ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Women's sports have seen a massive burst in interest this year, and the National Women's Soccer League has been no exception. This season, the League set records for ratings and attendance. Now the challenge will be to keep the momentum going as NPR's Becky Sullivan reports.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: It was a sellout crowd last weekend at Washington D.C.'s soccer stadium. Fans were everywhere, decked out in black and highlighter yellow, the colors of the Washington Spirit. And with less than 30 minutes to go before the quarterfinal playoff match, I ran into Francesca Shearer with her very colorful sign.
FRANCESCA SHEARER: It's, like, this rainbow ball, and, like, it's sparkling up spirit.
SULLIVAN: Francesca is 7. She and her mom, Jessica, were among the nearly 20,000 people at the game, all of them part of this historic boom for women's sports.
JESSICA: I'm not as new as some people may be to the - women's sports, but yeah, I'm watching people catch up, and I'm also recognizing that it wasn't like this. Like, when I was a kid, I didn't have this experience available.
SULLIVAN: Last Sunday wasn't the first time the Spirit hosted a playoff game. The team won the championship in 2021. But here's a figure that shows just how fast things have changed for women's soccer. That year, the Spirits playoff opener - basically, this same game - was attended by only about 5,000 people. The stadium was mostly empty. Now it's standing room only.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: I love D.C.
SULLIVAN: To understand how three years could make such a huge difference, I called Brandon Clark, the Spirit's vice president for marketing. In 2021, the league was still struggling to bounce back from COVID, and the team had to split time between this stadium and a much smaller venue 40 miles away, he said.
BRANDON CLARK: However, I think the real rocket shift comes when you look at just the general movement of women's sports and the explosion in popularity, the explosion in legitimacy. There's a lot of people coming through those gates this past Sunday who probably never thought they would be at a professional women's soccer match three years before.
SULLIVAN: An Olympic gold medal a few months ago by the U.S. Women's Team helped, too. The national team was led by a trio of playmakers that included Washington's own Trinity Rodman. A young star like that is huge for any kind of sports team, men or women.
So this is your first time coming to a game?
NATHANIEL GLASSER: To a Spirit game, yes. Yeah.
SULLIVAN: One new fan, Nathaniel Glasser, said he's followed baseball and the NFL his whole life. Over the past few years, he'd gotten into men's soccer. Now he'd finally taken the leap into the women's game.
GLASSER: Well, I've wanted to see Trinity Rodman and a lot of the other star players for a while, and now that they're in the quarterfinals and playing, you know, for the - in the playoffs, I thought it'd be a fantastic time to come.
SULLIVAN: And he wasn't alone. There were other people at the stadium on a Sunday afternoon wearing their NFL jerseys. They could have been watching football. Instead, they were here.
(APPLAUSE)
SULLIVAN: Across the whole NWSL, attendance set records. This year topped 2 million for the first time, and more people than ever watched on TV thanks to a new broadcast deal. And in July, the Los Angeles team, Angel City FC, became the most valuable franchise in the history of women's sports when an ownership deal valued the team at $250 million. Here's Sarah Jones Simmer, the league's chief operating officer.
SARAH JONES SIMMER: You know, I think investors are finally waking up to the power of women's sports, and you're seeing that change in the valuations of the clubs. You're seeing that in the size of the media deal. You're seeing that in the size of corporate sponsorships. It's a really transformative moment for women's sports, and I think it's on all of us to demonstrate that investment is worth it.
SULLIVAN: Back at the Spirit game, the crowd of 19,000 people jolted to life on a late goal by Tara McKeown.
(APPLAUSE)
SULLIVAN: McKeown has been with the Spirit since 2021, the year they won the title. She herself played in front of that little crowd, the one that was dwarfed by the size of the crowd that came out Sunday.
TARA MCKEOWN: It's so amazing. We feel all the energy from the fans. And I think it just shows, like, how much women's sports are growing and women's soccer, and it feels amazing to be a part of this right now and just having people want to come to our games and watch us.
SULLIVAN: With the win, the Spirit are on to the semifinals and will host Gotham FC on Saturday. The team has already announced a sellout. Becky Sullivan, NPR News, Washington.
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