NWSL’s early kickoff times for the quarterfinals harm the game: ‘It’s getting old’
The trouble with having a glass-half-full mentality is that it can obscure a legitimate invitation to be frustrated.
Enter the early morning kickoff.
A 9 a.m. start time for Pacific Coast time zone dwellers? All the more reason to jumpstart the day. Take that 7:30 a.m. workout class, toss in a load of laundry just before the lineups are announced, maybe whip up a nice breakfast for the occasion. Make it productive, so that it feels as though a postseason draw pulled so far away from prime time actually worked out in your favor.
This would have been an understandable response before the league signed its landmark $240 million media rights deal in 2023, and it was still an acceptable one in the context of a one-off regular season match. Who doesn’t love the occasional brunch game? But as the NWSL enters its 14th postseason on Friday, Nov. 6 in San Diego, concluding on Sunday in D.C., fans are once again presented a glass containing some inadequate portion and asked to supplant its emptiness with resolution.
Playoffs are meant to be glorious crescendos to the season. They are also massive opportunities to grow an audience. It’s difficult to do that when games are scheduled at inconvenient times that require intentional planning. If anything, these early starts echo broader calls for NWSL clubs to own their own venues, which would address a significant part of the problem.
The other part rests with the status quo of sports itself. The pace of women’s sports’ growth is what makes it such a thrilling venture to be a part of, but it has outgrown the implication that putting a game on cable television is an accomplishment in itself.
It’s getting old
Two of the four NWSL quarterfinals this year — Kansas City Current vs. Angel City FC and Gotham FC vs. Seattle Reign — have morning start times for those in the Pacific and Mountain time zones. And only one match can be considered scheduled for a prime time slot when the San Diego Wave host the Utah Royals on Friday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Prime Video. The following day the Current host Angel City at noon ET/9 a.m. PT on CBS.
On Sunday, NWSL Shield winners Gotham kick off a double-header on ABC when they host the eighth-ranked Seattle Reign at 12:30 p.m. ET/9:30 a.m. before the Spirit’s 3 p.m. ET/noon PT matchup against the Portland Thorns at Audi Field.
Apart from the start times, the lopsidedness of this playoff schedule — one match on Friday and Saturday, and two on Sunday — also creates a wider chasm of potential competitive advantage among the teams. The winner of San Diego vs. Utah, for example, will not know their next opponent until about 48 hours after their game concludes. If the Royals upset the Wave, their semifinal fixture would require travel to either D.C. or Portland.
The spread of matches next weekend is partly due to conflicts with other tenants in the stadiums NWSL teams occupy. The biggest headache comes from Major League Soccer’s regular season finale in which all 30 teams are in action on Saturday.
San Diego FC in MLS, who are 13th out of 15 teams in the league’s western conference, have a match at Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, ruling that day out for the Wave.
D.C. United, who are 14th out of 15 team in the eastern conference, play the same day at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT at Audi Field, resulting in the same schedule mixup for the Spirit. The one MLS team out of the group with actual playoff implications on the final day, the New York Red Bulls, also play at that time on Saturday at Sports Illustration Stadium, the field they share with Gotham.
THE BRACKET IS SET. THE CHASE BEGINS.
The 2026 NWSL Playoffs presented by Google Pixel are officially locked in! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/e5u7LhDY1j
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 2, 2026
This brings us to why the Current, the only NWSL team to solely own their stadium, play on Saturday. Their CPKC Stadium is lauded as one of the first purpose-built professional women’s sports venues in the world, yet even they are beholden to broadcast schedules, hence their 11 a.m. local kickoff to accommodate college football programing on he same network.
Lost broadcast potential is important to underscore here.
Most sports bars are still filling ketchup bottles and rolling utensils in paper napkins at those hours. Twenty-somethings are still peeling back their eyelids from the previous night’s shenanigans. Kids are in the middle of their own weekend duels at those times — which impacts not only the NWSL’s youngest demographic of fans, but their parents and caretakers who shuttle them to and from games. In 2026, any playoff game that starts before 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT for anyone in the continental U.S. is culturally unbecoming and commercially perplexing at best — irresponsible at worst.
The same recently happened during the tightly contested WNBA Finals when the Atlanta Dream defeated the Golden State Valkyries in Game 6 on Oct. 29. The potentially series-deciding game tipped off at 12:30 p.m. ET/9:30 a.m. PT at State Farm Arena last Thursday because the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA had a regular season game that evening they were not made to reschedule. When the Dream won, there was an unabashed sigh of relief from both sides that the historic and inaugural Finals Game 7 would be played under conditions suitable for professional athletes.
The NWSL’s broadcast deal expires in the fall of 2027, and commissioner Jessica Berman would do well to negotiate more high-value kickoff times for next year’s playoff schedule among the list of demands. This first round of postseason games may not be finals, but these quarterfinals deserve suitable conditions for competition, too.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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