NWSL announces 2017 national TV schedule

The National Women’s Soccer League, along with Lifetime, has announced the schedule for 2017’s nationally televised games. 22 NWSL regular season matches will be shown on Lifetime at 4pm Eastern on Saturdays, as well as both semifinals and NWSL Championsip game. All games will feature a half-hour pregame show, and will be available for streaming (live and on demand) via MyLifetime.com and the Lifetime app.

The first NWSL game of the week will take place on April 15, with the Portland Thorns hosting the Orlando Pride. Unlike the rest of the league’s Lifetime games, this one will kick off at 3pm, with the pregame show starting at 2:30pm.

The Washington Spirit will play in three games on Lifetime, but only in road games. On April 22, they’ll travel south to play the Pride in a game that will surely involve a lot of talk about the trade that sent former Spirit captain Ali Krieger to Orlando. They’ll next appear on national television on June 17, as they face the Chicago Red Stars in a rematch of last year’s dramatic semifinal. Finally, on August 19, they’ll see another rematch, as they’ll face the North Carolina Courage (who, in their past life as the Western New York Flash, snatched the NWSL title from Washington’s grasp last year).

Unsurprisingly, stadium infrastructure and crowd size played a major factor in determining who appears on TV the most. The Pride and the Houston Dash will both be on Lifetime seven times, while the Thorns and Red Stars will play in six games of the week. Orlando, Houston, and Portland all happen to share a venue with an MLS club, which means broadcasting infrastructure is already in place and ready to go. The Thorns and Pride are the league’s attendance leaders, and they will both host five Lifetime matches (the most of any club). In a scheduling quirk, the Dash will appear in four straight games of the week at one point.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Spirit, FC Kansas City, and the Boston Breakers will not host any nationally televised games, and the latter pair will each only appear in one game on Lifetime. All three play in venues that would be tough to prepare for national television, though that is likely not the only factor. For example, Sky Blue FC plays in arguably the most scaled-down venue in the league, but will host one game.

The complete national broadcast schedule is as follows: