NWSL title match was most-watched game in league history: How media rights deal shaped its success

The NWSL championship on CBS averaged 967,900 viewers in prime time Saturday, making it the most-watched NWSL game in league history and punctuating what has been one of the most-watched seasons, the league announced Tuesday.

The championship game, which saw Marta and the top-ranked Orlando Pride defeat the No. 2 Washington Spirit 1-0, drew in 18 percent more viewers compared to last year’s title game, and marked a six percent jump from the 2022 championship, according to the NWSL. The match peaked at 1.1 million viewers, despite being up against college football.

The record viewership happened in conjunction with the league’s historic $240 million media rights deal, which brought more games to more networks than ever before.

Ahead of the league’s title game in Kansas City, NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman reflected on the first year of this media landscape. The league’s goals were twofold, she said: to reset the value of its live rights and increase distribution of NWSL games.

“The impact of what we’ve seen has been exactly what we had hoped for,” she said, announcing that total regular season viewership reached a cumulative 14 million viewers, a 285 percent jump year-over-year, with more than 2 million people tuning in to the NWSL playoffs.

“We have to remind ourselves that it was just last year that none of our games were available to watch on national TV,” Berman said, referencing the league’s quarter- and semi-final games. “So, looking at all of that, we’re really excited about continuing to build our audience and make sure that more and more people get the opportunity to sample and come into our fan funnel and convert them to be the avid fans that have known and loved the NWSL for the last 12 seasons.”

The league said Tuesday that total viewership across Nielsen-rated platforms in 2024 reached 18.7 million, a five-fold gain from the 2023 season. The league’s seven postseason linear telecasts also drew an average of 562,900 viewers, for an audience of 4.6 million across the playoffs. The league’s Skills Challenge also averaged 1,537,720 viewers on Sunday, making it the most-viewed non-NFL sports event that day.

Last year, the NWSL signed a record $240 million deal with ESPN, CBS Sports, Prime Video and Scripps Sports, which owns ION Network. It was a significant jump from the league’s previous three-year deal with CBS, worth $4.5 million.

The new deal was a major win for the league, capitalizing on the growing interest in women’s sports and soccer in the United States. Because the deal expires in four years, it also gives the NWSL the chance to raise the stakes during renegotiations, which happen on the cusp of the 2027 World Cup in nearby Brazil.

In interviews with , each of the media partners described their first season under this new media deal as a major success. There were some highlights, like when all the networks banded together to air Alex Morgan’s final game on every network. Or, when ION hosted a studio show live from Wrigley Field for a Chicago Red Stars home game.

“What we’ve seen this season is real growth from the league,” said Dan Weinberg, executive vice president of programming at CBS Sports. “We’ve seen growth in their fan base, growth in their franchises, growth in their attendance, growth in their national appeal, high-profile ownership groups, new franchises that have successfully launched, with more expansion to come.”

The culmination of that growth could be felt at the sold-out semifinal match between the Washington Spirit and Gotham FC, Weinberg said. The match included an opening goal from Gotham’s Esther Gonzales, a stoppage-time equalizer from Hal Hershfelt and three penalty saves from the Spirit’s Aubrey Kingsbury to send Washington to the championship.

“You got 20,000 fans screaming their heads off at Audi Field,” said Weinberg, who was in Washington, D.C. that day. “It almost felt to me like that whole scene and that whole day was a microcosm of the success that the league has experienced this season.”

CBS also aired the final on Saturday between the Spirit and Pride. The game included some new broadcast elements including more cameras, live drone coverage, enhanced player tracking, and coverage before, during and after the game.

This season also marked ESPN, Prime Video and Scripps’ inaugural year partnering with the NWSL, building off what CBS started. Despite running matches across four providers, the group, and the league, were intentional with their scheduling for the 2024 year. Together, they established franchise nights, giving fans a consistent destination to watch games each week.

Friday night games were on Amazon Prime, and two national doubleheaders featured on ION on Saturday nights. CBS and ESPN featured games on Saturdays and Sundays. Any game that was not aired on those channels was streamed on NWSL+, the league’s streaming channel.

