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Morning Edition

November 21, 2025

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The NWSL is seeing another boost in ratings, with playoff audiences rising despite missing star players. The Washington Spirit and Gotham FC face off in Saturday’s final as the league’s TV numbers climb.

— Margaret Fleming [[link removed]], Ben Horney [[link removed]], and Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]

NWSL Regular-Season Ratings See Big Surge, Playoffs Up 5% [[link removed]]

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

The NWSL playoffs are seeing continued viewership growth after big audience gains in the regular season.

In the quarterfinals, CBS drew 474,000 viewers for the Washington Spirit [[link removed]]–Racing Louisville match. The two quarterfinals on ABC, Kansas City Current–Gotham FC and Portland Thorns–San Diego Wave, earned 435,000 and 391,000 average viewers [[link removed]], respectively. Amazon Prime Video declined to share data for its quarterfinal.

For Saturday’s semifinals, CBS aired the Washington–Portland match, which drew 548,000 viewers. The Orlando Pride–Gotham match averaged 328,000 viewers on ABC.

Overall, viewership is up 5% across the quarterfinals and semifinals this year, the league said. Last season, the NWSL averaged 562,900 viewers [[link removed]] for the entire postseason, and 967,900 viewers for the championship game, a new league all-time ratings record.

Washington and Gotham will face each other in the league final Saturday night in San Jose. The Spirit have played in many of the league’s most-watched matches this year, though its star player, U.S. women’s national team striker Trinity Rodman, has missed part or all of several of those games due to back and knee injuries. She only entered Washington’s semifinal win in the 90th minute.

The league is coming off a regular season during which it saw strong audience growth despite some of its biggest stars missing many or all of their matches.

The NWSL said regular-season viewership grew 22% [[link removed]] from last year, averaging 214,000 viewers across CBS, Ion, ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.

By comparison, the WNBA averaged 969,000 viewers [[link removed]] in the regular season this summer, which was a 3% increase from a year earlier. It’s difficult to compare the NWSL’s figures to MLS, because MLS’s major media partner, Apple TV, withholds most viewership data. MLS Season Pass—now being folded into the Apple TV deal [[link removed]], averaged about 120,000 viewers per match [[link removed]]—commissioner Don Garber said this summer.

Both the NWSL and MLS pull in fewer average viewers in the U.S. than the Premier League and Liga MX [[link removed]]. The Premier League averaged 510,000 viewers per match window [[link removed]] during the 2024–25 regular season and averaged 850,000 viewers [[link removed]] during this season’s opening-weekend matches. Liga MX began its season this summer averaging 501,000 viewers [[link removed]] on TelevisaUnivision, and it has twice hit seven-figure viewership [[link removed]].

The NWSL’s regular-season viewership grew 61% [[link removed]] from last year on ABC and ESPN platforms. The 17 matches averaged 228,000 viewers, up from 141,000 viewers in 2024. Three of the top five matches featured the Spirit; two were Rodman’s first games back from injury in August. Spanish viewership is up 109% from last year on ESPN Deportes.

CBS averaged 479,000 viewers for the 10 matches it aired, up 20% from last season.

Ion aired 50 matches with an average of 152,000 viewers, up 5% from last year, and also saw 24% growth in total hours viewed on its free ad-supported streaming TV platform, or “FAST” channel.

Sports are seeing a big viewership boost this fall [[link removed]], thanks in large part to Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel [[link removed]], an expanded methodology that now includes set-top boxes and smart TVs. Most of the NWSL season—including all of the top five largest audiences for regular-season games on ABC and ESPN platforms—happened before the Nielsen shift in early September. But an ESPN spokesperson tells FOS that the entire regular-season slate has been retroactively adjusted to use the Big Data + Panel methodology.

Several of the NWSL’s most popular players from last season were absent this year. Mallory (Pugh) Swanson and Sophia (Smith) Wilson both missed the entire season during their pregnancies, while Naomi Girma departed for Chelsea [[link removed]] in January. Rodman missed 10 Spirit matches this season with injuries.

