NWSL docuseries director Marie Margolius: Women’s sports coverage should ‘focus on the sport’

For the first time last season, the National Women’s Soccer League had Prime Video as a rights partner. That Amazon partnership led to more than just game content.

On Thursday, Prime Video released four-part docuseries For The Win: NWSL, from Words + Pictures and the league as well as executive producers Connor Schell and Libby Geist, Alex Morgan, and Eli Manning.

The series covers the 2024 NWSL season, playoffs, and championship game. Director Marie Margolius of Words + Pictures spoke to Awful Announcing about the project and said this series stands out in a crowded documentary landscape for the all-voluntary participation from athletes.

“I think more than a lot of other leagues and sports and athletes, the women that you’ll see in this series are coming to it from a really genuine open place,” she said. “The process of getting the characters to sign up for this was just that I gave the women in the in the film the chance to raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, I want to be a part of this,’ rather than trying to reverse-engineer and force someone into something.

“I went to every team and every player and basically said, ‘Here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it. If you want to be a part of it, amazing, and we’d love to have you. And if you don’t, that’s okay, we’re not going to make you do anything that you don’t want to.’

“And so the participants that we got were willing participants, and also just really open and genuine. And so, I think you get a level of access and unfiltered dialogue that is unique for these types of series.”

Margolius said this project arose from Words + Pictures (a production company founded by ESPN Films veteran Schell in 2021 after he left that company, with fellow ESPN alum Geist soon entering as president and many other ESPN figures, including Margolius, joining them)’ past work in docuseries. She said that was especially notable with the 2023’s Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team series for Netflix (where Margolius was a producer), which led to the NWSL seeking the company out, and the two combining for a joint pitch to NWSL broadcaster Prime Video.

“On the heels of that and with the general experience that we have producing these types of things, the NWSL came to us and asked for a pitch for a series that chronicled the 2024 season. We did just that, and then together with the NWSL brought it to Amazon. Given their rights, and the games that they air, it made a ton of sense for them. And they were fast and great partners, from the very beginning.”

For Margolius, the key element to emphasize in that pitch was the importance of the on-field competition.

“I emphasized a couple things. One is my background in soccer, both playing it and storytelling around it. I really feel like I had a clear perspective on the stories that I wanted to tell, but also how I wanted to tell them. So my pitch to the NWSL was like, ‘I really think the best way that we can tell stories about women’s sports is to focus on the sport, and to focus on the stakes and the competition and the passion that is inherently there in a playoff run.'”

That’s certainly been a wider discussion around coverage of women’s sports, with some pushback against disregarding the actual sport in favor of off-field stories to an extent not often seen in coverage of men’s sports. A notable element of that is that comments in favor of emphasizing the off-field aspects have often come from male executives claiming that’s what women want. Consider the infamous remarks NBC Olympics chief marketing officer John Miller made ahead of the 2016 Rio Games while defending that network’s tape-delay approach (which, fortunately, they’ve since moved off):

“The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans. More women watch the Games than men, and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and mini-series wrapped into one.”

Miller’s comments got lit up everywhere, from The Washington Post to Vanity Fair. But they were just a particularly poignant example of a long-standing line of thought, often expressed by men, that a. female sports fans don’t care about the actual sports and b. neither does anyone watching women’s sports. And while there are still plenty of examples of mainstream media coverage of women’s sports focusing more on off-field stories than in men’s sports, there’s been notable pushback against that logic since then, including from some of the most prominent female athletes.

And Words + Pictures projects have been central to some of that pushback. In particular, director Kristen Lappas of their Full Court Press women’s college basketball series told AA in 2024 that the key is “pushing to make sure that people understand that it’s as intense.” Along those lines, Margolius told AA there can be value to the off-field stories as well, but they have to be kept in balance.

“So often in the media, when we cover women’s sports, we sort of water those things down instead of, you know, very equally worthy stories to tell, but stories of advocacy and family and how hard it can be to be a female athlete,” she said. “All of which, like I said, are important stories to tell. But I felt like showing the world just the intensity of the league and the players who play in it, on its face, was enough to lean into.”

Margolius said both the NWSL and Prime Video were enthused about that approach.

“I think they were excited about really leaning into this best-in-class product that they have, which is the best soccer players and the best soccer teams in the world.”

That was the pitch, but how did it play out in practice? Well, Margolius said her group stuck to that vision of emphasizing the on-field product by setting a high bar on off-field elements that needed to be clear to make the cut and handling them thoughtfully and with context when necessary.

“The team was really intentional about every story that we told.  And there are stories, of course, like of the history of the NWSL. It wasn’t always where it is today, and so you have to tell the story of where it came from and the beginnings of the league, which look very different than the right now of the league.