One of those announcers was Lori Lindsey, a retired player with an expansive career that includes stints with the Spirit and U.S. women’s national team. She described on ’s “Full Time with Meg Linehan” podcast her experience working with Prime.

“We historically haven’t had (Friday night games) consistently, so I think that’s been fun for viewers,” Lindsey said. “It just opens up another night for viewers to be able to watch.”

Prime Video had the benefit of having two years of streaming Thursday Night Football under its belt. The NFL has mastered the art of drawing viewers to their screens several nights a week.

“TNF has inspired a lot of our choices in other productions,” said Betsy Riley, a senior coordinating producer with Prime Video, speaking from Cleveland earlier this month while gearing up for the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers game.

Like with TNF, the announcers for NWSL traveled on-site for their productions.

“It was really important to establish trust, and part of our strategy to do that was to put our announcing team on site every week,” Riley said. “We thought that was a really effective way for the announcing team to get closer to the stories, get closer to the players, and really bring the fan at home, closer to the pitch. So, I think as we reflect, that was a winning strategy and something we’re really proud of.”

For Scripps, ION already had experience working with the WNBA, after entering bullishly into the women’s sports sector last year. The company inked a three-year deal with the WNBA to show Friday night doubleheaders of live WNBA games, creating a destination for women’s sports fans on a network not usually known for sports. To support their initiatives with both leagues, the company built a new studio in Atlanta.

“We took a big risk two years ago because there had never been sports on ION,” said Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor. “We knew that the regular viewers were going to be like, ‘Wait a second, what is this?’ But I thought that women’s sports were a nice compliment to the existing audience base.”

ION recently said its broadcast reached more than 20.5 million unique viewers this season. Part of their success, Lawlor said, was through documentary-style storytelling, and building off their success with the WNBA.

“We’re trying to work with the leagues to just find different ways to make the players more visible, to make their game more visible to let everyone get to see the energy associated with it,” Lawlor said. “The fact that we have the WNBA and the NWSL on subsequent nights, allows them to really build off of each other and really have a place that’s now being known as the home for professional women’s sports.”

This growing interest in women’s sports is what helped ESPN land two key sponsors, Ally and CarMax, ahead of the 2024 season. Their investment helped bolster ESPN’s NWSL coverage and was a “game changer,” said Sonia Gomez Baker, vice president of programming and acquisitions for ESPN.

For the first-generation Mexican-American who grew up playing the sport, growing access to women’s soccer through ESPN is deeply personal. While she manages all soccer properties at the network, she said, “The support I saw for NWSL from the beginning, internally, is something that, for me, from a soccer perspective, was very refreshing.”

She referenced Marta’s goal in the semifinal game against Kansas City Current, and how ESPN distributed replays across multiple platforms. Then there was the moment “Triple Espresso” became a household name, following the Paris Games, and carrying into the NWSL season. ESPN also recently inked a one-year deal with the English Women’s Super League to broadcast live coverage of the league in the U.S., South America and the Caribbean, which she explains shows the growing interest in women’s soccer.

“We are just seeing the effects of the growth of the women’s game and the popularity,” Gomez Baker said. “NWSL, for us, it’s one of our crown jewels in our soccer portfolio … and we just want to continue to grow the game overall.

“We need to keep the game and the players and the league and the clubs in that everyday conversation, and so personally, for me, that’s a big goal. I just feel like it’s never been easier.”

The NWSL has long been must-see television – just think of last year’s NWSL Championship, when Gotham’s goalkeeper Mandy Haught was issued a red card in stoppage time, forcing defender Nealy Martin to swap into goal with just seconds left in a 2-1 match against OL Reign. Or in 2022, when Lo’eau Labonta’s twerk celebration went viral and stars like Travis Kelce mimicked her. The examples are countless. The only difference now is more people are watching.

When thinking about what success looks like at the end of this four-year deal, Weinberg, with CBS Sports, put it bluntly: “We don’t have to wait until the end of the media deal to see that. We’re seeing success right now. We’re optimistic and we’re excited about how the partnership can continue to succeed and grow over the next several years, and it’s going to be a showcase this weekend.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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