Whom will the Atlanta Beat play next?

This is a “bye” week in Women’s Professional Soccer, but the Atlanta Beat and the rest of the league are anxiously awaiting news out of St. Louis that could have a dramatic effect on everyone concerned in the two-year-old league.

That’s because the St. Louis Athletica, scheduled to play the Beat on May 29 at the KSU Soccer Stadium, is in dire financial straits, along with AC St. Louis, which plays in the newly created North American Soccer League.

Both teams share the same owners, two London-based investors who purchased the clubs last winter. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this morning, Athletica lost an estimated $2 million in 2009, the inaugural season of the WPS, which launched in the heat of the recession.

There’s been no confirmation of a report posted Thursday night on the Major League Soccer Talk blog that the St. Louis teams are on the brink of folding. Nor is there a response to a post at Inside Minnesota Soccer that neither St. Louis team has enough cash to finish the season.

The WPS is operating with eight teams this season, including the expansion Beat and Philadelphia Independence. The Los Angeles Sol, which won the 2009 regular season title and featured Brazil’s Marta, regarded as the best female player in the world, abruptly folded before the season.

Athletica features four prominent U.S. national team members in goalkeeper Hope Solo, midfielders Shannon Boxx and Lori Chalupny and forward Lindsay Tarpley. Solo and Boxx are on the American roster for Saturday’s friendly in Cleveland against Germany (6 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

Update: Things are looking a little better for AC St. Louis, but no word yet on the fate of Athletica.