Alex Morgan will play her final NWSL game this Sunday in San Diego after announcing her retirement from professional soccer earlier this week. She’ll also provide a reminder of her commercial muscle at the same time.
The NWSL announced Sunday’s match between San Diego Wave FC and the North Carolina Courage, originally slated for streaming on NWSL+ (the league’s own free streaming platform) and Paramount+, will now be presented across multiple channels and streaming services from the league’s media partners, the league said Friday.
The match will now air on CBS Sports Network and ESPN2, and stream on Paramount+, ESPN+, Amazon Prime Video and NWSL+ at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
It marks the first time, according to the league, that a women’s sporting event will be shown across multiple outlets at the same time in the U.S. — and it’s a sign of how strong the league and their media partners expect the interest in Morgan’s final game to be.
CBS Sports will also add both pre- and post-game studio shows around the Wave match (each set for 30 minutes, starting at 7:30 p.m. ET), with Maura Sheridan and Jordan Angeli on the call in the booth, and Jenny Chiu serving as pitch-side reporter in San Diego.
“We are so grateful to CBS Sports for helping to elevate the league and for always being amazing partners and recognizing the pivotal moment to allow for this unprecedented broadcast to happen, as well as to Prime Video and ESPN for their partnership in celebrating a true sports legend. Our partners coming together to celebrate Alex is an event that speaks volumes about the power of sports and female athletes to unite fans everywhere. Alex couldn’t be more deserving of this moment,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said.
From a ticketing perspective at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, the match is trending towards a sellout, with the team opening up the upper bowl. Per a team representative, the Wave have surpassed 25,000 tickets sold. The stadium can hold 32,000.
let’s send the 🐐 out in style, SD pic.twitter.com/fwBroR2Vh9
— San Diego Wave FC (@sandiegowavefc) September 5, 2024
Earlier Friday, Morgan addressed the growth of media coverage in women’s soccer in her final pre-game press conference, sharing that she actually learned that she was drafted to her first pro team, the Western New York Flash of WPS, from the U.S. Soccer press officer directly. “(That draft) definitely wasn’t broadcasted,” she said.
“Just coverage in general — I’m floored by how well covered this sport is, and all of the reporters and people that dug in at little or no salary to cover women’s soccer for so long, when they did it for the passion. Because that’s what we did, on the national team and early on with the WPS and NWSL. We played soccer because we were passionate about playing. We didn’t play for the money. There was no money, trust me,” Morgan continued with a laugh.
“It has come a long way, and it is just so incredible to see the new broadcasting rights deal, the new CBA taking place with the NWSLPA and NWSL, in terms of a new revenue share model that has never really been done before. It’s unprecedented.”
Morgan’s been a part of building this growth, referencing her own front-row seat to the progress over the years. On Sunday, she’ll get to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
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(Photo: Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)
