The NWSL is experiencing a huge growth period.
This season, the league added two new franchises, with the Boston Legacy and the Denver Summit becoming the 15th and 16th teams, respectively.
Jessica Berman, NWSL commissioner, shared on stage at Leaders Week London on Thursday that the league is about to open its “data rooms” for teams 19 and 20 to join, albeit there is no firm timeline on when those two additional franchises may enter the league.
In 2028, Atlanta City FC and a new side in Columbus will become the 17th and 18th NWSL teams.
Amidst all of this expansion, the NWSL is also about to enter the final year of its four-year $240 million landmark domestic broadcast rights deals with CBS, ESPN, Prime and Scripps. Since then, they’ve also added Roku as a free streaming partner.
Away from the stage at Leaders, Berman shared some other key updates. Here are the quick hits.
What was the impact of the 2026 World Cup on the NWSL?
Berman: “Since the men’s World Cup, which definitely created a soccer-curious nation, we’ve seen an uptick in attendance, in viewership, and social media following and engagement. People are hungry for the best soccer in the world, and all of our marketing is around our league really being the home to the best players and the most competitive league in the world. It was really good timing for us going into the back half of our regular season and now going into our playoff stretch where there’s very high stakes for every match and a lot of reasons for people to watch.”
What is the possibility of switching the NWSL calendar?
Berman: “In this very fluid world, any decision we make is not a forever decision, it’s a decision for now. We’ve made the decision to maintain our calendar for the foreseeable. We think that gives us the foundation and stability to be able to plan in multi-year cycles, and as the industry evolves in women’s football, we certainly could revisit if we felt like the circumstances were right.”
Will there be changes to High Impact Player rule in 2026?
Berman: “When we announced the High Impact Player rule, I think we said we were going to give it some period of time. We’ve now gone through two transfer windows, and we’re in the process of analysing the data to really assess whether the foundational reasons that we created the rule actually resulted in what we were hoping to achieve. Early analysis is telling us that it has. We have been able to attract and retain a lot of top players, and we’re going to use all of that information, digest it, and decide whether we want to make any changes in advance of the next transfer window.”
What is the timeline on expansion to 20 teams?
Berman: “We made the decision in advance of the last expansion round, which was teams 17 and 18, to have our expansion process be rolling. What that means really is that we don’t have a hard and fast start date and end date. We don’t really have a deadline for when we’ll make a decision. We’ve decided, given the scale of the league at this point, that we’ll make decisions when we feel like the market is ready to come in.
“The reason the opening of the data room is really important is obviously investors expect to understand and know the financial health of the league. We want to get a thorough update of all that information and really put our best foot forward.
“We’ll see how those conversations go. There’s an incredible amount of interest. Sports tend to be a really scarce asset, so there aren’t a lot of opportunities to be able to invest, so a lot of investors recognise that this is a really pivotal moment. It’s going to be hard to find the opportunities to get in at that level even though it’s a higher level than it was a few years ago. Because we’ve proven that over the last four and a half years, we’re excited about what will come of this process and what will come of it.”
When will negotiations for next media deal begin?
Berman: “Really imminently. We’ve been so happy with our partners and continue to have great conversations with them about their interest in continuing to have NWSL matches on their platforms. Hopefully it will be a really successful process for women’s soccer more broadly and the NWSL.”
On the inaugural Fifa Women’s Club World Cup
Berman: “This next phase of growth really requires a ton of communication and collaboration between the different stakeholders or tournament organisers. We’re all leveraging the same players for these different tournaments. We must communicate to make sure that we’re optimising for their performance in a way that allows for us all to have longevity and sustainability that we’re looking to achieve. More details to come from Fifa. We too are waiting for additional information about everything from the location, the format to the structure. We will hope to continue to work with Fifa on making sure that it’s curated in a way that supports the growth of the game globally.”