Last week, the United States capped the Women’s World Cup with a win over the Netherlands securing their fourth World Cup trophy. For an entire month the sports world was centered around soccer. Some fans even tuned into women’s soccer for the first time or at least the first time since the last World Cup four years ago.
This World Cup saw record setting viewership numbers in the United States. According to FOX, the final game had 14,271,000 viewers, peaking at nearly 20 million. Which means it’s the most watched soccer game in the U.S. since the 2015 final including any male soccer games. More people watched women’s soccer in the US than ever before, but women’s soccer does not just take place for one month every four years.
For starters, next summer in Tokyo, 12 of the best teams in the world will be competing for Olympic Gold. But you don’t even have to wait another year to watch quality women’s soccer. For the 14, 271, 000 people in the US who watched the World Cup final you can get your soccer fix on a weekly basis by watching the NWSL.
Many players from this year’s World Cup are playing their soccer all over the USA. All 23 American players are on an NWSL team. The league also has top players from other World Cup teams like Sam Kerr and Caitlin Foord from Australia or Marta and Camilla from Brazil. And yes, all of these players along with the rest of the ones who played in France this summer will all be back to play for their club teams this week. But the NWSL is so much more than just the World Cup players coming back.
The NWSL has had already been playing games this season before and during the World Cup. Each team has played at least 11 games so far and they will continue playing well into October. With how successful the World Cup was for viewership, ESPN announced they would cover 14 games for the rest of the NWSL season. The rest of the games will be available to stream on Yahoo Sports giving the fans many chances to watch the NWSL.
While you watched the World Cup you may have enjoyed the fearless play of Megan Rapinoe, the stonewall defense of Becky Sauerbrunn or the breakout performancs from Rose Lavelle or maybe you’ve now become a giant fan of all three. And if you’re wanting to follow NWSL teams just based on your favorite USWNT players you might have a hard time choosing one team. All of the players just listed all play for three separate teams, Reign FC, Utah Royals and the Washington Spirit respectively. Every NWSL team has at least one player from the USWNT on it and no team has more than three USWNT players on their roster.
So unless you live in one of the NWSL team cities or surrounding areas which include Bridgeview, IL (Red Stars), Houston, TX (Dash), Cary, NC (Courage), Orlando, FL (Pride), Portland, OR (Thorns), Tacoma, WA (Reign), Piscataway, NJ (Sky Blue), Sandy, UT (Royals) and Boyds, MD (Spirit) perhaps watching a few games will have you come across an impressive player you may never have heard of or a style of play from a team that catches your eye and can grab your fandom. The NWSL was built to develop players and prepare them for the UWSNT team and has been able to do that. If you watch enough games you may just see the next breakout player who can help raise up the next World Cup trophy.
To help you out with finding key players in the league who were not at the World Cup this year, starting next week we will be doing a weekly series focusing on top players all throughout the league that were not in France this summer.
Before you read that article be sure to catch the NWSL action going on this week starting with the Utah Royals vs the Portland Thorns on Yahoo Sports at 10pm ET. We will soon be updating our website to include a full NWSL schedule.