NWSL absolutely crushes their TV rights deals, getting "over 10x" their previous $1.5M / yr deal from CBS, while focusing on reach rather than revenue.
https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2023/nwsl-media-deals-espn-cbs-amazon-scripps-1234741394/
They're just doing so, so much correctly. The labor negotiations (Jessica Berman's specialty from her time at the NHL) were a home run, expansion has been done smartly, they're booting out the shitty owners, the league's best new team launch (Angel City) is apparently worth $180M as a franchise now, and deep-pocketed investors are lining up to be next in the door.
I mostly just want them to continue kicking the English WSL's arses. You look at average attendance per game across the league, and you've got:
League, last season, this season:
USA
NWSL: 6,964 --> 10,384 (and expanding to 16 teams soon)
ENG
WSL: 1,926 --> 4,560 (tottenham only averaged 517 home attendance!)
GER
Frauen-BL: 711 --> 1,958 (Wolfsburg crushes it, >5k, would be 5th in the WSL)
JPN
WE League: 1,555 --> 1,401 (launched in 2021-22; min 5 pro contracts on team)
AUS
W-League: 1,125 --> 1,225 (new expansion to 12 teams, new stadiums)
Damallsvenskan: 824 --> 923 (oldest fully pro women's league, attendance stable since ~2003)
FRA
D1 Feminin: 664 --> 963 (only Lyon & PSG averaged >1k in 2022-23)
NOR
Toppserien: 592 --> 450 (oldest women's league - 1984 - but poorly supported)
NED
Eredivisie V: 538 --> 419 (was at 8 teams only a few years ago; only Feyenoord is well-supported)
Data on attendance is a lot cleaner than data on salaries, which is
scant. But the NWSL CBA suggests two very important things: (1) the league makes enough money that there's a pie worth fighting over, and (2) the league's teams can more-or-less cap their player budget if they want to and don't have to get into a bidding war, so they likely have some margin to invest in building a fanbase, facilities, coaching, etc.
It wasn't always this way. A dozen years ago, the
top leagues in the world were in Sweden, Germany, and the USA (WPS, which folded a year later). England zoomed up out of nowhere, professionalizing even ahead of Germany (where only a few clubs are fully professional, even still). Italy and Spain had their leagues go
allegedly fully professional only last year. There's not a ton of other strong competition. Like, NCAA D1W Soccer probably puts
more butts in seats per-team than all but NWSL and WSL.
And the NWSL has done it while maintaining a lot of parity. The best team (SD Wave) has 1.65 points per match played (33 points), while the worst team this year has 1.10 P/MP (22 points). It's going to be a very exciting last few weeks in the run-up to the playoffs. Some teams are a lot more valuable than others, according to that Sportico article (and they'd know best - theirs is the best MLS club valuations list every year), but they're all growing strongly in value.
It'd be a great time for, say, Boston to figure out where to put a women's soccer stadium. No time like the present, Mayor Wu!