The Women\u2019s Super League (WSL) has never had more talent than it does right now.<\/p>\n
As well as players from 2025 European champions England, the league boasts some of the brightest stars from the U.S. Women\u2019s National Team, including Naomi Girma, Emily Fox, Catarina Macario, and, most recently, Alyssa Thompson, who joined Chelsea in a deal worth more than $1 million on Thursday.<\/p>\n
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Yet, until Friday morning, the top division of women\u2019s football in England had not announced its U.S. broadcast partner for the season.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, ESPN and the league agreed to a one-year extension of last year\u2019s deal \u2013 which was also completed 24 hours before the season\u2019s start \u2013 to show the WSL on ESPN+, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations. However, no public announcement was made ahead of Chelsea and Manchester City\u2019s 2:30 p.m. ET kickoff on Friday.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, WSL matches quietly appeared in\u00a0ESPN\u2019s streaming app. The day before, the league announced 15 other global broadcast partners, with no sign of U.S. coverage. And on Friday, when the game was finally kicking off, coverage was delayed for 15 minutes due to technical difficulties.<\/p>\n
The lack of announcement is more than a minor oversight; it is a missed opportunity for a league that should want to capitalize on a U.S. audience at a moment when women\u2019s soccer is booming and momentum from the 2025 UEFA European Championship still floats in the air.<\/p>\n
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So why is the WSL dragging its feet on something as basic as making its matches available to watch in the U.S.?<\/p>\n
The reality isn\u2019t nearly that simple.<\/p>\n
While the U.S. was an important market for WSL, the league prioritized finalizing a long-term domestic media deal in 2024. The league signed a\u00a0\u00a365m ($84.3m) deal over five years<\/a> with Sky Sports and the BBC, which was a whopping 60 percent increase on the previous agreement signed in 2021 for \u00a38m per year. The league also signed a \u00a345m ($60m) title sponsorship deal with Barclays<\/a>\u00a0in the middle of these negotiations, the biggest deal in women\u2019s domestic football history.<\/p>\n Once that deal \u2014 which was delayed but announced last October \u2014 was closed, WSL started discussions for a longer-term U.S. partnership. Previously, CBS held the league\u2019s U.S. rights, but the network did not extend the deal beyond the 2023-2024 season.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cESPN is a fantastic home for the league in the U.S. for audience growth, and they have proven last season to be a great partner,\u201d Andrea Ekblad, a women\u2019s football consultant and former head of broadcast at WSL Football, told\u00a0The Athletic.<\/p>\n \u201cThe delays weren\u2019t about lack of interest so much as the sheer number of changes the league has been managing: becoming independent from the FA, rebranding, moving streaming from FA Player to YouTube, back-to-back domestic deals, appointing new productions and rights partners. All of that happened in just 18 months. It was an enormous amount of work.\u201d<\/p>\n The visibility with the ESPN deal was important for the league. The broadcaster integrated WSL coverage into its weekly programming, sent reporters to major matches, and boosted coverage on social media. It was a significant step forward, albeit short-lived.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, nobody wants a broadcast deal announced only hours before kickoff. That\u2019s not ideal for the league, ESPN, or the clubs, but continuing the partnership makes great sense, hopefully with even more commitment in content creation, promotion, marketing, and some slots on the linear channel for maximum exposure,\u201d Ekblad added.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n And exposure is everything.<\/p>\n The U.S. market is the golden goose for women\u2019s soccer. Fox\u2019s broadcast of the final between England and Spain this summer ranked as the most-watched Women\u2019s Euros game<\/a>\u00a0in English-language U.S. television history, drawing 1.35 million viewers. The network broke viewership records throughout the tournament, even without USWNT stars competing in Switzerland. The previous year, the women\u2019s soccer final at the 2024 Paris Olympics, featuring the U.S. against Brazil, drew an average of 9 million viewers, according to NBC, making it the most-watched gold medal match since Athens 2004.<\/p>\n For the WSL, this is the moment to push in. Renewing with ESPN, which already carries international leagues and has the infrastructure to program games seamlessly, will help the league meet fans where they are.<\/p>\n But showing the games is just the first step.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n While many Americans know the U.S. women\u2019s national team, and maybe even the NWSL, it takes a concerted effort to introduce an audience to a new league.<\/p>\n In 2021, ESPN and La Liga reached an expansive, long-term agreement that made ESPN the English and Spanish-language home for both first and second division Spanish leagues in the United States through the 2028-29 season. This landmark deal followed the creation and establishment of La Liga North America, a joint venture between La Liga and Relevent Sports launched in 2018 to help grow soccer in the U.S. and get La Liga, its clubs and players closer to American fans.<\/p>\n Relevent Sports worked closely with the league and ESPN to bring the clubs and players as close to the American fans as possible at a crucial time for growth, turning a once sleepy league into the fourth most-watched soccer league in the U.S. during the 2023 calendar year based on the data calculated from Nielsen and shared by broadcasters<\/a>. A more recent study from Stamford University\u2019s Sports Analytics<\/a> department claims La Liga shares 27.3 per cent of U.S. soccer league viewership, right below the EPL and UEFA Champions League as of 2024.<\/p>\n Another model the WSL could look to specifically in the U.S. is its male counterpart, the Premier League.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Since 2013, NBC Sports has held exclusive rights in the U.S., turning early morning kickoffs into a ritual for American fans. With wall-to-wall coverage and games spread across NBC, USA Network, and Peacock platforms, the league has become impossible to ignore. It\u2019s no coincidence that the Premier League is now the most-watched soccer league in the country in English.<\/p>\n With American investors, including Alexis Ohanian with Chelsea and Michele Kang with the newly promoted London City Lionesses, betting millions of dollars on clubs, the WSL should use that attention to expand its audience.<\/p>\n Sure, soccer fans, especially American soccer fans, are used to hunting for (and sometimes illegally streaming) their favorite games, but those days are quickly becoming relics. To grow, you also need to capture new audiences.<\/p>\n Despite the late start, there is still time for WSL to catch up to capturing that audience that might only follow Girma or Thompson or Fox. Based on the most recent transfer market, the trend of U.S. players moving abroad is not slowing. And no matter how you get someone in the door, it\u2019s an opportunity to gain a new fan.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The deal extension with ESPN might not have filled WSL\u2019s pockets, but with the right strategy \u2014 and less technical difficulties \u2014 it could bring much-needed visibility and welcome a whole new audience to the league.<\/p>\n