Women’s professional soccer in the United States is finally back tonight with a trio of games that will each get a window on a global streaming service–Prime Video, Paramount Plus and NWSL+. Our long national nightmare is over.
If you pop around the various sites dedicated to the NWSL, you’ll see hype and hyperbole being dispensed as freely as any propoganda for other original content on those platforms, as typified by the story dropped earlier this week by Celia Balf of GOAL:
After an extended international break, the National Women’s Soccer League returns on Friday for the second half of the season. While the NWSL has been on pause, women’s soccer certainly hasn’t.
The European Championship wrapped up last weekend, with England winning in heroic fashion for back-to-back titles, while Nigeria took the crown at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.
CBS Sports’ Sandra Herrera, given the corporate mandate due to no less than four Paramount-owned entities carrying NWSL matches, shone a bit more context as to what the league’s elite did on their summer “vacation”:
Several of the league’s players participated in the global competitions and are back for NWSL action with extra accolades in tow.
The month-long break saw NWSL Golden Boot leader Esther Gonzalez (Gotham FC) win top scorer in the Euros with four goals in the competition as Spain ended up as runners-up to England, who boast Esme Morgan (Washington Spirit), Anna Moorehouse (Orlando Pride), and Jess Carter (Gotham FC). Nigerian internationals Asisat Oshoala (Bay FC) and Michelle Alozie (Houston Dash) are triumphant Afcon champions, as more players flock back to the league for the domestic club grind.
To which this soccer lover can only channel the feelings of Jay Leno to a seemingly reformed British misoygnist –“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” . Or, more apropos and with appropriate gender detachment–BITCH, PLEASE!
The NWSL is midway through merely its twelfth full season, the first half of which were played in relative irrelevance primarily in smallish college and even high school venues and largely without television coverage. Post-pandemic, and coupled with the success of the USWNT in recent World Cups, they’ve been able to expand both in size and scope, enough so that those CBS platforms and ESPN/ABC are now regularly scheduling matches, and a couple have or are planning to move into dedicated and/or more modern facilities akin to what their MLS brethren have experienced with their own maturity and (argubaly over-) expansion. They’ve ridden the wave of a surge in popularity in women’s sports in general, largely driven by the WNBA, and they’ve yet to have a Caitlin Clark or even an Angel Reese break through as a magnet.
But what they do have is a generation of soccer moms who grew up cheering like crazy for the Mia Hamms and Brandi Chastains who initially brought the U.S. glory yet whose own professional league efforts fell by the wayside. And they’re now raising some adoring and invested children of their own–and yes, I’m including some boys–who root much more for the laundry than the players. And a bunch of those players have absolutely zero ties to Europe, South America or Africa.
Besides, the MLS has gone head-to-head with the men’s versions of those aforementioned international tournaments before–all of which have much more significant global followings than the women’s versions do. In fact, a couple of their teams actually competed in one (the Club World Cup) earlier this year. European squads reguarly compete during their regular seasons in UEFA-sponsored side hustles like the Champions League and the Europa Club. On occasion matches back up where it’s not possible for stars to play in every single regular season tilt back home. But the seasons continue uninterrupted; it’s next man up in the most literal sense. And what inevitably happens is that someone new gets a chance to shine and make a name for themselves. Would it have been such a tragedy if the fan base of Gotham FC got to see a second-stringer elevated to a starting role and perhaps helped them make some progress in what even the league website confesses is a best-record race for the Shield that the Kansas City Current have already made a mockery of?
And for the vast majority of their fan base that follows on television–European and African matches don’t occur in U.S. prime time. Even those in the Americas are largely scheduled on weeknights when the NWSL is virtually never in action. July is hardly the most overloaded time of year on the pro sports calendar. We’ve got baseball (and even that shut down for a week)–both real and the Savannah Banannas–, Canadian football and the WNBA. And as we lamented earlier this week, even a whiny Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos doing their best–which is to say very little–to carpetbag their way into European soccer.
Did anyone in Jessica Berman’s orbit perhaps voice the opinion that given all of that, there might have been a few showcase opportunities for the NWSL to get a few more showcases that, if nothing else, would expose these brands to a wider audience that might actually become converted fans?
Yes, there are plenty of reasons to be excited tonight. As this was being composed, the league sent through an E-mail blast to further remind me that (b)ig names join the NWSL, including Mia Fishel and Dudinha and 
ACFC rookie Riley Tiernan leads all rookies with seven goals on the season so far.
But I just don’t see why otherwise objective parties thought all of this heavy lifting was necessary when so much opportunity to hype and promote the league itself was right in front of them. Especially when six of the 14 cities aren’t major league baseball markets, and even some of the ones that are, including those runaways in Kansas City, are more than capable of co-existing with not only that competition but even their MLS breathren. That said, fair warning–you’re gonna get far more distractions from Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes going forward.
So good luck reigniting those fires, ladies. You’re sure gonna need it.
Courage..