Midway through the 2026 season, the NWSL is at an average attendance of 11,069 per game and is on pace to crack over 10,000 fans per game for its fourth straight season.
To uncover the NWSL’s attendance trends, USA TODAY compiled game-by-game regular season attendance figures via FBref.com and tallied up the league’s per-game figures, as well as each team’s average, for every year since the inaugural 2013 season.
This year’s attendance is partially driven by expansion franchise Denver Summit FC, which is averaging 20,579 fans per game across the Broncos’ Empower Field at Mile High, the Colorado Rapids’ Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and the Summit’s brand-new Centennial Stadium.
The club’s inaugural home match at Empower Field against the Washington
Spirit on March 28 drew a league-record 63,004 fans.
Other attendance drivers include the Portland Thorns, which has been averaging 19,079 at Providence Park, and the Spirit, which has been averaging 15,527 at Audi Field.
Based on seven of eight games with reported attendance figures, Washington is on pace for a team record, while the Thorns are on pace for their highest season outside of 2019.
The league first broke the 10,000-fan ceiling with a 35.4% attendance bump in 2023, a year marked by both the Women’s World Cup and multiple clubs moving into larger stadiums.
Notably, it was the San Diego Wave’s first full season in Snapdragon Stadium, where they pulled a league-record 20,718 fans per game. The Spirit, meanwhile, made 20,000-seat Audi Field its full-time home, which it now shares with MLS club D.C. United.
On top of those moves, Seattle’s then-named OL Reign successfully produced event games at Lumen Field, including a doubleheader with the Sounders and Megan Rapinoe’s last regular-season home match, that helped the club vault from 6,824 fans per game in 2022 to 13,609 in 2023.
Since then, the NWSL has been above 10,000 in attendance every year, including a record average of 11,291 in 2024.
In total, nine of the 16 teams in the NWSL are averaging above 10,000 fans per game in 2026. That is higher than previous seasons — only seven beat the mark in 2024 — and well above historical numbers — in 2021, for example, Portland was the only club to average over 10,000 fans per game.
Of course, it’s worth noting that the average attendance figure has plateaued somewhat in the past four years.
However, 2027 will see the next edition of the Women’s World Cup in Brazil, and that could provide a boost — attendance during the World Cup years of 2015, 2019 and 2023 was on average 26.6% higher than the preceding season.
Methodology: League and team yearly attendance figures pulled from FBref.com’s NWSL data and averaged out to per-game levels. Only regular season games were counted. The 2026 data covers regular season games through August 5. Averages cover only games with attendance reported by FBref.com. There was no NWSL regular season in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NWSL attendance is on pace for another milestone season
