The National Women’s Soccer League has built its NWSL 2027 World Cup season around a Feb. 11 opener in Los Angeles, timed to fall three days before the Super Bowl arrives in the same city, according to ESPN.
The launch will mark the earliest start in the league’s history, with preseason training beginning in the first week of January, just six weeks after the 2026 championship.
NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said the schedule was ‘intentionally designed to position the NWSL at the centre of one of the biggest years in the history of women’s soccer’.
How the NWSL 2027 World Cup season is structured
The regular season runs through to Decision Day on 31 October, with the 2027 championship scheduled for 20 November. Play pauses for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which runs from 24 June to 25 July.
Sarah Jones Simmer, the league’s chief operating officer, said the design gives the NWSL a runway both before and after the tournament. ‘We can then come back to our regular season on the heels of the Women’s World Cup and ride that momentum,’ she told Fortune.
‘We will have so many players coming back to our league that will have had success in the Women’s World Cup, and that’s going to be a massive fan acquisition opportunity for us.’
The league’s long-range calendar also covers the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2031 FIFA World Cup, hosted across the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Jamaica.
Stadium sharing and cold-weather challenges
Ten of the NWSL’s teams will share stadiums with MLS clubs in 2027, according to The Athletic, requiring close co-ordination on venue availability throughout the season.
Only the Kansas City Current operate their own stadium, financed by co-owners Angie and Chris Long, alongside Patrick and Brittany Mahomes.
Carlin Hudson, the NWSL’s vice president of strategy, said the league works ‘very hand in hand’ with venues that carry responsibilities to both MLS and NWSL clubs.
The February start also raises concerns about cold-weather markets. Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman raised the issue in April, warning of potential knock-on effects for attendances.
‘I think there’s way too many locations that are way too cold,’ Rodman said. ‘If we have snowed-out games (or just the conditions in general) what are the backup plans?’
Simmer said the league’s geographic spread means warm-weather markets can carry the early fixtures, pointing to how MLS front-loads away matches for colder-climate clubs at the start of its season.
Player welfare is a separate concern. A study published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics in 2025 found that when the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup was held in winter rather than summer, injuries in the Premier League and Bundesliga significantly increased. The study authors wrote: ‘A midseason slot may not be the best time to schedule a World Cup.’
The NWSL’s collective bargaining agreement mandates an offseason, and the league has introduced policies such as hydration breaks for hot-weather matches.
A league betting on growth over profit
The average NWSL club is now valued at $184 million, according to Sportico, up 77% from estimated valuations in September 2024 and 179% from 2023. The 14 clubs in the league were worth a combined $2.6 billion last year.
Berman told CNBC in March that teams could choose to turn a profit today but have instead prioritised growth. ‘We could be profitable,’ she said. ‘It is a choice on our board and by our owners to continue investing because they believe, from a business perspective, that their dollar invested today will be worth more in the future.’
The NWSL’s Feb. 11 opener means the league’s highest-profile moment of the calendar year lands in the same city, on the same weekend, as the biggest single-day sporting event in the US.
