It was a scary moment: in the last minutes of the Houston Dash’s home game against the Seattle Reign, Dash player Rachel Daly collapsed to the pitch and lay insensate. She had been running for 90-plus minutes in direct sun and 92F weather, with a heat index of 102F. The game had kicked off at 3 PM local time, still blazingly hot in Texas. Daly went to the hospital for heat exhaustion and was later released after her condition improved.
Criticism was instant, especially from Houston fans who had said from the moment the league released the 2017 schedule that mid-afternoon kickoff times would be dangerous for players.