Can the NWSL make women’s soccer bigger than the NFL?

JESSICA BERMAN: We’ve transformed women’s sports and women’s soccer globally forever. Our owners, who are now the same owners who many of whom own NFL teams, NBA teams, tell us that their vision for the NWSL is to be the best league in the world. Not the best women’s league, not the best women’s soccer league, but literally the best league in the world. We have to think of ourselves like that.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Jessica Berman, Commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League, or NWSL. The new NWSL season kicks off on March 14th, and Berman is pushing to capitalize on a key moment in women’s sports. She was named Sports Illustrated’s Innovator of the Year for 2024 because she’s already resolved the sexual misconduct scandal plaguing the league, and propelled the NWSL to rapid growth, eye-popping media deals, and record team valuations. For her, the game is only starting.

Whether you’re a soccer fan or not, the rise of the NWSL is nothing short of inspirational, and Berman’s plans for the future? Well, let’s just say she’s not content with the status quo. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

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I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Jessica Berman, Commissioner of the NWSL. Jessica, thanks for joining us.

BERMAN: Thanks for having me.

Copy LinkCapitalizing on the NWSL’s new media deal

SAFIAN: The new NWSL season kicks off March 14th. There’s a lot to be excited about. Growth has been strong. By 2026, you’ll have 16 teams including in Denver, the first ever professional women’s sports team in the city. What are you most excited about for this year?

BERMAN: I’m excited to really capitalize on our new media deal, having our games in the places and spaces where people watch sports and other live content. Our games can be found on CBS, ESPN, Amazon, and Scripps ION, and we’re going into the second year of a four-year deal, and it’s really the first time that our league is widely available.

SAFIAN: This media rights deal, which you helped pull together, is worth $240 million over four years, an increase 40x from the previous deal. Is that the barometer of business success — like media deals, or how do you think about that compared to awareness and audience or the value of teams?

BERMAN: It’s one of the most important levers that a league can influence in our growth trajectory, and if you look at other professional sports leagues, the media rights cycles are part of what dictates the growth of the league. It was a really important barometer to really reset the value, and as importantly, to reset the distribution. In addition to the $240 million over four years, we also went from six national games on distribution to over 110. Having the games in all of the places that we need to be, so that fans can flip the channel on CBS or ABC and watch our incredible athletes compete at the highest level, is part of what’s going to drive the flywheel of growth and feed all of the other areas of our business, including buying tickets, buying merch, and discoverability on social media.

Copy LinkReacting to the first stadium built specifically for women

SAFIAN: I read that last year when you first walked into the NWSL’s new Kansas City stadium, you cried. Is that true?

BERMAN: It was really walking in the building and seeing Title IX written on the wall. It actually gave me chills, just imagining young girls playing in that stadium, which they do occasionally for high school tournaments or other premier youth showcases, and imagining that they can live in a world where the default is not built for men or boys, and normalizing the fact that female athletes deserve the same investment in infrastructure that men have enjoyed for decades, and it felt so transformative to actually have physical infrastructure built for women.

Billie Jean King was also there, and seeing her reaction of course brought me to tears, because she told me that it has taken her entire life to see this manifestation of her vision from the 1970s. Just imagining how the world is going to judge us 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now, and knowing that that was the first ever building that was built for women, it just felt really important.

Copy LinkTransforming the NWSL into a ‘player-centric league’

SAFIAN: You were named Sports Illustrated’s Innovator of the Year for 2024. Congratulations.

BERMAN: Thank you.

SAFIAN: What do you do from here to keep the innovation going, or is that like a mic drop moment, like “Yep, done it”?

BERMAN: I never imagined that that would be something that we, I, our league, could be recognized for. It is true that what we have done has disrupted the industry, and we have innovated, and in the last almost three years that I’ve been fortunate enough to be in my role, we’ve changed the entire game. We’ve transformed women’s sports and women’s soccer globally forever.

One of the examples I think is new collective bargaining agreement, where we were, are, the first professional sports league to grant full free agency to all professional players in our league who are not under contract. What that means to the layman is really that we do not have an entry draft. Players get to decide where they’re going to play, and giving them that agency — lowercase ‘a’ agency, as we say that free choice to assess whether the market is a right fit for them from a technical perspective, from a community perspective — really gives us the ability to actually manifest our vision of creating a player-centric league that is built for them. For our league, that was the right decision, and I could say, having grown up in this industry, it certainly was innovative.

