(Rebekah Wynkoop/SPP)
There are few bigger figures in women’s football – or even women’s sports – than Megan Rapinoe. The legendary forward is known as much for her play on the field for her club OL Reign and the United States women’s national team as for her outspoken and unapologetic advocacy off the field on issues such as racial justice, LGBTQ visibility and equality. salary in women’s sport.
Earlier this year, Rapinoe announced her retirement from club and international football, and after a career that brought her an Olympic gold medal, two World Cup victories, the Ballon d’Or and even a medal presidential freedom, it seems that she has already won everything there is to win.
There is, however, one trophy that eludes him. Megan Rapinoe has never won a National Women’s Soccer League championship.
Despite winning three Shields with OL Reign, for whom she has played since the creation of the NWSL in 2013, she has never lifted a championship trophy. But now, for the first time since 2015, OL Reign has reached the finals and Rapinoe might have a chance to win that final piece of hardware in the final match of her career.
As sports storylines go, it doesn’t get much better than this – until it does. OL Reign will face NJ/NY Gotham FC in the season finale, and Gotham is led by Ali Krieger, a beloved veteran defender and two-time American teammate of World Cup winner Rapinoe, who is also retiring and never won the World Cup either. won one NWSL championship during his career (which spans the decade of league history). Additionally, Gotham has never won an NWSL championship despite also being an original team in the league – first as Sky Blue from 2013 to 2020 before renaming Gotham in 2021.
In short, an incredibly compelling narrative has developed to frame this finale. Two teams, neither of whom have won a championship, led by star players in their very last matches, chasing an elusive trophy to cap legendary careers. Even casual fans who attend this game will know that they will have the chance to experience the exhilaration of seeing a team and a retired star win a championship for the very first time. These fans will also be guaranteed the pathos of seeing another team and a retired star miss their chance at their first trophy. A Clash of the Titans type storyline with these stakes doesn’t present itself organically that often, and it would be in the league’s best interest to take full advantage of it and promote this storyline as aggressively as possible to attract a larger number of players. audience. Because, in a league that’s still striving for the attention of casual viewers, compelling storylines are a great way to generate interest.
There is no doubt that the NWSL is growing. But even if the average attendance was up 32% this year, compared to 2022, there is still plenty of room for growth in most markets. While the top six teams averaged over 10,000 attendees per game, seventh-ranked Gotham dropped to an average of just over 6,000, with the remaining teams falling to the bottom of the standings with the Red Stars of Chicago with just under 5,000.
For the league to continue this growth trajectory, it needs to bring more attention to games, which means games need to be visible. Big strides were made last year when the championship game’s kickoff was moved from noon ET to 8 p.m. ET on CBS. Average 915,000 viewers tuned in to watch the Portland Thorns take on the Kansas City Current in 2022 – a full 71% increase from the previous year. This year, the kickoff will remain in prime time on CBS and will take place in the league’s number one market – San Diego – so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect another increase in viewership. And with a storyline like Rapinoe vs. Krieger in their final games, the league has a powerful narrative it can use to maximize the comeback.
Rapinoe’s storyline should be enough to generate public interest both at home and abroad and should boost streaming numbers, but it’s also not hard to see how this angle alone could be marketed to attract more casual fans to the stadium and help surpass 1 million. viewers as well. Rapinoe’s last high-profile home game in Seattle against OL Reign was interesting enough to break the league single-game record with 34,140 fans in attendance – a massive increase from their season average of 10,765 per game . Krieger’s final home game drew 9,005 fans, about 3,500 more than Gotham’s average attendance that season. Even if it’s not either team’s home market, these stories are important to the growth of the league as a whole. If this match is aggressively sold as a unique chance to see these legends in their final matches in pursuit of the final trophy, it should sell tickets. Maybe not as much as if the home team San Diego Wave had reached the finals, but the opportunity remains there.
Now it’s a matter of seeing how the league and its affiliates, like CBS – its sole media broadcast partner until the end of this season – respond to this story. How will they market it? How are they going to try to sell it to an audience outside of the league’s existing fans? There is no doubt that this will be a topic that dominates media events around the match and discussions in women’s football spaces. This will also likely be a major topic of discussion throughout the game’s run. But how will it be taken outside of these island areas and into places where the general public will find it and decide it’s of an event he doesn’t want to miss? That remains to be seen.
Although it is certainly the responsibility of the media and outlets such as The equalizer To tell these stories, the league must also tell its own stories and use said stories to sell its own product – something it has never been able to do. And with just a few days until the final game itself, there isn’t a lot of intentionally generated buzz on this or any other topic coming directly from the league itself. Apart from a few tweets, there is very little narration to attract the maximum viewers to this match.
How the NWSL ultimately chooses to act on a golden opportunity like this will be an interesting insight into how the league views its own role and that of its broadcast affiliates – which are expected to multiply into numerous partnerships at the instead of a single agreement with CBS. year – by promoting its own growth scenarios.
