Those in and around soccer are more than bullish about the sport’s growth and potential in the United States, especially with multiple marquee tournaments coming to the country and continent through 2028.
Also fueling soccer’s steadily growing popularity in the U.S. has been the stability and advancement of the NWSL, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2022.
Welcoming a who’s who list of ambitious investors, athletes and celebrities including Alexis Ohanian, Kara Nortman, Michele Kang, Kevin Durant, Eli Manning, Naomi Osaka, James Harden, Patrick Mahomes, Billie Jean King and Serena Williams, the premier U.S. women’s soccer league is poised for further growth.
With two expansion teams—Bay FC and Boston—entering the fray in 2024 and ’26 respectively, and more to come, the league hopes the days of having to scratch and claw for visibility are long gone.
For example, the 2022 NWSL Championship was originally scheduled for a noon kickoff until league sponsor Ally upped its media investment with CBS to ensure the game could take place in primetime (8 p.m. ET) for the first time in league history. The investment paid off as it was the most-watched game in league history, averaging 915,000 viewers—a 71% increase from the prior year’s title game.
With its current three-year media rights deal set to expire at the conclusion of this season, the NWSL is expected to sign a four-year media rights deal split between ESPN, Amazon, CBS and Scripps “in the coming weeks,” according to reports. The current deal with CBS pays about $1.5 million per year, but requires the league to cover game production, an eight-figure annual expense.
Julie Foudy, a two-time World Cup winner, current TV analyst and Angel City FC investor, didn’t mince her words stressing the importance of the league’s new media rights deal, not only for the NWSL, but women’s sports overall.
As the 2023 NWSL Playoffs kick off today, Foudy also shed light on why she invested in Angel City, how stability has helped the NWSL, and the excitement around soccer’s growth in the U.S. with the 2024 Copa América, 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympics on the horizon, as well as potentially the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Michael LoRé: Exciting times for women’s sports and in particular women’s soccer. What are your thoughts on the game’s growth in the U.S., especially in recent years?
Julie Foudy: We’ve been talking about it happening for a long time, right? “We’re almost there. It’s a tipping point.” But you finally feel like it’s here in terms of the type of owner and investor as well. You’re getting institutional investors. You’re getting big, deep-pocket investors—men, women, celebrities—and I think that’s all really good for the sport. Obviously just a couple of years ago there were a lot of question marks around the NWSL and its future given some of the coach abuse that was happening, so it’s great to see where it is today.
I’m part of Angel City FC and being part of that ownership group is just so damn fun on top of having all these (former) players coming back and having a seat at the table in an ownership sense is really cool.
LoRé: Speaking of, what’s that experience been like launching that club with all of the success you’ve had on and off the field?
Foudy: The thing that has been so fun is that from day one—and I’ve never been part of a group that’s like this—where it’s like, “What do you want? What’s possible? If you had a blank canvas, what would you want?” All the groups I’ve been involved with it’s been like, “Well, I don’t think we can do that. I’m not sure. Probably not. We don’t have the funds.” For the first time, it’s like no, let’s actually envision what we want and they’re doing that and they’re creating this incredible roadmap. Obviously we’ve seen what they’re done on the sponsorship side and we’ve seen the valuation grow to what the club is at compared to what we came in at, so all really good things.
Julie Uhrman, Kara (Nortman) and Natalie (Portman) are so willing, which is what I love the most. There’s no secret sauce to this and we want to share this roadmap with others. I hope it can be replicated in other sports and other industries because when you get a collective group with that kind of energy where owners want to be together, hang out together and do things and really care most importantly—obviously winning and we want to get into the playoffs—but there’s this community vibe that’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced.
LoRé: More big-name investors, celebrities and athletes are backing NWSL clubs these days. Having recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, how much has prior instability in women’s soccer potentially scared away this sort of involvement and investment that we’re now seeing more prevalent than ever?
Foudy: Yeah, and I think just women’s sports leagues in general. That’s been like the historical sense is that it’s hard. The WNBA has been around for a couple of decades, but if you look before that we had the WBL (Women’s Professional Basketball League) for a few years (1978-81). That has always been the history of women’s sports is that it’s these leagues that last 3-5 years and there’s no longevity to them. I think that was part of it.
I think it’s also with the change in terms of how people consume sports now. For women it was always hard to get headlines when it was only on linear TV and then we weren’t on linear TV but now there’s so many other means you can actually grab fans’ attention and that makes a huge difference. Having said that, upcoming media rights will be huge for the NWSL. That matters. You want linear, but there’s ways you can market and promote. I think the consumer for women’s sports is much younger too, so they’re more tech savvy so you can get to them in different ways.
LoRé: Not sure if you can see my notes, but I was going to ask how important are these upcoming media rights for the NWSL as the league continues to grow?
Foudy: Traditionally, women’s sports have always been undervalued in terms of media rights, while you’re seeing the men’s side make some big leaps. Look at MLS and their media rights deal (10 years, $2.5 billion with Apple). You’re looking at the women’s side and saying, “OK, now it’s time.” It’s time to stop undervaluing the women’s side because there is now data to back it up when we put it on linear at a good time, people will watch it and they will see it.
We’re seeing it all over ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS, you can go down the list. I think this is a big one. This is a big one because it’s going to set the standard, not just for soccer, but for other leagues as well. Soccer is great in that we can be the standard bearers for a lot of things in women’s sports, similarly to what Billie Jean (King) did in women’s tennis. That’s why it’s really important as well because there’s a lot of different sports looking at us and saying, “OK, what’s going to happen here?”
LoRé: Not only is the NWSL and women’s soccer growing, especially in the U.S., but soccer’s popularity is increasing here. How exciting is it knowing we have major events coming to the country and continent pretty much each year through 2028?
Foudy: You have these huge, iconic events that bring eyeballs, exposure, sponsorship, revenue and all these things that are so important to the game. The next cycle of World Cups and Olympics is really exciting because those moments matter. We’ve seen how they can really shift the dynamics of soccer and the sport in the country, especially a World Cup. It’s going to be a fun little run coming up.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.
