The final of the NWSL season was watched by 915k viewers on Paramount-owned channel
The championship game of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in the United States last week broke records for viewership on CBS, further demonstrating the growth in popularity of women's football.
Numbers reported by the Paramount-owned linear TV channel CBS showed that it attracted 915,000 viewers to its coverage of the NWSL Championship game from Audi Field in Washington, D.C. last Monday night.
While the matchday attendance failed to reach the stadium's capacity of 20,000 and was indeed lower than all other playoff matches, the television audience flocked to see the NWSL season come to a dramatic close.
On the subject of in-stadium attendance, the league had already celebrated setting a new attendance record earlier in the season when 32,000 fans saw San Diego beat Angel City in September this year.
On the pitch last week, Portland Thorns picked up their third NWSL championship with a 2-0 win over Kansas City Current, having finished 2nd in the regular season table.
The figure of 915k viewers on CBS represented a 71% rise on the audience for last season's final, an astronomical increase which once again points to a marked growth in popularity for the women's game.
However, the large audience could also have something to do with the positioning of the game with Paramount deciding to air this clash on the primetime slot on their CBS TV channel for the very first time. The event likely benefitted from being in that position.
The game also became the most watched NWSL game in history, shattering previous records both on linear television and via live streaming online, as it also aired on the OTT platform Paramount+ where it generated a larger audience than that of the previous season's championship game.
All of these metrics point in the right direction for the NWSL and women's football more generally stateside, and match similar achievements made by the sport around the world.
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