2024 continues to be a banner year for women’s sports.
Saturday’s NWSL Championship between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit averaged 967,900 viewers on CBS. Orlando’s 1-0 win in Kansas City was up 18% versus last year’s audience (816,800 for Gotham FC’s win over Seattle Reign), and up 6% versus 2022 (915,000 for Portland Thorns win over KC Current).
The title game was the third in which CBS aired the match in primetime. The network even sent its morning show CBS Mornings on-site for the game.
2024 also marked the first year of the NWSL’s current media rights agreements; the start of a four year run with Disney, Paramount, Amazon, and Scripps. The league vastly improved its linear distribution in the new deals, with 91 matches airing per season between the ESPN family of networks, CBS and CBS Sports Network, and Scripps’ Ion.
According to Mollie Cahillane of Sports Business Journal, the NWSL’s regular season averaged 175,000 viewers per game, excluding matches on Amazon’s Prime Video which does not measure audiences for the league.
The NWSL is firmly in expansion mode. The league will add a Boston franchise in 2026, and is considering Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Denver as options for a 16th franchise.
Between the NWSL’s successful viewership increase and the record-shattering year that the WNBA had from a viewership perspective, it’s hard to argue that there isn’t a substantial audience for women’s sports.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.