How the National Women’s Soccer League is building momentum for brands

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) finds itself at something of a pivotal moment.

Season 14 is well underway, which is nothing to scoff at in women’s sports years; the Professional Women’s Hockey League and Major League Volleyball started in 2024, while the 3-on-3 basketball league Unrivaled and League One Volleyball debuted only last year.

That being said, the NWSL is less than half the age of the WNBA, which is celebrating its 30th season, has the institutional backing of the NBA, and arguably occupies more of the cultural conversation in women’s sports than any other pro league. This year, though, with North America hosting the men’s World Cup for the first time in more than three decades, interest in soccer has been kicked up a notch.

NWSL execs have a plan to capitalize, including a recent shakeup in leadership. After the quiet departure of Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer Julie Haddon last year, the league announced two new hires to fill her shoes in April: Rachel Epstein as CMO and Brian Kelly as chief commercial officer.

Pulling from two different lanes of sports marketing experience—Epstein from ESPN and Kelly from boxing promotion and production company Top Rank—the duo already have ideas that could help push professional women’s soccer in the US into its next era. And that could mean big opportunities for brands eager to collaborate on new sponsorship strategies.

Tackling fandom

Between the World Cup, expansion teams breaking attendance records, and the continued dominance of breakout stars from the 2024 Paris Olympics in the NWSL, the league is enjoying a moment in the cultural spotlight that Epstein does not want to slip away. She’s lookingto take advantage of all those factors, as well as some of the marketing groundwork that’s already been laid, in an effort to turn momentary interest into habitual fandom.

“The opportunity…is to build the narrative, do more storytelling, create culturally relevant content with frequency that helps to engage casual fans and creates entry points for newer fans,” she told Marketing Brew.

Getting casual fans watching more regularly is something Epstein is particularly focused on, and she said she knew that audience was primed for growth since her time at ESPN, where she led marketing for rights properties including the NWSL and WNBA. To do so, Epstein said she’s planning “to be thoughtful and efficient” with paid media spend, prioritizing the most important matches for extra promotion so fans won’t miss them.

In terms of cementing new fans, Epstein said that’s where content highlighting player personalities and backstories comes into play, especially for women audiences.

“Female fans generally fan a little bit differently,” she said. “They need connection first, before they build avidity.”

Pass to the brands

The NWSL isn’t alone in its mission to create and distribute more content. Its legacy media rights partners include ESPN and CBS Sports, and it has content partnership deals with less traditional outlets, like The Gist.

Brands, too, can contribute to the quest for more content.

Already, the NWSL works with big-name brands like Google to create content as part of their sponsorship deals. Sponsorship revenue is on the rise at the NWSL—up about 44% from 2025 to 2026, which is “almost unheard of at a league level,” Kelly said—and he wants to get more partners more deeply involved with athlete storytelling moving forward. The stories he has in mind aren’t only about the league’s current stars.

“We have a lot of work to do, I think, in terms of more athlete storytelling,” Kelly said. “We’re getting better gradually, but we want to be a league where we have a ton of recognizable names up and down the rosters.”

There is room for growth in the auto category, for which Kelly said he’s having “strong, active conversations,” though CarMax is an official sponsor of the league already. There’s been interest from the beer and spirits categories, too, which haven’t traditionally been a focal point for the league, he said. Energy drinks and sports drinks are a priority for Kelly given his background in boxing, where those sponsorships are prevalent, and he said he’s also in talks with pharma, fitness, and QSR brands.

In addition to pushing content collaborations, Kelly said he plans to position the NWSL as a property that has much more to offer sponsors, which may resonate with sports marketers who are increasingly looking to broaden their deals beyond logo placements.

“We really, truly, don’t want to be considered or looked at as a media buy, but really as a platform, and the centerpiece to a brand’s marketing strategy and initiatives, where they can leverage our IP, and some of our NIL, and our owned-and-operated events,” he said. “We want to continue to build the ecosystem.”