A championship season in 2023 and a star-studded offseason have the NWSL giving Gotham FC plenty of the national spotlight for the upcoming season.
National Women’s Soccer League unveiled its 2024 schedule, with the reigning champions being featured a combined 16 times across ESPN networks, CBS Television networks and ION TV.
Gotham FC, which added U.S. Women’s national team stars Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonett, Crystal Dunn and Tierna Davidson during the offseason, kicks off the season against the San Diego Wave in the NWSL Challenge Cup on March 15 at Red Bull Arena.
The team then begins the regular season on the road in Portland, Ore., on March 24 and hosts the Kansas City Current in Gotham FC’s home opener on April 14.
A rematch of last year’s NWSL championship game takes place on June 30, when Gotham takes on the Seattle Reign at Red Bull Arena in a game set to air on ESPN.
The match will also mark the first time Lavelle and Sonett face their former club after their offseason moves.
“We want this type of attention,” general manager Yael Averbuch West said during a press conference this month. “We really want to embody the New Jersey/New York mindset, which is we want to be the best and we want other people chasing us.”
This year is the start of a massive new — albeit complicated — media rights deal with CBS, ESPN, Prime Video and Scripps Sports, along with the league’s first direct-to-consumer streaming service, NWSL+.
The new streaming service will carry 69 games this season and will be free of charge, with the league’s other 121 games airing across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN+, CBS, CBS Sports Network, Paramount+, Prime Video and Scripps owned ION TV.
The NWSL+ app will be available on AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, Android, and IOS and the fact that it is free makes it very different from MLS Season Pass, which launched last year at a cost of $99.
Unlike the NWSL, Major League Soccer moved primarily to streaming for its league’s matches with only a minimal amount still airing on linear TV.