The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) on Wednesday released an outline of its 2026 season schedule, with an emphasis on prioritizing the accommodation of an expanded 16-team league that will coincide with the men’s World Cup, hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada next summer.
Boston, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area are World Cup host cities and also homes to NWSL teams. Boston Legacy FC, the 15th team to join the league, will begin play next year.
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“With seven of the league’s 16 markets hosting World Cup programming, the NWSL is proactively adjusting its scheduling framework to accommodate expected stadium demands,” the NWSL said in a statement. “The league remains focused on preserving competitive integrity and delivering a successful season while continuing to explore innovative scheduling and operational solutions to navigate the unique challenges of this landmark global event.”
The announcement did not provide further detail about the logistics of scheduling and playing NWSL matches while the World Cup takes place, but maintained that it “has taken proactive, early action to finalize its 2026 schedule footprint, enabling the league, its member clubs, broadcasters and partners to plan effectively for what promises to be a landmark year in global soccer.”
The World Cup will kick off on June 11, 2026, and conclude on July 19, 2026. According to the NWSL, which released its 2026 schedule footprint shortly after kickoff of the first match of the women’s Euros, there will be no official league competitions from June 1-28.
For the NWSL season as a whole, the footprint included key dates for its start and end, the Challenge Cup and playoff dates.
In its first year as a 16-team league, the 2026 NWSL season will feature a 248-match schedule, which includes an eight-team playoff system.
Just as it did this year, the Challenge Cup will serve as the introduction to the season on Feb. 20, 2026, between the reigning NWSL champions and the league shield winners from last season.
The regular season will begin on March 13, 2026. The 30-match schedule will be carried out over 27 weeks, and “has been formatted to avoid staging contests during FIFA windows and will include a league-wide pause in play for a CBA-mandated break,” according to the NWSL.
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And while Decision Day will once again be a facet of next year’s campaign, it will last the whole weekend (Oct. 30-Nov. 1), not a single day.
Playoffs will start the weekend of Nov. 6, 2026, with semifinals held the weekend of Nov. 13-15. The 2026 NWSL Championship will take place on Nov. 21.
For the third year, more than 120 matches will air or stream across the league’s four media partners: CBS Sports, ESPN, ION (owned by Scripps) and Prime Video.
Two quarterfinal matches will be broadcast on ESPN/ABC/ESPN+, while CBS/Paramount+ and Prime Video will distribute the other two. The semifinal matches will be shared by CBS/Paramount+ and ESPN/ABC/ESPN+, and the final will air in primetime on CBS Television Network and stream on Paramount+ for the fifth consecutive year.
(Photo: Tre. Smith / USA Today Sports)
This news was originally published on this post .
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