With a 2023 championship season and a star-studded offseason, the NWSL will bring a lot of national attention to Gotham FC heading into next season.
The National Women's Soccer League has announced its 2024 schedule, with the reigning champions set to be featured 16 times on ESPN Networks, CBS Television Networks and ION TV.
Gotham FC, which added U.S. Women's National Team stars Rose LaBelle, Emily Sonnette, Crystal Dunn and Teanna Davidson during the offseason, will advance to the NWSL Challenge Cup on March 15 at Red Bull Arena. They will start the season against the San Diego Wave.
The team then begins the regular season on March 24th in Portland, Oregon, before hosting Gotham FC's home opener against the Kansas City Currents on April 14th.
A rematch of last year's NWSL Championship Game is scheduled for June 30th when Gotham takes on the Seattle Reign at Red Bull Arena and will be broadcast on ESPN.
This game will be LaBelle and Sonnett's first match against their former teams since their offseason transfers.
“We want this kind of attention,” general manager Yael Apfelbusch West said at a press conference this month. “We really want to embody the New Jersey/New York mentality, which is that we want to be the best and we want others to follow.”
This year marks the beginning of a large, albeit complex, new media rights deal between CBS, ESPN, Prime Video, Scripps Sports and NWSL+, the league's first direct-to-consumer streaming service.
The new streaming service will stream 69 games this season for free, with the league's other 121 games on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN+, CBS, CBS Sports Network, Paramount+, Prime Video, and Scripps-owned ION It will be broadcast. tv set.
The NWSL+ app is available on AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, Android, and IOS, and the fact that it's free is a big difference from the $99 MLS season pass that launched last year.
Unlike the NWSL, Major League Soccer has moved primarily to streaming league games, with minimal games being shown on linear TV.