Some of the first questions I got after we announced that were, “Do you think the NFL is going to get rid of their draft?” I’m like, well, I hope the takeaway from the decisions we’ve made is actually less about the specific changes we made and more about approaching leadership from the perspective of ‘we don’t need to do things the same just because they’ve always been done that way.’ We should force ourselves to have a system for pressure-testing whether the systems we put in place are the right systems for today and not be afraid to ask those questions, and also allow ourselves to continue with the status quo, but it should be an intentional choice. It shouldn’t be just because it’s always been done that way.

Copy LinkSolving the NWSL’s systemic challenges

SAFIAN: When you came on, the league was also in a crisis, allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse, players talking about a culture of fear. Megan Rapinoe, her famous tweet, “Let it burn.” I know a settlement was recently announced with several state attorneys general, $5 million in restitution and a slew of oversight terms. What about taking the job in that environment, I don’t know, made it more appealing, less appealing? What’s been most important in addressing that issue and reshaping things?

BERMAN: Well, I would answer that with a both/and. It was more appealing and less appealing. Nelson Mandela’s quote is what inspired my entire career, “Sport has the power to change the world,” and with that in mind and really feeling like I had the unique preparation for this role, having been a labor lawyer in my career, and really truly living and appreciating the idea of building a strong professional relationship with the player associations throughout my entire career, negotiating collective bargaining agreements, I believed and knew and really was convinced that I had the ability to actually make a difference.

Although it felt daunting and that was the part that was less appealing, having seen someone like Megan Rapinoe, who was of course iconic, and others in the league including Alex Morgan, that they believed the league was so damaged that they should just burn it to the ground. That is quite stark in terms of the challenge walking in the door. As I debated whether I should do this, I felt that first of all, we had very little to lose, because we were already at the lowest point.

Actually, when I peeled back the onion in my conversations with Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan and so many other players in the league, they were really just looking to be heard, and looking for a leader that they could trust and believe was going to listen and help solve some of the systemic challenges from a culture perspective that were pervasive in not only the National Women’s Soccer League but throughout women’s sports, and that they were actually open to solving it.

Copy LinkNavigating global competition for players

SAFIAN: You put all this effort into a player-centric league, but I noticed that salaries have been higher in Europe. Chelsea Football Club in London recently spent a million dollars to bring defender Naomi Girma over. There are rumors about other NWSL stars. How much do you worry about losing talent, or is it some way that it’s good for the NWSL when someone leaves overseas?

BERMAN: Another both/and. It’s a wonderful thing for the game that there’s demand for talent, that players have many places that they can play, that being the best league in the world which is our vision that our board has mandated us with creating, is not fun if you’re the only one. I mean, it has to be competitive and challenging in order to do that and to continue to be pushed to the next level, and certainly some of the clubs in Europe do that to us, for us, with us, and we’re all part of a global ecosystem which makes soccer unique relative to a sport like American football or basketball, where there really is only one place that you can go and play if you are a top player. That’s just not the same in soccer, and that’s not unique to women’s soccer.

Of course, in men’s soccer, it is a global network of clubs and leagues and national teams, and that’s part of what makes it a special sport and a global game. The challenge is, of course, that in order to be the best league in the world, we know we have to recruit, attract, retain, develop the best players in the world, particularly here in America, where the fan is quite discerning and wants to support the top talent and the top competitiveness that might exist.

Our approach is really just to lean into our unique value proposition, which is really centered around this idea that we are the only independent professional women’s soccer league in the world. We are independent from the men’s teams, we are independent from the men’s leagues, and we are independent from the Federation. What that means is that we are able to invest and make business decisions solely with our own players and business in mind. We do not have to worry about the unintended consequences to the men’s game. The only thing that matters to us is what is in our own best interest.

That is quite different than, for example, a Chelsea, where they are integrated into the men’s system. They share a P&L, they share facilities, and as incredible and competitive and amazing as some of those teams are, that is the culture in those countries, where it is the men first and the women are second. I guess when you’re a player, a top player, you will have that choice. You will have a choice about what kind of culture you want to be part of.