“But even when we told that story, the conversation and the edit was always, ‘Okay, how can we make this about informing the audience about how we got here and not making it a ‘Woe is us, women’s sports is so hard and overlooked.” It’s just tonally, I think there was a real intentionality with the way that we framed a lot of those stories. But they’re necessary stories to tell, of course, so we did that.”

This particular project utilized some of Margolius’ own background. Before heading to ESPN (where she made Sports Business Journal‘s New Voices Under 30 list in 2020 while serving as senior manager, office of the executive vice president, content), she played soccer at Harvard and then internationally. And she’s been involved in a number of soccer projects on the docuseries front, including directing 2023 documentary Ayenda/Future on the rescue of the Afghanistan women’s national team and serving as a producer on that 2023 USWNT series. She said having a soccer background was beneficial here to both utilize the connections she already had and build new ones.

“I think it certainly helps with the players and the coaches that I can talk about tactics and talk about the game in a way that makes clear that I’m a fan and know what I’m talking about, of course. And there’s some women in the league that I’ve played with, or against, so just those connections to the soccer world are certainly helpful.

“But I think the biggest thing is just it gives me, when I’m in the field shooting, it gives me a way to relate to these players. And soccer is a great way to do that.”

However, Margolius said it’s not just her playing experience that let her connect with these athletes.

“There’s plenty of other human ways to connect with people, you know, whether it’s talking to Nealy Martin about playing abroad or talking to Trinity [Rodman] about being raised by a single mom or Alex Morgan about being pregnant. These are all things where I can relate to these women on a personal level. Soccer is just one other item on that list that I think helps me build those connections that are necessary to really earn their trust.”

She said the connections weren’t just about her; they benefited from the diverse team (a recent focus for many in the storytelling space) that Words + Pictures had on this project.

“All of our lead producers, all of our APs, a lot of our DPs, and a lot of leadership roles on this team are women. And that is intentional, of course, because I think when you’re telling women’s stories, it’s important that the perspective is one that sort of understands where the characters are coming from. But that doesn’t mean at all that men can’t do the same thing. Our team was really diverse and I’m really proud of that.

Margolius said diversity is a strength for projects like this.

“I think it makes for a better working environment. It makes people comfortable. It was something we were really intentional about, and I think the process and the product really benefited from that.”

As noted, Margolius worked with Schell at ESPN before heading to Words + Pictures. She said a tremendous benefit of the new company is using sports backgrounds to tell stories beyond sports.

“Words + Pictures is great. I have worked for my boss, Connor Schell, who when he was at ESPN started the 30 for 30 franchise, I’ve worked for him for over a decade now. There are a few of us who are sort of ESPN transplants, who left together to start Words + Pictures. It’s great.

“I think the one of the things that we always talk about is a lot of us are sort of sporty people who come from sporty backgrounds, and so we tell a lot of stories like this. But we always say ‘It’s not really about the sports, it’s about telling great stories that resonate with a wide range of audiences.'”

She said the overall focus is finding the stories that resonate more widely.

“The way you do that is by telling human stories, telling stories of compelling dynamic characters with broad appeal. That’s sort of our north star, I think, especially on the back of the success of projects like The Last Dance and OJ: Made in America, that was sort of as we left ESPN and Connor started Words + Pictures. It’s those types of stories with real human interest stories at the heart of them that are sort of our north star.”

Margolius said another advantage of Words + Pictures versus ESPN is the way they can now take projects to whatever company might be the best fit.

“The ability to work with different partners is certainly freeing in a way. I think having the opportunity to tell different types of stories, too: we do a lot of sports stories, but we also do other stuff too. We just produced a doc about Christopher Reeve, the original Superman.

“And we’ve done other things in the music realm and the pop culture realm. That freedom has been really nice. And just the ability to know that we have a bunch of different partners who have a lot of different strategic goals and creative goals is exciting.”

A docuseries on an ongoing season can pose some challenges, especially with storylines changing as teams’ fortunes wax and wane. But Margolius said she found that exhilarating.

“Part of the challenge of making a series like this is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. You are along for the ride.

“And you can try to preempt every storyline and try to decide ahead of time what the results are going to be or who the hero or who the villain is going to be, but you never know until it happens. So that is challenging, but it’s also part of the fun of it, and that’s part of why it’s fun to watch and it’s part of why it’s fun to make.”

Margolius said there were some unexpected changes even in an NWSL season that saw the No. 1 and No. 2 teams (the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit) face off in the championship.

“I do think this year, more so than NWSL seasons in the past, the table, the championship, was statistically what it should have been. But still along the way, there’s a million twists and turns and individual stories that you could never predict. So yes, that’s certainly a challenge, but again, that’s part of the fun of it.”

All four episodes of NWSL: For The Win are available to stream now on Prime Video.