Growing its audience while missing stars in Girma, Swanson, Wilson, and Alex Morgan—who abruptly retired last September [[link removed]]—is a good sign for the NWSL. But an even bigger departure is looming. Rodman’s contract expires at the end of this season, and her potential departure would be a major blow to the league if she follows Girma’s path and takes more money to play in Europe [[link removed]]. Rodman’s agent has spoken directly with commissioner Jessica Berman [[link removed]] as part of the contract negotiations. “The league is doing everything we can to keep Trinity in the NWSL,” a league spokesperson said.

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Lakers Fire Buss Brothers As Mark Walter Takes Over [[link removed]]

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Mark Walter is wasting no time reshaping the Lakers in his image.

Joey and Jesse Buss, members of the family who controlled the franchise for nearly five decades until late last month, have been fired from the front office roles they held, effective immediately, a team source confirmed to Front Office Sports.

The booting of the Buss brothers from the Lakers’ front office is part of a reorganization of the team’s basketball operations department that will also see “ much of the scouting staff [[link removed]]” fired, according to ESPN.

Joey Buss had served as alternate governor and VP of research and development, while Jesse Buss was assistant general manager.

Walter’s acquisition of a majority stake in the Lakers—a deal made with his longtime business partner [[link removed]] Todd Boehly—was completed Oct. 30 [[link removed]]. The press release announcing the deal had closed said Jeanie Buss would remain team governor and “oversee day-to-day team operations for the foreseeable future.” A representative for Buss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Joey and I were pushed to the sidelines for well over two years, so while the news of our removal is deeply disappointing, it is not entirely unexpected,” Jesse Buss wrote in an emailed statement to FOS. “Still, it’s incredibly hard to see our time with the Lakers end this way. We grew up in this organization – learning the game, the business, and the responsibility of stewardship directly from our father.

“Even though this isn’t the ending we wanted, we’re grateful for the decades we spent devoting our time to the Lakers and for the relationships and experiences that shaped us. The franchise will always be part of who we are,” the statement read.

Their father, Jerry Buss, bought the Lakers, Kings, and Los Angeles Forum for $67.5 million in 1979. Their sister Jeanie Buss, 64, has been governor since her father died in 2013. Walter’s acquisition, first announced in June, valued the Lakers at a record $10 billion, surpassing the $6.1 billion sale of the Celtics to a group led by Bill Chisholm announced last spring.

In a separate statement to ESPN [[link removed]], Jesse Buss said, “Jeanie has effectively kept herself in place with her siblings fired.”

Walter and Boehly also co-own the Dodgers, who have won the last two World Series. In addition to the Lakers and Dodgers, Walter and Boehly’s sports portfolio includes Premier League soccer club Chelsea and the WNBA’s Sparks.

Led by Luka Dončić, the Lakers are off to a hot start with an 11–4 record this season despite LeBron James having played only one game—he returned to action Tuesday after missing the first 14 games due to sciatica. The Lakers are 8–2 since Walter’s acquisition closed.

In late September [[link removed]], Joey and Jesse Buss announced the launch of their own investment firm, Buss Sports Capital. The firm will invest across the “global sports ecosystem.”

“Looking ahead, Buss Sports Capital gives us the chance to take what we’ve learned and what our father instilled in us and build something of our own,” Jesse Buss wrote in the emailed statement. “We’re genuinely excited to invest in teams, athletes, and communities in a way that reflects our values – because carrying our father’s legacy forward doesn’t stop here. It evolves.”

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Want a chance to win $250? Help Front Office Sports improve by taking a few minutes to complete a brief survey [[link removed]]. As a thank-you, we’re offering a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card and an item from the new FOS merch collection.

UC Investments Head: ‘Do a Little Prayer’ for Our Big Ten Deal [[link removed]]

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The head of the California pension fund pitching an investment deal to the Big Ten [[link removed]] is asking supporters to “pray” for the embattled proposal to succeed.