From our perspective, one of the things about our league that is so unique relative to a Chelsea or an Arsenal or some of these other clubs is that we have a salary cap, which in some ways inhibits our ability to be able to spend whatever we want, but in other ways allows for us to facilitate competitive balance across our league where anyone can win any game. That ability to disperse talent across our league is our defining characteristic, and of course, we’ll continue to raise the salary cap as revenues grow.

Copy LinkInside NWSL’s relationship with other professional women’s leagues

SAFIAN: You mentioned that you’re independent. How does that impact the way you engage with other professional women’s leagues like the WNBA? Does that make them more competitors for sponsorships and TV deals? Are they partners? How does that relationship work?

BERMAN: Yeah, definitely another both/and. When I see the WNBA reaching their playoffs and they can turn up the volume through the NBA, I’m like, “That would be nice.” It would be nice to have that extra oomph behind you that you could turn on at any given time. Part of our value proposition to sponsors is our standalone business, is our ability to be innovative and nimble and flexible in the way we craft our partnerships, in the way we tell our stories, in the speed in which we’re able to enact new ideas.

We can say an idea in our weekly Wednesday executive leadership team meeting, and that weekend’s games, it can be effective. We want to put a mic on the field. We want to change the way we’re doing our pregame show. We want to host a premiere before our start of our season, which we’re actually doing in launching our documentary, first ever documentary on the chase to the championship. We can do things with one, two, three, four weeks notice that those other integrated models would have a lot more challenges in implementing.

SAFIAN: That’s because they’re competing with themselves? I guess I’m curious how the calendar works. In some ways when you’re trying to get those big media rights deals, you are owning certain windows, but they make sure they’re not competing with themselves. You’re competing with everybody.

BERMAN: Yeah, and we also don’t have to worry about solving that problem. One of the other things I say is ‘not my circus, not my monkeys,’ so not my problem to solve how and whether our game might put another property at risk in terms of what window we’re advocating for. If we’re working with a CBS or an Amazon or an ESPN or a Scripps ION and we want, for example, every Friday night, we want scheduled programming where it’s Friday night on Amazon, I don’t have to worry about the upcoming NBA negotiation. It’s not my problem. It may or may not affect our strategy, and because we approach all of our business decisions through the lens of competitive tension so that we can maximize leverage and value, if it doesn’t work for one partner, maybe it works for a different partner.

It just allows for us to be free of the constraints of what has typically been the boulders that have grounded women’s sports to a halt. Our actions, our decisions, our process, will only contemplate the things that are in our own best interest. Sometimes a competitor’s property in terms of where they sit in the media space will impact what we think is best for us, but it won’t be a decision that is based on what’s best for them, and that is a wholesale change for us relative to other leagues.

Copy LinkNWSL’s vision to be the best league in the world

SAFIAN: Listening to you, I’m thinking about how your approach to managing the league and thinking about it, it’s competitive in the same way that sports are competitive. You’re approaching this like, “Hey, we’re in the big leagues. We’re going to play the big game with our strategy in our way, and make others adjust to us as opposed to us adjusting to them.” Am I putting words in your mouth?

BERMAN: No, I love it.

SAFIAN: It’s the way it feels.

BERMAN: I love it. Yes. Our owners, who are now the same owners who many of whom own NFL teams, NBA teams, MLS teams, tell us that their vision for the NWSL is to be the best league in the world. Not the best women’s league, not the best women’s soccer league, but literally the best league in the world. We have to think of ourselves like that, recognizing that as a challenger property, we have a different value proposition and that that has opportunities for our partners, and bringing in partners who can help increase the weight of our influence.

This past year, for example, we signed Google Pixel as a partner and we signed Amazon Prime as a partner, and being able to show up to media partners with the weight of partners like that allows for us to punch above our weight class. That’s been part of our strategy to be taken seriously, as you’re suggesting, and it really has changed the entire competitive dynamic from a business perspective.

