The NWSL signs new broadcast deals with CBS, ESPN, Amazon, and ION worth $60 million a year

After a decade of fighting for major recognition from the media, the National Women’s Soccer League reached a major milestone Thursday with the announcement of four major broadcast deals.

Games will be shown on CBS, ESPN’s channels including ABC, Scripps’ ION over-the-air network, and Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform from 2024-27, when the United States and Mexico could co-host the next women’s World Cup.

A source with knowledge of the deal told The Inquirer that the NWSL will earn a combined $60 million per year from the deals, blowing away the $1.5 million per year CBS has paid the league for its entire package since the start of 2020.

“This moment is a celebration — a celebration of how far we’ve come, but most importantly, where we’re heading,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in a news conference in San Diego, site of this weekend’s championship game between OL Reign and Gotham FC (8 p.m., CBS3, Paramount+).

Along with increasing the league’s major-broadcast games from 30 to 118, Berman celebrated being “able to achieve a historic and record-breaking investment in any women’s sport historically and globally, with a 40-times increase in the collective investment that’s being made in the future of the NWSL.”

» READ MORE: NWSL expands to the Bay Area and opens the door for two more teams

CBS’ new role with the league will feature at least 21 games a year. The big broadcast network will have 10 regular-season games, one quarterfinal from an expanded eight-team playoffs, one semifinal, and the championship game in prime time. Cable channel CBS Sports Network will have eight regular-season games.

The games on the main CBS will be streamed on Paramount+. The CBSSN games will not be, though, continuing a tradition that has annoyed NWSL fans without traditional pay-TV subscriptions. (CBS would like those fans to pay twice.)

“We’re going to use all of our assets, not just at CBS, but at Paramount [CBS’ parent company] to grow women’s soccer and grow the NWSL,” CBS Sports’ longtime chairman Sean McManus said. “The NWSL is the shining star and the premier property that we have when you look at the commitment we have to women’s sports. … We’re going to make sure, along with these other partners, that this league keeps getting more and more exposure, more and more promotion, more and more branding.”

ESPN regains NWSL rights after last having them in 2019. It also regains first-tier American domestic soccer rights after MLS left the network for Apple and Fox. The USL’s lower leagues are all ESPN has had domestically this year.

Twenty games will be spread across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 in English, and ESPN Deportes in Spanish — a welcome addition for a league that long has not paid Spanish speakers much attention. The set includes 17 regular season games, two playoff quarterfinals, and one semifinal.

» READ MORE: Spain’s Esther González brings a World Cup champion’s shine to the NWSL

All of those contests will be streamed on ESPN+, making them available without a pay-TV subscription. ESPN also gained broadcast rights for Latin America in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

“It is another premium property that fits in with what we currently have in our [men’s soccer] portfolio: [Spain’s] La Liga, [Germany’s] Bundesliga, [England’s] FA Cup and Carabao Cup,” ESPN’s senior director of programming and acquisitions Sonia Gomez, who oversees all those soccer rights, told The Inquirer.

“This league and the growth that it’s seen in the last few years, it just pairs with everything we’ve been trying to do in the category, specifically since, I would say, the launch of ESPN+,” Gomez said. “The investment we’ve made, the cross-promotion across all of those leagues — our intention is you come to to ESPN on a Saturday morning, and you start your day with the EFL [England’s lower leagues] and with the Bundesliga, La Liga, and you’re going to go into NWSL.”

She added that “some of the American sports that we know soccer crosses over with, we are going to be opportunistic as we always are” with promoting the league.

Amazon’s Prime Video adds the NWSL to its WNBA and NFL rights deals with exclusive games on Friday nights. There will be 25 of those, plus a special season kickoff game broadcast, and one playoff quarterfinal. Prime Video costs $8.99 per month. Amazon’s overall Prime subscription package, which includes Prime Video, costs $14.99 per month or $139 per year.

“Women’s sports and especially women’s soccer are at an inflection point,” Amazon vice president of U.S. sports content and partnerships Marie Donoghue said. “There’s incredible demand, and we have an opportunity to meet and grow that demand, and in Prime Video, we think we’re particularly well positioned to grow demand among the harder-to-reach young demographic. … Across Amazon, we are committed to drive all the assets of Amazon and Prime Video, of our unique power and reach, to really focus on this exclusive Friday night package we have, which we think will make a huge difference.”

» READ MORE: When could Philadelphia get a NWSL team?

ION started making a name for itself this year with a big package of Friday night WNBA games on its over-the-air stations across the country. It was quite successful, with the league and Nielsen saying those broadcasts drew 8.5 million viewers over the course of the season. ION’s station in Philadelphia is WPPX, Channel 61 over the air and widely available on cable.

The ION package will have 50 games, stacked in 25 Saturday night doubleheaders with 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET kickoff times. The broadcast windows will start with a studio show at 7 p.m., an element that NWSL broadcasts have rarely had. ION also will air the league’s college draft, the next edition of which will be held in January at the United Soccer Coaches Convention in Anaheim, Calif.

“We’ve really appreciated, through the entire process, how much the folks at the NWSL have put the fan first, and thought about making sure that they could reach with their games, all of the fans across this nation,” E.W. Scripps Company president and CEO Adam Symson said. “We’re going to really put everything we can behind growing that national fan base by providing a doubleheader with appointment viewing every Saturday night through the entire season for the NWSL on ION.”

All games not in those four packages will be streamed online by the league itself, instead of by a rightsholder. The league’s international online streaming this year was done in-house, but now domestic streaming will be in-house too, in what the league called “a domestic direct-to-consumer package produced and distributed by the NWSL.”

» READ MORE: Heather Mitts is working to bring pro women’s soccer back to Philadelphia with the USL Super League

The league did not say what that package will cost. Nor did it say whether archived replays of games on national broadcasts will be included in it or kept exclusive to those other broadcasters. But Berman did say teams will be able to sell local broadcast rights.

Splitting the broadcasts across so many platforms will cause some headaches for fans, especially casual viewers. But it’s a major economic victory for the league and its players — and it doesn’t sacrifice overall TV exposure, unlike Apple’s deal with Major League Soccer whose money was miles beyond what anyone else offered.

It’s also a major victory for Berman as commissioner. She was given many tasks upon arrival: cleaning up the NWSL’s abuse scandals, then overseeing expansion and a new broadcast deal. She has now achieved all three. A new team in the San Francisco Bay Area and a returning team in Salt Lake City will take the NWSL to 14 clubs next year; and in 2026, Boston and another city yet to be picked are expected to join.

“These partners here believe in our future, they believe in our players, they believe in what we can be, and we are resetting the standards by which women’s sports can be valued,” Berman said.