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National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a women's professional Association football, soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system#Women's leagues, United States soccer league system (alongside the USL Supe ...
(NWSL) is a top-flight professional
women's soccer Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...
league in the United States. It shares first-division status with the
USL Super League The USL Super League (USLS), officially known as the Gainbridge Super League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional women's soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system, alongside the National Women's Socce ...
. , the league has 14 teams and uses a schedule that runs from spring to fall within a single calendar year. The champion is determined by the
NWSL Championship The NWSL Championship is the annual championship game of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the top-flight women's soccer league in the United States. It is the culmination of the NWSL playoffs, which is contested by the teams with the ...
and the
playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
, a postseason knockout tournament for top teams in the regular season similar to those for other North American sports leagues. The team with the best record during the regular season, as determined by the number of
points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...
or another tiebreaker, is awarded the
NWSL Shield The NWSL Shield is an annual award given to the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team with the best regular season record as determined by the NWSL points system. The NWSL Shield has been awarded annually since 2013 and is recognized as a ...
. Several NWSL teams share ownership or their home venues with men's teams in
Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...
(MLS) and the
USL Championship The USL Championship (USLC) is a men's professional association football, soccer league in the second tier of the United States soccer league system#Men's leagues, United States league system. It is organized by the United Soccer League (USL) a ...
who play in the same markets. The league had an average attendance of over 11,000 during the 2024 regular season and set a record for total attendance of over 2 million spectators. The NWSL was founded in November 2012 under the administration of the
United States Soccer Federation The United States Soccer Federation (USSF), commonly referred to as U.S. Soccer, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the official governing body of soccer in the United States. It is a full member of FIFA and governs American soccer ...
with eight teams who would begin play the following year. It was the third professional women's soccer league to be established in the United States, following the
Women's United Soccer Association The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000, the league began its first season in April 2001 with eight teams in the Uni ...
from 2001 to 2003 and
Women's Professional Soccer Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 ...
, which folded in early 2012 after three seasons. The inaugural season in 2013 was played over a five-month calendar by the eight charter teams; the championship was won by
Portland Thorns FC Portland Thorns FC is an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Portland, Oregon, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Established in 2012, the team began play in 2013 in the then-eight-team NWSL ...
, while the NWSL Shield was awarded to the
Western New York Flash The Western New York Flash (WNY Flash) was an American women's soccer club based in Elma, New York, that most recently competed in the United Women's Soccer league in 2018. They won league championships in four different leagues: the USL W-Leag ...
—who were playing in their fourth league in four years. The first NWSL expansion team were the
Houston Dash The Houston Dash are an American professional soccer team based in Houston, Texas, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The Dash began play in the 2014 season. The team plays its home games at Shell Energy Stadium. His ...
in 2014, who were followed two years later by the
Orlando Pride The Orlando Pride are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Orlando, Florida, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The Pride began play in the 2016 National Women's Soccer League season, 2016 ...
. Two of the league's ten teams ceased operations prior to the 2018 season, while another had relocated a year earlier. NWSL added pairs of expansion teams in 2021, 2022, and 2024, including re-entering markets where teams had folded. The league announced plans to grow to 16 teams by 2026 with a set bidding process and fee similar to older North American sports leagues. As of the 12th season in 2024, each team plays 26 matches during the regular season in a round-robin home-and-away series against the remaining 13 teams. The regular season runs from March to November; the 2024 season included a month-long break from July to August for the
2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...
. The top eight teams qualified for the
playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
, which were played over three rounds in November and culminated in the
NWSL Championship The NWSL Championship is the annual championship game of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the top-flight women's soccer league in the United States. It is the culmination of the NWSL playoffs, which is contested by the teams with the ...
. Most of the league's matches are broadcast in the U.S. by national television stations and streaming services. All NWSL teams also played in the concurrent
NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup The NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup () is a women's soccer competition between clubs from the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) of the United States and Liga MX Femenil of Mexico. The first edition took place in 2024, at venues in the Uni ...
, an international competition with six Mexican clubs from
Liga MX Femenil Liga MX Femenil, also known as Liga BBVA MX Femenil for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league and the highest level of women's football in Mexico. Supervised by the Mexican Football Federation, Federación Mexicana d ...
. The league champions, runners-up, and NWSL Shield winner also qualify for the
CONCACAF W Champions Cup The CONCACAF W Champions Cup is an annual continental women's football club competition organized by CONCACAF that determines the club champion for the region encompassing North America, Central America and the Caribbean. It is comparable to ...
, the continental championship for women's teams in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean since 2024. A preseason
super cup A super cup is a competition, in association football, basketball, handball, volleyball and rugby union which often forms the 'curtain raiser' to a season, and typically involves only two teams who have qualified through success in other competi ...
match, named the
NWSL Challenge Cup The NWSL Challenge Cup is an annual supercup competition organized by the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), a division 1 women's league in the United States soccer league system. The current (2025) cup holder is the Washington Spirit, who ...
, is contested by the reigning champions of the NWSL Championship and NWSL Shield; it was originally conceived during the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
to replace the cancelled 2020 season and had all NWSL teams from 2020 to 2023. Portland Thorns FC have won three NWSL Championships, the most of any team in the league's history; the team also has two NWSL Shields.
Seattle Reign FC Seattle Reign FC is an American professional soccer team based in Seattle, Washington, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Founded in 2012, it is one of eight inaugural members of the NWSL. Since June 2024, the Reign ar ...
hold the record for most NWSL Shields, at three, and have finished as runners-up in three NWSL Championship games. The "
double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...
"—an NWSL Championship and NWSL Shield in the same season—has been won three times: by the
North Carolina Courage The North Carolina Courage are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Cary, North Carolina, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It was founded on January 9, 2017, after Stephen Malik acqui ...
in 2018 and 2019, and by the Orlando Pride in 2024. Orlando also set the league's all-time points record during the 2024 season, with 60 points and an 18–2–6 record. The league has several annual awards for individual players and coaches to recognize their accomplishments, including the
Most Valuable Player Award In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...
for the best player of the year and the Golden Boot for the player who scored the most goals during the regular season. The single-season scoring record of 20 goals was set by Malawian forward Temwa Chawinga of the
Kansas City Current The Kansas City Current are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Kansas City, Missouri, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It was founded as an NWSL expansion, expansion team in 2021 NWSL ...
during the 2024 season; she also won the Most Valuable Player Award.


List of seasons


Notes


References


External links


League website
{{National Women's Soccer League team seasons
Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...