NWSL plans to gain growth through men’s World Cup pandemonium
Plenty of women watch the men’s tournament but are yet to translate fandom to the women’s game – will that change this summer?
The NWSL’s 14th regular season wrapped up match week 10 of 27 over the weekend, officially commencing a month-long break to honor the terms of their collective bargaining agreement (which stipulates a week-long intermission during the season) and a pause from play for the opening phase of the men’s World Cup.
So, how will the World Cup break affect the NWSL? And could it provide a boost to the league?
With the first 48-team, three-country men’s tournament just eight days away, the USWNT center-back Tierna Davidson joked on a recent podcast episode: “Well listen, it’s going to affect this summer in terms of traffic. I do know that.”
Beyond traffic, the NWSL announced the prolonged pause last summer due in part to expected logistical challenges in host cities. Per a league announcement: “With seven of the league’s 16 markets hosting World Cup programming, the NWSL is proactively adjusting its scheduling framework to accommodate expected stadium demands.”
Before the 2026 season NWSL commissioner, Jessica Berman, acknowledged the logistical headache to Sports Business Journal, saying: “We’re making lemonade out of lemons. Obviously, it wouldn’t be our choice to not have access to our venues. It’s challenging operationally and logistically … That said, there’s an opportunity.”
During the World Cup break and throughout the summer, the NWSL (which remains home to the majority of the four-time world champions’ roster, including 22 of 26 players in Emma Hayes’s most recent squad, accounting for injuries and the momentous return of the former Lyon midfielder Lindsey Heaps) hopes to capture a new audience while the eyes of the football world rest their gaze upon the US.
Berman said: “Our specific focus for the 2026 season is to make sure that our games are in front of and our product are in front of people who love elite soccer, agnostic to whether it is men or women, knowing that the NWSL is the best league in the world.”
Berman’s belief in the allure of women’s football for the agnostic football watcher is wise; despite historical marketing strategies that focused only on women, or at times perhaps over-emphasized the “inspire young girls” angle, research over the past decade indicates that viewership for the Women’s World Cup, and women’s sports in general, either reflects an even split by gender or can skew male.
For example, a YouGov survey from the 2023 Women’s World Cup reported that men were two to three times more likely to be following the tournament than their female counterparts, depending on the country. More recently, as ESPN moved to replace its Sunday night baseball series with this year’s Women’s Sports Sundays highlighting the WNBA and NWSL, ESPN vice-president of women’s sports programming Susie Piotrkowski said in a podcast: “I think that there was a perception historically that only women were watching women’s sports. Actually, it couldn’t be more wrong.”
While noting an even split in their social media engagement and historical trend of a mature male audience, Piotrkowski said: “We’re seeing growth in almost every category. Growth among women, growth among men 18 to 34.” Similarly, while male football fans can be captured by the allure of the NWSL’s entertainment this summer, plenty of women watch the men’s World Cup but have yet to translate their fandom to the NWSL.
To capture the potential amid this summer’s pandemonium, the NWSL plans to resume the regular season on 3 July rather than await the grand finale 19 July. Their return to play coincides with the final gasps of the round of 32, just as the tournament starts to take a breath with less crowded match days and gaps between games. With time and interest piqued, the NWSL hopes that newly converted football enthusiasts and longtime fanatics alike will add the NWSL to their daily diet.
To help pique their interest, last week the NWSL announced its official Summer of Soccer program. The initiative is highlighted by a country-wide branded bus tour that will bring enticing NWSL matches (including the 2026 Challenge Cup taking place on 26 June between the reigning champions Gotham and the reigning Shield winners Kansas City) and fan engagement activities to cities that have, or soon will have, an NWSL team. Knowing fans of the game will be caught in the summer’s groundswell beyond the 2026 hosts, the traveling NWSL exhibition plans to stop in Fifa host locations of New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Kansas City, as well as NWSL cities such as Portland, Denver and Columbus, who’ll be the league’s 18th team in the 2028 season.
With the tour scheduled to start in Columbus, the traveling NWSL show plans to stop at a fanfest, aim to be onsite for Lindsey Heaps’s debut in Denver, then traverse the west coast before finishing in the New York/New Jersey area. In New York, the NWSL is hoping to set an attendance record for women’s sports in NYC as it hosts the Queen’s Classic at Citi Field, marking the first women’s sporting event at the stadium featuring a rematch of the 2025 NWSL Championship between Gotham and the Washington Spirit. They’ll also have a presence at the World Cup final on 19 July.
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