Viewership for the 2025 NWSL season was down about 8 percent heading into its summer break while the league suffered from the absence of multiple star players at various points, according to a report by Sports Business Journal.

The league returns to action Aug. 3 after a break for confederation competitions, and there is optimism that viewership will increase during what is traditionally the NWSL’s most-watched month.

NWSL games are averaging 189,000 viewers across ESPN networks, ION and CBS through 38 national window games. At the same point last season, the league was averaging around 205,000 viewers per game.

The NWSL is in the second year of a four-year media rights deal, but viewership has been hampered by several marquee players missing time.

Stars forward Mallory Swanson and Thorns forward Sophia Wilson are pregnant, while Sprit forward Trinity Rodman and Gotham FC midfielder Rose Lavelle have been sidelined by injuries. According to the report, those players only appeared in three of 22 national television window games that included those players’ teams.

“We have the most moms playing in any sports league in the world, and they’re going to come back,” NWSL SVP/Broadcast & Executive Producer Brian Gordon told SBJ. “So, the things that we can control, we control this year with our schedule. And the things we can’t control jumped up and hurt us.”

According to the report, ratings are down 13 percent year over year on CBS, which has seven more regular-season matches before the playoffs. The network will carry a quarterfinal and a semifinal match along with the championship game.

Meanwhile, eight matches across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC are actually up 29 percent thus far. In addition, NWSL viewing on ION’s FAST channel is up 18 percent per match, although those numbers are not yet measured by Nielsen.

–Field Level Media