The NWSL (and KC Current) will have a new TV arrangement next season: here are details
The National Women’s Soccer League — and, by extension, the Kansas City Current — have a new broadcast-rights deal in place for the 2024 season.
League commissioner Jessica Berman announced the new TV arrangement Thursday. Reportedly worth up to $60 million per year, it’s a four-year contract with CBS, ESPN, Amazon Prime and the Scripps ION network.
Up to 118 matches will be distributed via national broascast across the four platforms.
“We are super proud that we have been able to achieve a historic and record-breaking investment in any women’s sport historically and globally,” Berman said during a news conference in San Diego, “with the 40-times increase in the collective investment that’s being made in the future of the NWSL.
“What this means,” she continued, ”is that 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.”
Here’s how league-wide coverage will break down next year:
Prime Video will host Friday night matches during the regular season.
ION Network, owned by media company Scripps, will host a doubleheader every Saturday.
A package of regular-season matches will air on the CBS and CBS Sports Network, with simultaneous streaming on Paramount+.
ESPN will air its own package of matches across the ESPN family of networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes). All matches on the ESPN-family networks will also be streamed via ESPN+.
Remaining regular-season matches will be available “direct to consumer” — Berman said local networks will negotiate for local TV rights.
This season and last, select Kansas City Current games were shown in KC on KSHB and KCMI (38 the Spot).
The league is expanding to 14 teams next season, with the additions of Bay FC (San Jose, California) and the Utah Royals (Salt Lake City). So the NWSL playoff field will also expand from six to eight teams.
“We believe that our playoffs and regular season are extremely compelling,” Berman said. “There was an opportunity to provide more teams with an opportunity to compete.”
Prime Video and CBS will have the rights to air one quarterfinal each, while ESPN and ABC will air the other two. CBS and ESPN/ABC will carry a semifinal match each. CBS retains the NWSL Championship match rights in prime-time.
ION will air the 2024 NWSL Draft in January.
This year’s NWSL Championship is slated for 7 p.m. Central on Saturday at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, pitting Megan Rapinoe’s OL Reign against Ali Krieger’s NJ/NY Gotham FC. It’s the final game for Rapinoe and Krieger, two former stars of the U.S. National Team.