SAFIAN: I really love how Jessica talks about playing her own game, the NWSL following its own strategy without getting drawn into the larger circus. At the same time, of course, she’s adapting to the environment around her with a week-to-week competitive agility. It’s a great model for any business in today’s chaotic marketplace. How does the NWSL keep pushing ahead without getting ahead of itself? We’ll talk about that after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman talked about leveraging media deals and partnerships at a moment of opportunity. Now she addresses criticism that the league is expanding “too quickly” and shares why she believes the Women’s World Cup will add additional momentum. Plus, what it’s like to vet Willow Bay and Disney CEO Bob Iger as new team owners. Let’s dive back in.

Copy LinkLeveraging storytelling & social media to promote the NWSL

You mentioned the premiere of the documentary series that is coming. Now, opening up that way is not something that leaders at corporate organizations that we talk to for the show like Starbucks and Salesforce would be inclined to do, to follow them that way. I know this happens in other sports, but was it a tough call for you one way or another to do this?

BERMAN: Well, we know what Drive to Survive did for F1, and it’s not that hard to figure out why. Sports is about storytelling. Sports is about making people feel emotion. Sports is about inspiring communities and making them believe and be inspired by these incredible athletes, who help us to understand what our full potential might be. We were actually approached last year by all of the really best sports storytellers in the world to say, “Let us partner with you on a behind-the-scenes chase to the championship concept.” What you will learn from the docuseries called For the Win is that all of these players provided unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, where you see them in the locker room. You see the coaches giving the speeches to the players, you see them getting ready for the game, and it’s absolutely incredible.

We actually believe that this is the kind of thing that could capture the attention of someone who might not otherwise know about the NWSL, and get them excited to tune in and watch our games and/or buy tickets and/or follow our players on social and/or wear merch. I challenge anyone to watch this documentary and not feel inspired by our athletes and want to be part of what has really become a movement.

SAFIAN: You’ve said that some of the connections you’ve had with fans, particularly young fans on social media, comes from socially conscious consumerism. Can you explain that?

BERMAN: Yeah, I think, well, this is not unique to us. I guess I’ll start with that, because we know that the next generation of consumers or as we call them, fans, they care about brands who care about the things that they care about. It is a different generation of how people think about where they spend their time and where they spend their money, and they expect to have cultural and values alignment. It’s table stakes for this next generation, and so it’s not surprising that the National Women’s Soccer League nests into that.

We’ve actually done a lot of research, and what our fans tell us is that they feel differently at our games than they do at any other event or convening that they might otherwise attend. That they feel seen, that they feel heard, that they feel a sense of belonging that they don’t feel with other sports or other live events. The word that’s consistently used by all of our fans, which we’ve spent a lot of time discussing and debating internally, is vibes.

They say they feel NWSL vibes in a way that moves them to feel seen, heard, and that they belong. When you think about the things that make us happy humans and content in our life, those are the things that you want. We feel like we have magic in a bottle, and that the more that we do to cultivate that emotionality from people, the more they will bring their fans, watch on TV, and attract other people like them to come and enjoy what we believe is something that is here for everyone.

Copy LinkBalancing rapid expansion with sustainable growth

SAFIAN: I saw that ESPN did an anonymous survey of your GMs, and it said that there was some fear that the league could expand too quickly, and I wonder how you balance the excitement around this moment around women’s soccer right now with not getting too far over your skis.

BERMAN: Well, I understand why they would say that, because it is quite tempting when you run an expansion process and it culminates in what we announced in January, which is, as you said before, Team 16 coming to Denver for the highest ever investment in women’s sports history happening in Denver, several hundred million dollars being invested, whether it was for our expansion fee plus the infrastructure commitments, building a purpose-built stadium and a purpose-built training facility.

When you think about growth in any other business, you’d be like, “Let’s do more of that, like Team 17, Team 18, Team 19.” I get it. However, from the other perspective, this is, again, one of those both/ands. And from the GM’s perspective, whose job it is literally to ensure that the quality of the product on the pitch remains the best in the world, we have to think about the talent pipeline as it relates to players. We have to think about the talent pipeline as it relates to coaches and the front office.

Similar to what we did in 2022 where we listened to our players to rebuild trust with them, we have to listen to our sporting directors and better understand where they feel like talent can come from, what we can do to ensure that talent is being cultivated, developed, and retained in our league, and make sure that our rules are constructed in a way that facilitate being able to continue to be the best league in the world as we expand. That requires a bit of a balance and calibration of making sure that we’re paying attention to a lot of different stakeholders, constituents, and priorities.

