CBS, ESPN, and Amazon announced extensive broadcast plans for the 2025 NWSL season on Wednesday.
CBS, the league’s lead broadcast partner, will air 63 matches across CBS Sports platforms including 14 on the CBS broadcast channel. An additional 10 matches will be on the CBS Sports Network cable channel. The rest will stream on Paramount+, with 27 matches also airing on the free ad-supported television network CBS Sports Golazo.
Each of CBS’ postseason matches, including one quarterfinal, one semifinal, and the championship match, will air on the CBS broadcast network. The championship match will air in primetime for the fourth-straight year.
2025 will be Year 2 of a four-year set of media rights agreements that the NWSL signed with CBS, ESPN, Prime Video, and Ion. Last year’s championship game drew nearly a million viewers on CBS, a record for the league.
As for ESPN’s upcoming coverage, the family of networks will air 20 NWSL games during the upcoming season including three playoff games. Six matches are slated to air on ABC, 10 will air on ESPN, with the remaining four matches set for ESPN2.
The network has a strong slate of games. 13 of the 15 regular season matches currently on the schedule feature playoff teams from last season, with nine matches where both teams were apart of the postseason last year.
ABC, in particular, has some strong matches scheduled with half of the network’s games featuring a star forward from the USWNT: Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and Mallory Swanson.
Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service will air 27 matches in total this season, including 25 Friday night regular season games, one quarterfinal match, and the NWSL Challenge Cup — a rematch of last year’s championship game between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit.
Coverage plans for the NWSL’s fourth broadcast partner, Ion, were not immediately available. However, it’s likely the network’s plans will be similar to last year’s when they aired Saturday night doubleheaders.
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.