NWSL Expands Global Reach with New Broadcast Deals

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NWSL TV rights deal
Image credit: NWSL website

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has announced a series of new international media partnerships, significantly expanding its global reach ahead of the 2025 season. With coverage spanning over 130 countries, the new deals ensure broader access to live matches and highlights across key international markets.

Expanded Coverage Across Continents

ESPN has secured exclusive rights in Mexico, Central America, South America, Brazil, the Caribbean, the Netherlands, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Disney+ Nordics will provide live coverage of two matches per week along with highlight packages.

In the UK, TNT Sports will air two exclusive matches weekly, while Canadian broadcaster TSN will show one game per week, with additional matches available on TSN+.

Brazil’s Canal GOAT and Latin America’s TV Azteca will each carry up to two matches per week.

Meanwhile, Dubai TV has obtained exclusive broadcasting rights for two matches per week.

For Australian audiences, Optus Sport has acquired exclusive rights to all NWSL matches and highlight packages, ensuring full coverage for fans across the country.

Global Streaming and Accessibility

NWSL+ remains a key component of the league’s international streaming strategy. Launched in 2024, the free direct-to-consumer platform will continue to provide non-exclusive matches, highlights, replays, and team content for viewers outside the United States via Apple TV, Fire TV, and Roku TV.

In the U.S., more than 160 matches will be available across national broadcasters, including CBS, ESPN, Prime Video, and ION, while the remaining fixtures will be streamed for free on NWSL+.

NWSL Senior Vice President of Broadcast Brian Gordon spoke on the importance of securing multiple international deals at once.

“The NWSL is home to an incredible roster of world-class talent, including many of the game’s top international stars,” he said in a press release.

“As the global reach of our sport continues to expand, we remain committed to making our matches more accessible, connecting fans everywhere with their favourite teams and players.”

A Boost for Australian Football Fans

This expanded coverage is a major win for Australian football fans, providing unprecedented access to one of the world’s premier women’s football leagues.

With Optus Sport securing exclusive rights, fans can follow top-tier women’s football with ease, further enhancing the growing popularity of the sport and league in Australia.

This move not only strengthens the global presence of the NWSL but also supports the continued growth of women’s football down under.

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Football NSW supports Female Coaches CPD as Women’s Football Surges

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Football NSW has used the platform of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to deliver a targeted professional development workshop for female coaches, bringing together scholarship recipients for an evening of structured learning and direct engagement with elite women’s football.

Held at ACPE last month, the session was open to female coaches who received C or B Diploma scholarships through Football NSW in 2025. Coaching accreditation carries a financial cost that disproportionately affects women, who are less likely to have their development subsidised by clubs or associations operating in underfunded community football environments. Scholarship access changes that equation at the point where many women exit the pathway.

Facilitated by Football NSW Coach Development Coordinator Bronwyn Kiceec, the workshop focused on goal scoring trends from the tournament’s group stage, with coaches analysing attacking patterns and exploring how those insights could translate into their own environments. The group then attended the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia.

The structure of the evening mattered as much as its content. Female coaches in community football rarely have access to elite competition environments as a professional resource. The gap between the level at which most women coach and the level at which the game is analysed and discussed tends to reinforce itself. Placing scholarship recipients inside a major tournament, as participants rather than spectators, closes that gap in a way that a classroom session cannot.

Female coaches remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of the game in Australia. The pipeline that will change that depends not only on accreditation access but on the professional networks, peer relationships and exposure to elite environments that male coaches have historically taken for granted.

The workshop forms part of Football NSW’s ongoing commitment to developing female coaches through scholarships and structured learning opportunities.

Marie-Louise Eta makes history as new Union Berlin head coach

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Image credit: FC Union Berlin

In an historic appointment, Eta will take over as head coach of Union Berlin until the end of the season.

History in the making

Previously the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history with Union Berlin, Eta will now take the reigns of the men’s first team on an interim basis.

Currently, the club sit in 11th place in the Bundesliga table, but with only two wins so far in 2026, relegation appears an all-too-real prospect, and one which the club is desperate to avoid.

“Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” said Eta via official media release.

‘I am delighted that the club has entrusted me with this challenging task. One of Union’s strengths has always been, and remains, the ability to pull together in such situations.”

Eta will begin as Union’s new head coach with immediate effect, and will be in the dugout for the club’s matchup against Wolfsburg this weekend.

 

A step into an equal future

Eta’s appointment signals a major step towards a more level playing field in the football landscape.

Furthermore, Eta joins other coaches including Sabrinna Wittmann, Hannah Dingley and Corinne Diacre who, in recent years, have blazed a trail for female coaches to step into the men’s game.

Wittmann currently manages FC Ingolstadt in Germany’s third division, and was the first female head coach in Germany’s top three divisions.

In 2023, Dingley became caretaker manager of Forest Green Rovers, and thus the first woman to lead a men’s professional team in England.

Diacre, now head coach of France’s women’s national team, managed Ligue 2’s Clerment Foot between 2014 and 2017.

 

Final thoughts

The impact therefore, is that Eta’s appointment will show future generations of aspiring female coaches that men’s football is an equally viable and possible pathway as the women’s game.

The time is now to level the playing field.

And while it may be a short-term role, its effect on attitudes towards equality and fair opportunities in the game will hopefully resonate long after the season ends.

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