ESPN is releasing a new NWSL docuseries that goes inside three teams during the final stretch of the 2025 season. NWSL: The Final Third follows the Washington Spirit, Kansas City Current, and Angel City FC as they navigate the closing weeks of the regular season. All three episodes are available now on the ESPN App. The series debuts on television March 2 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN2 and will stream on Disney+ from March 2-31.
Marie Margolius directed the series, which was produced by Words + Pictures, Omaha Productions, and ESPN. Margolius previously directed Prime Video’s For The Win: NWSL docuseries that covered the 2024 season. She told Awful Announcing in March 2025 that she wanted to tell NWSL stories by focusing on the sport itself rather than off-field narratives. That approach carried over to The Final Third.
“The three teams we embedded with were navigating very different realities as the 2025 regular season concluded, and the drama that unfolded was incredible to witness,” Margolius said in ESPN’s press release. “I hope viewers come away feeling inspired by the intensity of the competition on the pitch — but most of all, connected to the players who shoulder the pressure and live with the consequences of every result off of it.”
The series features five players across the three teams: Trinity Rodman, Hal Hershfelt, and Esme Morgan from the Washington Spirit; Lo’eau LaBonta from the Kansas City Current; and Riley Tiernan from Angel City FC.
ESPN has been investing heavily in NWSL coverage over the last few years. The network aired 20 NWSL games in 2025, including three playoff games, with six matches on ABC, 10 on ESPN, and four on ESPN2. ESPN announced last September that it was expanding its NWSL coverage from 17 games to 33 games per season starting in 2026. The network also launched a NWSL Match of the Week series and will broadcast Decision Day, which features eight concurrent matches on the final day of the regular season. ESPN also announced earlier this month that it’s launching Women’s Sports Sundays in late summer, replacing Sunday Night Baseball with a primetime series built around WNBA and NWSL matchups.
The NWSL has been growing rapidly, both on the field and in viewership. Last year’s championship game drew 1.18 million viewers on CBS, up 22% from 2024 and marking the first time an NWSL match cracked the seven-figure mark. The league expanded to 14 teams in 2024 and is now up to 16 in 2026, with attendance rising alongside TV ratings. Regular-season matches that once struggled to break 100,000 viewers are now routinely drawing several hundred thousand, particularly when aired on ABC or ESPN’s main network.
ESPN is banking on that momentum continuing. The network is more than doubling its game coverage starting this season and creating dedicated primetime windows specifically for women’s soccer. The docuseries drops three weeks before the 2026 season kicks off.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.