In a way, the Women’s Professional Soccer league has taken a few steps forward and one back, writes Jack Bell. In the offseason, last season’s regular-season champion, the Los Angeles Sol, folded after the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which ran the club, surrendered its rights to the team when it was unable to find a new owner. That sent the marquee player in WPS, the Brazilian striker Marta, into the expansion draft and eventually up the California coast to FC Gold Pride in the San Francisco Bay Area.

WPS, which opened preseason training camps last weekend and kicks off the regular season April 10, adds two new teams -- the Atlanta Beat and the Philadelphia Independence. Atlanta will play in a new stadium on the campus of Kennesaw State  in Georgia.

WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci acknowledged that most of the WPS clubs lost about $2 million each last season, but said the league and its clubs had secured additional sponsorship deals. League games will continue to be carried on the Fox Soccer Channel. Antonucci said that average player salaries would increase 3 percent this season to an approximate average of $32,000 a player for a seven-month contract.