NWSL's new docuseries focuses on players' competitiveness and passion on the field

New York Times

06-03-2025

The first docuseries about the NWSL playoffs is here just in time for the 2025 season.
The new four-part series, For the Win: NWSL, green-lit by the league's organisers in February, was released in full on Amazon's Prime Video on Thursday. The series promised an immersive, behind-the-scenes look at teams' playoff runs during the 2024 postseason. The series did exactly what it set out to do. However, it now begs the question: what's next?
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For longtime fans of the NWSL, the series relives some of the most thrilling highlights of the postseason. For new fans, it's a crash course on some must-know narratives heading into the upcoming campaign. It is especially prevalent on the eve of Friday's Challenge Cup, a rematch of last year's championship game between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit with a trophy on the line.
The series is a promising start but it caters more to the uninitiated.
Following a private viewing of the film at the Paley Center for Media in New York City on Tuesday, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said that reaching new fans will be 'the theme of 2025.'
'You're going to see a lot of initiatives to give not just our current core fans but future fans, too, an opportunity to discover us,' Berman said during a Q&A moderated by former NFL quarterback Eli Manning, a Gotham FC minority owner, with Gotham defender Nealy Martin and the film's director, Marie Margolius. 'That was the whole strategy behind our media deal, and that is going to be what you're going to see manifest throughout this year, which is to see the NWSL and our players showing up in unsuspecting places.'
One of those initiatives includes the league's 'Just Watch' marketing campaign launching next week.
The idea for the docuseries came together last year, Berman said. At the time, the league was pitched by 'all of the top producers and directors' for projects about the NWSL, she said. The league realized the opportunity it had and eventually partnered with the production studio Words + Pictures for the series. Prime Video, one of the league's media rights holders, later agreed to carry the series.
'Telling (players') stories, both on and off the pitch, is the best way for us to make sure everybody knows who we are,' Berman said, 'and hopefully then drive them towards watching the games, because that's how we're going to grow the business and get these players paid what they're worth.'
The docuseries is just one ingredient in a larger recipe to grow exposure for the NWSL. The hope is that the docuseries will pick up on the successful momentum from the first year of the league's historic four-year media rights deal, which includes ESPN, CBS, Prime Video and Scripps Sports.
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Margolius, the series' director, was also a producer on Netflix's Under Pressure docuseries, which followed the U.S. women's national team during their World Cup run in 2023. In an interview with The Athletic before the premiere, Margolius described the new docuseries as a dream project, especially as someone who played collegiately at Harvard University and later professionally in Sweden.
'I played soccer my whole life. It was and is a huge part of my identity,' Margolius said. 'Getting to direct this project was, first of all, in so many ways, like a dream come true, but also really easy, because I've been a fan of the NWSL for so long.'
Margolius even played against some of the players highlighted in the film, like Orlando's co-captain, Kylie Strom. The two crossed paths when Margolius was at Harvard and Strom at Boston University. While Margolius' background was valuable for the process, her goal was to make the players relatable to a wider audience, so she found ways to connect with them on a more personal level while leading the project.
'The thing that allowed me to lead the storytelling process was the ability to connect with the players on a human level,' Margolius said. 'We do a lot of sports storytelling. But we always say, it's actually not about the sport at all. The sport is the vehicle that moves the thing forward. But the reason these stories are so fun to tell and hear and see is the human stuff.'
The series begins in Orlando five weeks before playoffs and concludes with highlights from this year's busy offseason and expectations heading into 2025. The series is, essentially, a snapshot of the highs and lows of last year's postseason, walking through the rivalries that were formed, including the Gotham-Spirit battle at Audi Field during the semifinals, and introducing the audience to a wide range of players, from Spirit's rising star Trinity Rodman and Orlando defender Strom to then-Gotham forward Lynn Williams, who has since joined Seattle Reign.
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The series also explores the many retirements that happened in 2024, as many question who the next faces of the NWSL will be. Rodman was heavily featured throughout the series as one of those fresh faces. There is an awkward moment with Amazon product placement when showing that Rodman was named to the NWSL's Best XI of the month presented, of course, by Amazon Prime.
For fans who followed the playoffs closely, the series can feel repetitive. That's where the unprecedented access behind the scenes comes into play, offering longtime fans little nuggets to hold onto.
There are the constant jumps to interviews with soccer analyst Heather O'Reilly or Bay FC co-founder Brandi Chastain, who need no introduction. There are also glimpses into private moments, such as when the North Carolina Courage squad watched Orlando topple the Chicago Red Stars (now Chicago Stars), 4-1, in the quarterfinals. A player is overheard jokingly asking, 'Did Chicago not scout them?'
There's also a scene where veteran players O'Reilly and Alex Morgan chat at Kelley O'Hara's retirement game at Red Bull Arena. Discussing retirement, they declared the eight-hour workday as way too long. (Relatable.)
The series, however, only scratches the surface and leaves out the kind of context fans of the league are drawn to. There is a brief mention of disgraced ex-coach Paul Riley, for example, when the series delves into the Portland Thorns' historic dominance. While there is mention of the Sally Yates report and images shown from the player protests that followed reports published by The Athletic and Washington Post that exposed widespread abuse in the NWSL in 2021, not much else was mentioned about that period for the league.
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It seems that was on purpose, as Margolius said the series' creators made a conscious effort to keep the narrative strictly focused on the playoffs.
'While I certainly had an urge to be original and make this stand out in some way, I was even more conscientious of making sure that I was not changing the storytelling tactics just because it was women at the center of it,' Margolius said during the Q&A on Tuesday. 'So often when we cover women's sports, we tend to water down the competitiveness or the passion or the failure in lieu of very worthy stories, but stories of advocacy and family and the trials and tribulations of being a female athlete.'
That's why, Margolius said, they leaned heavily into the grit and tenacity of the playoffs. That was potentially at the risk of being too linear for some fans.
'In this league, there are stakes and there are heroes and there are underdogs,' Margolius said. 'All the things you need for a great story.'
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The series will certainly leave the viewers wanting more — either more access, more stories, or more narratives —but it also leaves room for there to be more. It's an interesting place for the NWSL, as it grapples with what the league's future will look like as it grows through more media exposure, high-profile investors and expansion.
For Margolius, the hope is more stories will follow.
'Series like this will inspire more of this type of storytelling and in doing so, we'll grow the sport,' she said. 'That's the beauty of these types of series.'