Copy LinkBob Iger & Willow Bay’s $250 million bet on Angel City FC

SAFIAN: Adding new teams, it is growth. At the same time, the fewer teams there are, in some ways, the more valuable. I mean, the value of an NWSL team has gone from a couple of million dollars not long ago to over $100 million. I know that Willow Bay and her husband, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, bought Angel City FC for $250 million, the highest price ever paid for a professional women’s sports franchise. What role do you play in facilitating a deal like that?

BERMAN: An important role. The relationship between the league and its teams is very symbiotic. We are responsible at the league for the collective ecosystem growth and the enterprise value of each of our clubs and the collective. If you are a buyer coming into the league, you want to understand not just the P&L and the business around the local team, but also the league, because the league and the clubs share assets and inventory in a way that is quite different from any other business. You are buying into an ecosystem. You’re not just buying a standalone franchise that doesn’t have a relationship with the other teams and the league, and actually all of our owners are partners in the league’s business.

SAFIAN: When Willow Bay and Bob Iger are considering buying a team, you’re sitting down with them and they’re asking you questions about how the NWSL works, and you are checking them out too to see if they’re all fit with the values that you’re looking to build in the league?

BERMAN: Yes, absolutely. It’s a mutual due diligence process, because ultimately the buyers of a particular team have to be approved by our board, and in order for it to be approved by a board, it has to be recommended by the commissioner, in this case, me. The due diligence process on Bob Iger and Willow Bay was quite short. It was more like, wow, can I pinch myself, because I actually report to the 16 owners in our league? Really it’s like interviewing your boss, if that makes sense.

As I’m meeting with Bob and Willow, to say I was interviewing them is definitely an overstatement. More so, I was thinking about how incredible an opportunity it is for me at this point in my career to actually work with and work for them and learn from them. It has been incredible for the last, I guess it’s been about, six months since they acquired the team, and I’ve had the good fortune of spending a significant amount of time with both of them. They add an incredible amount of wisdom, experience, and knowledge to our league, to the club, to their partners. We’re really lucky to have them.

Copy LinkPotential impact of the Women’s World Cup on the NWSL

SAFIAN: You mentioned earlier the Nelson Mandela quote, that sports has the power to change the world. How is the NWSL changing the world today, and how do you hope it will in the future?

BERMAN: I can’t even believe how many letters and emails and other forms of communication we get from young girls and young boys about what this league means to them, how our league changes the way they see themselves, the way they see the future of our world, the hope it gives them, and it’s absolutely incredible to see it on a micro level.

Then of course, on the macro level, imagining a world where we are already competing with some of the bigger men’s leagues to be able to gain market share, to have industry recognition about the quality of our league and our business, attracting investors not just like Willow Bay and Bob Iger but others like Alan Waxman, who runs Sixth Street, or Carolyn Tisch, whose family owns the New York Giants, or Mark Wilf, who owns the Minnesota Vikings. These are iconic sports investors, who send a message of credibility to the marketplace and our future growth trajectory that really has changed the way people think about the growth of women’s soccer in this country.

I think about the future, in that there are certainly rumors that I don’t have any information to confirm, but hopefully it becomes true that in 2031, the Women’s World Cup will come here to the U.S., and we know what that did in 1999 to this country. Unfortunately at that time, there wasn’t a professional sports league to capitalize on the groundswell of interest and momentum that was created by that global event, but we’re ready this time, and we actually have a runway to build over the next six years. That’s what I get excited about.

SAFIAN: Well, Jessica, this was great. Thanks so much for doing it.

BERMAN: Thank you so much for having me.

SAFIAN: Listening to Jessica, you can tell the competition on an NWSL pitch is mirrored by competitive fire in the boardroom. Jessica is prepared to have her team go toe to toe with any other league or organization, but while ambition like this could make many businesses cold and culturally hostile, the NWSL has managed to emanate warmth, or vibes, as she puts it. By balancing tenacity and with humanity and connection, the NWSL is both breaking through as a business and making a difference. That’s inspiring on its own merits and something we can all learn from. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.