On Wednesday, Jagdeep Singh Bachher, the chief investment officer at UC Investments, addressed the now-paused deal during a presentation [[link removed]] to the University of California regents investments committee Wednesday. “I hope it happens, and I just request you all do a little prayer for us,” he said. UC Investments is the pension fund for employees of the University of California system.

Bachher also confirmed UC Investments’s earlier statement suggesting [[link removed]] the deal is on pause. “There is no deal on the table thanks to many regental approval processes that need to happen,” he said.

The beleaguered deal would require the Big Ten to spin off its assets—including media rights—into a separate entity called Big Ten Enterprises. UC Investments would pay $2.4 billion to buy a 10% equity stake in that entity. Member schools and the Big Ten conference would all receive stakes.

As part of the deal, schools would be required to sign a grant of rights to bind the conference together until 2046.

The deal was derailed by the boards at Michigan and USC [[link removed]], who opposed it for a multitude of reasons and said they would not sign on.

There was also a growing opposition from a number of Big Ten university board members [[link removed]] across the country who said they had not been able to see key details about the deal, and were told their university presidents could decide to sign onto it without their approval.

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti had continued to push the deal despite its opposition, with the conference planning tentatively to schedule a vote for November that could end up leaving Michigan and USC out of the deal altogether. This news prompted fiery comments in the press from two Michigan regents; regent Jordan Acker suggested in a SiriusXM radio interview [[link removed]] that the Wolverines could go independent if the rest of the league signed a grant of rights without them.

Mark Bernstein, chairman of the Michigan board of regents, told the Associated Press this week [[link removed]] that Petitti attempted to “strong-arm” Michigan in a move that he said “calls into question his continued leadership of the Big Ten Conference.”

UC Investments announced it had officially put the deal on pause in a statement Monday because it hoped all Big Ten schools would sign on. The pension fund also said it needed more time to do its own “due diligence.”

On Wednesday, Bachher reiterated his support for the deal, suggesting that college sports “is that next attractive opportunity within the whole sports landscape,” and he said he estimates the potential value of Big Ten Enterprises at $24 billion—and thinks it could yield a return profile of more than 12%.

“That would have made it one of the top ten media and entertainment companies in the world in size and scale,” he said, before asking for a prayer.

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Notre Dame leaned on its stars in a statement road win, with Jeremiyah Love setting the pace from the opening whistle as he piled up 147 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Malachi Fields matched that impact through the air, turning seven catches into 99 yards and two touchdowns as the No. 9 Fighting Irish outplayed No. 22 Pitt to secure another ranked victory.

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Conversation Starters South Alabama is hosting a “baby race” [[link removed]] at its game against Southern Miss on Saturday. The prize is a lifetime hunting and fishing license. The NWSL kicked off championship week by floating a 110×35-foot pitch into the San Francisco Bay ahead of Saturday’s title match. The pop-up field will serve as a hub for events and activations. Check it out [[link removed]]. The $88 million (€76 million) Horácká Multifunctional Arena in Czechia is officially open. It features a 230-meter public running track built directly into its rooftop. Take a look [[link removed]]. Editors’ Picks Jalen Williams’s Wrist Injury Could Save the Thunder Millions [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]The Thunder are 15–1 despite Williams being injured all season. Tennis Players, Australian Open Close to Deal in ‘Cartel’ Suit [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]The Professional Tennis Players Association sued the ATP, WTA, and Grand Slams. PWHL Will Consider Every Option for Ottawa Charge in Arena Crisis [[link removed]]by Annie Costabile [[link removed]]The Charge will lose nearly 3,000 seats in a planned arena renovation. Question of the Day

Will you watch the NWSL final between the Washington Spirit and Gotham FC on Saturday?

YES [[link removed]] NO [[link removed]]

Thursday’s result: 28% of respondents think a Group of 6 team will win a College Football Playoff game next month.

Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Show [[link removed]] Written by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]], Ben Horney [[link removed]], Amanda Christovich [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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