperson Laura Ricketts in a club statement. "This new facility isn't just an investment in the Stars, it's an investment in the future of women's soccer."

Set to break ground in this spring, the Chicago Stars' private training ground will include two full pitches, a goalkeeper pitch, and a 45,000 square foot performance center as the founding NWSL club doubles down on its new identity after finishing the 2025 season in last place.

Along with a brand overhaul, the Stars announced last year that the club will relocate from Bridgeview's SeatGeek Stadium to Northwestern University's Martin Stadium in 2026.

"Providing our players with a private facility will be pivotal in their development and performance," said incoming head coach Martin Sjögren. "The environment will eliminate distractions to maximize the energy and focus our athletes are able to dedicate to their craft. This includes a focus on the whole person — optimizing both mental and physical health to drive results and help us continue to draw top level talent to Chicago."

Founding WNBA franchise Phoenix will have a new look entering the 2026 season, as the Mercury announced its first-ever rebrand on Monday to celebrate the team's upcoming 30th anniversary campaign.

"The new branding represents the Mercury's championship legacy, devoted fanbase, and the new era that began with a record-breaking season and memorable [2025] Finals run," said Phoenix CEO Josh Bartelstein in a statement.

In honor of the franchise's 1997 inaugural season, the new primary Phoenix logo positions the Mercury "M" at an angle of 19.97 degrees, while the team's redesigned global logo centers the primary emblem on top of four rings — mirroring the planetary rings on the Mercury's original design.

The team is also debuting a first-ever secondary logo, featuring the outline of the state of Arizona with the seams of a basketball, while also officially introducing the popular "Merc" nickname into the WNBA squad's branding lexicon.

In celebration of the rebrand, Phoenix is currently running a first-of-its-kind community giveback called the Merc Merch Swap, in which fans can trade old team merchandise — which will be donated to Goodwill — for a newly branded Mercury T-shirt.

How to purchase or swap for new Phoenix Mercury merch

To take part in the Merc Merch Swap, fans can bring any Phoenix, WNBA, or WNBA team item to the Mercury Team Shop at Mortgage Matchup Center to swap for a new logo T-shirt as well as a single-item 20% voucher through through Friday, December 5th.

Phoenix's rebranded items are also now available for purchase at the team's online shop.

France's Olympique Lyonnais is now OL Lyonnes, with team owner Michele Kang announcing the Lyon rebrand of the world's most successful women's soccer club on Monday.

In an effort to distance themselves further from the men's side while still paying homage to the team's home of Lyon, the now-independent club merged the word "lionne," French for lioness, with the city's name.

Along with the new name, OL Lyonnes has a refreshed crest, departing from the club's traditional lion and instead opting for a gold-crowned, blue- and yellow-maned red lioness posed mid-roar.

"This is not about just a name change and some graphic changes," Kang told reporters on Monday. "This is about giving the most successful women's team in the world its own platform, its own identity."

"We’re not a subset of the men's team. We are a standalone force."

New facilities to fuel continued OL Lyonnes dominance

The team, whose roster includes USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, has a history of setting the standard for what's possible on the women's pitch.

The eight-time Champions League winners scored their 18th Division 1 Féminine championship in 19 years on Friday, boosting the 21-year-old club's tally to a world record-extending 39 titles.

Kang literally bought in on that success, purchasing the club last August, pulling it under the umbrella of her global multi-team organization Kynisca Sports International alongside the NWSL's Washington Spirit and newly promoted WSL side London City.

The rebrand is just one part of Kang's next steps with OL Lyonnes, with the billionaire investor also committing to financing the renovation of the club's boys' academy training facilities to turn them into a new performance center designed specifically for women's soccer athletes.

While the club is aiming for a July 2026 opening of that training center, OL Lyonnes will have a more immediate upgrade for matchdays, with Kang stating that all future games will take place in the 59,186-seat Groupama Stadium — a venue with nearly 39 times the capacity of the nearby 1,524-seat Stade Gérard Houllier that served as the team's primary home pitch.

"From day one, I was impressed with how the women's team has achieved this kind of success with the amount of resources that was available to them," said Kang during the Monday announcement.

"The best team in the world... playing the majority of games at a training center. It is unfitting," Kang told the Associated Press. "We want our fans to be part of our journey, part of our community and you can't achieve fan engagement by constantly switching back and forth."

Just two days after wrapping the 2024/25 Women's Super League (WSL) season on Saturday, the UK women's soccer pyramid scored a full rebrand, with new names and visual identities announced for England's first- and second-tier leagues on Monday.

While the WSL will retain its name, the second-flight Women's Championship will become the WSL2 beginning with the 2025/26 season, bringing both top leagues under the same naming umbrella.

The Women's Professional League Limited — the independent company that took over running the WSL and Women's Championship in August 2024 — is also undergoing a name change, becoming simply WSL Football.

Following a development process with creative agency Anomaly, new visual branding "born from the movement of female footballers" has also rolled out across the leagues, with the WSL adopting an orange colorway while the newly named WSL2 will use a magenta palette.

"As a long-time football fan, having the chance to create the future of women's football is the absolute brief of dreams and a career highlight," said Clara Mulligan, Anomaly's managing parter and head of design.

Along with a new WSL Football website, this summer will see the updated designs from the rebrand incorporated across league merchandise, venues, jerseys, soccer balls, and more before the 2025/26 season kicks off.

"There is a lot more in store over the coming months as we continue to grow the women's game for the future," noted WSL Football chief marketing officer Ruth Hooper.