HARRISON, NJ – The lower bowl of Red Bull Arena was packed, part of what would be an all-time franchise record attendance of 15,540 for Gotham FC. It was an understandable point of pride for the team and the National Women’s Soccer League as a whole.
But what NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman noticed most during Sunday’s quarterfinal (Gotham 2, Portland 1) wasn’t so much the quantity of fans as the quality of the support.
Waving flags. Homemade plates. Most importantly, fans who stuck around (and screamed) for every play, every call, every goal. This was a scene. This was intense.
“It felt specific to the game,” Berman told Yahoo Sports this week. “It was very focused on the action.”
According to Berman, this was not about people just coming to support women’s football, or simply to take their daughter to see some role models after a youth clinic, not that there is anything wrong with that.
What mattered was Gotham winning a game and advancing to the playoffs. They travel on Saturday for a semi-final against Washington, which also played in a similarly noisy, rough environment on Sunday (sold out crowd of 19,215).
“It was the fan base that really appreciated the game itself,” Berman said.
Professional women’s soccer in America dates back nearly a quarter century, with the Women’s United Soccer Association (2001-2003) and Women’s Professional Soccer (2009-2012). The 11-year-old NWSL is its third iteration, but in many ways 2024 felt like a fresh start.
There’s a new television package designed for access: games on CBS, ABC, ESPN, Amazon and Ion.
There’s the arrival of a breathtaking talent in Kansas City’s Temwa Chawinga, whose record of 20 goals was as many as the entire Houston team this year.
There is momentum as the U.S. women’s national team captures Olympic gold in Paris behind a slew of young new stars like Trinity Rodman (Washington) and Sophia Smith (Portland).
Berman calls it the “force multiplier” of taking regular, hard-core fans and more casual families and turning them into something akin to European football – passions, traditions and pride. This is more than a movement. It’s a sport.
And America can finally see it.
Throughout its early existence, women’s professional soccer has fought for television partners. In 2023, there wasn’t a single NWSL quarterfinal on network TV. There were three this year, plus a win in Orlando on Friday night over Amazon.
“We’ve gone from hidden to visible,” Berman said.
This weekend, Gotham plays Washington (which sold out again in just 72 hours) on Saturday at noon on CBS. KC visits Orlando on Sunday at 3pm on ABC. The championship game is on November 23 at 8pm on CBS.
The ratings won’t overwhelm anyone; if they reach 500,000 this weekend the league should be happy. The goal is growth and that starts with exposure. Average attendance across the league was 11,235 this season, compared to just 7,894 in 2022, per Sportico.
On television, NWSL takes the opposite approach to Major League Soccer, with the vast majority of games, including the play-offs, part of a pay package on Apple TV.
MLS is much more popular and profitable than the NWSL. The $250 million Apple deal pays the bills and serves the established audience well. However, the league has had two years to showcase arguably the most popular athlete in the world (Lionel Messi) and has yet to reach as many curious or casual fans. There is a trade-off.
The NWSL has no Messi. However, it does have a slew of USWNT stars – Washington’s Rodman and Gotham’s Rose LaVelle, for example. It also has some of the most exciting international players, including Chawinga from Mali, and the competition’s second top scorer, Barbra Banda from Orlando via Zimbabwe.
“She’s incredible,” Berman said of Chawinga, whose speed not only translates into goals, but also into highlight-reel goals. “Stars help leagues grow. You support players. Then you advocate for teams.”
For the NWSL, the hope is that more fans tune in when Chawinga and Banda play and perhaps get hooked on the players, the action or the atmosphere. They are already planning an aggressive marketing campaign to introduce the best players to as many people as possible. You can’t create Caitlin Clark, but you can give it a push with what you have.
If nothing else, it seems to have finally found a critical mass of fans who are desperate to help their team win, not just because it’s a worthwhile cause or an affordable family outing.
There is a real product to sell here, and finally a real media strategy to sell it.