Experience

Amanda Vandervort’s career has spanned professional leagues, global football, player representation, fan development, governance and coaching. Across more than 25 years in the game, her work has often centered on moments of growth and transition, helping organizations build new capabilities, navigate change and create the structures needed for what comes next.

Gainbridge Super League (USL)

President | 2021–present

Amanda joined the United Soccer League in 2021 during the earliest development of a new professional women’s soccer league in the United States. Over nearly five years, she worked alongside USL leadership, ownership groups, club executives, staff, players, coaches and partners to take the league from concept through development, sanctioning and launch.

The work included building the league’s strategic and operating model, supporting the formation and development of clubs, establishing commercial and media partnerships, developing league infrastructure and helping create the conditions for professional competition.

The Gainbridge Super League began play in 2024, creating new professional clubs, jobs and playing opportunities across the women’s game. In 2022, she also helped launch the USL W League, an amateur women's soccer league with 44 teams across the United States in its inaugural season.

For Amanda, her USL experience reinforces one of the recurring themes of her career: meaningful growth rarely comes from one person or one idea. It takes people willing to believe in something early, solve difficult problems together and keep building when there is no established blueprint.

FIFPRO

Chief Women’s Football Officer | 2019–2021

At FIFPRO, Amanda led the global players’ association’s strategy for women’s football, working with players, unions, federations, leagues and governing bodies across the international game. Her work focused on strengthening the professional conditions, protections and representation of women footballers and helping ensure that players had a meaningful voice in decisions shaping the future of the sport.

During her tenure, FIFPRO’s work in the women’s game included advancing standards around player welfare and working with FIFA and other stakeholders on policies affecting professional women footballers. The role brought together policy, advocacy, strategy and relationship-building across a rapidly evolving global football landscape.

MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

Fan Development, Social Media Strategy & Commercial Growth | 2010–2019

Amanda spent nearly a decade at Major League Soccer during a significant period of growth for the league and the sport in North America. Across a series of leadership roles, her responsibilities included social media, digital strategy, fan engagement, CRM, database growth and direct-to-consumer initiatives.

She joined MLS at a time when leagues and clubs were beginning to rethink the relationship between digital audiences, fan data and commercial growth. Her work helped expand the league’s capabilities in those areas and connect fan engagement more directly to ticketing, marketing and long-term customer relationships.

Over the course of her MLS career, she built and led teams responsible for helping the league better understand its audiences, grow its fan base and create stronger connections between supporters and the sport.

Governance & Industry Leadership

Alongside her operating roles, Amanda has contributed to the game through governance, advisory and industry leadership positions in the United States and internationally.

Her experience has included service on the U.S. Soccer Board of Directors, decades of leadership within United Soccer Coaches, participation in FIFA and global football committees, and advisory roles focused on the continued development of the women’s game.

These experiences have given her a perspective across multiple sides of the sport - from clubs and leagues to players, coaches, governing bodies and commercial partners.

Coaching & The Game

Before moving fully into sports business, Amanda spent several years coaching at the collegiate level, including serving as Head Women’s Soccer Coach at New York University. She holds her U.S. Soccer B License and United Soccer Coaches Premier Diploma, and played NCAA Division I soccer at the University of Wyoming.

That foundation as a player and coach continues to shape how she approaches leadership and decision-making: with an understanding that the systems surrounding the game ultimately exist to support the people who play it.

RECOGNITION

Amanda was honored as a Sports Business Journal Game Changer in 2016 and Tampa Bay Business Journal Businesswoman of the Year in 2024. She was further recognized with the United Soccer Coaches Women's Soccer Award of Excellence in 2025.

Her work was instrumental in the league winning Sports Business Journal’s 2018 Best in Social Media Award and Cynopsis Sports Media Awards Best Social Media Campaign in 2014.

Her career has also included leadership and advisory roles across organizations working to advance the growth, governance and professionalization of soccer in the United States and around the world.