The primary docuseries in regards to the NWSL playoffs is right here simply in time for the 2025 season.
The brand new four-part sequence, For the Win: NWSL, green-lit by the league’s organisers in February, was launched in full on Amazon’s Prime Video on Thursday. The sequence promised an immersive, behind-the-scenes have a look at groups’ playoff runs through the 2024 postseason. The sequence did precisely what it got down to do. Nevertheless, it now begs the query: what’s subsequent?
For longtime followers of the NWSL, the sequence relives a few of the most thrilling highlights of the postseason. For brand spanking new followers, it’s a crash course on some must-know narratives heading into the upcoming marketing campaign. It’s particularly prevalent on the eve of Friday’s Problem Cup, a rematch of final 12 months’s championship recreation between the Orlando Satisfaction and Washington Spirit with a trophy on the road.
The sequence is a promising begin however it caters extra to the uninitiated.
Following a non-public viewing of the movie on the Paley Heart for Media in New York Metropolis on Tuesday, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman stated that reaching new followers shall be “the theme of 2025.”
“You’re going to see a variety of initiatives to present not simply our present core followers however future followers, too, a possibility to find us,” Berman stated throughout a Q&A moderated by former NFL quarterback Eli Manning, a Gotham FC minority proprietor, with Gotham defender Nealy Martin and the movie’s director, Marie Margolius. “That was the entire technique behind our media deal, and that’s going to be what you’re going to see manifest all through this 12 months, which is to see the NWSL and our gamers displaying up in unsuspecting locations.”
A kind of initiatives consists of the league’s “Simply Watch” advertising marketing campaign launching subsequent week.
The concept for the docuseries got here collectively final 12 months, Berman stated. On the time, the league was pitched by “the entire high producers and administrators” for tasks in regards to the NWSL, she stated. The league realized the chance it had and finally partnered with the manufacturing studio Phrases + Photos for the sequence. Prime Video, one of many league’s media rights holders, later agreed to hold the sequence.
“Telling (gamers’) tales, each on and off the pitch, is one of the best ways for us to verify all people is aware of who we’re,” Berman stated, “and hopefully then drive them in direction of watching the video games, as a result of that’s how we’re going to develop the enterprise and get these gamers paid what they’re value.”
The docuseries is only one ingredient in a bigger recipe to develop publicity for the NWSL. The hope is that the docuseries will decide up on the profitable momentum from the primary 12 months of the league’s historic four-year media rights deal, which incorporates ESPN, CBS, Prime Video and Scripps Sports activities.
Margolius, the sequence’ director, was additionally a producer on , which adopted the U.S. girls’s nationwide crew throughout their World Cup run in 2023. In an interview with earlier than the premiere, Margolius described the brand new docuseries as a dream challenge, particularly as somebody who performed collegiately at Harvard College and later professionally in Sweden.
“I performed soccer my complete life. It was and is a big a part of my id,” Margolius stated. “Attending to direct this challenge was, initially, in so some ways, like a dream come true, but in addition very easy, as a result of I’ve been a fan of the NWSL for therefore lengthy.”
Margolius even performed towards a few of the gamers highlighted within the movie, like Orlando’s co-captain, Kylie Strom. The 2 crossed paths when Margolius was at Harvard and Strom at Boston College. Whereas Margolius’ background was worthwhile for the method, her objective was to make the gamers relatable to a wider viewers, so she discovered methods to attach with them on a extra private stage whereas main the challenge.
“The factor that allowed me to guide the storytelling course of was the flexibility to attach with the gamers on a human stage,” Margolius stated. “We do a variety of sports activities storytelling. However we at all times say, it’s truly not in regards to the sport in any respect. The game is the car that strikes the factor ahead. However the motive these tales are so enjoyable to inform and listen to and see is the human stuff.”
The sequence begins in Orlando 5 weeks earlier than playoffs and concludes with highlights from this 12 months’s busy offseason and expectations heading into 2025. The sequence is, basically, a snapshot of the highs and lows of final 12 months’s postseason, strolling by way of the rivalries that had been fashioned, together with the Gotham-Spirit battle at Audi Subject through the semifinals, and introducing the viewers to a variety of gamers, from and Orlando defender Strom to then-Gotham ahead Lynn Williams, who has since joined Seattle Reign.
The sequence additionally explores the various retirements that occurred in 2024, as many query who the following faces of the NWSL shall be. Rodman was closely featured all through the sequence as a type of recent faces. There may be a clumsy second with Amazon product placement when displaying that Rodman was named to the NWSL’s Finest XI of the month introduced, in fact, by Amazon Prime.
For followers who adopted the playoffs intently, the sequence can really feel repetitive. That’s the place the unprecedented entry behind the scenes comes into play, providing longtime followers little nuggets to carry onto.
There are the fixed jumps to interviews with soccer analyst Heather O’Reilly or Bay FC co-founder Brandi Chastain, who want no introduction. There are additionally glimpses into non-public moments, resembling when the North Carolina Braveness squad watched Orlando topple the Chicago Purple Stars (now Chicago Stars), 4-1, within the quarterfinals. A participant is overheard jokingly asking, “Did Chicago not scout them?”
There’s additionally a scene the place veteran gamers O’Reilly and Alex Morgan chat at Kelley O’Hara’s retirement recreation at Purple Bull Enviornment. Discussing retirement, they declared the eight-hour workday as means too lengthy. (Relatable.)
The sequence, nevertheless, solely scratches the floor and leaves out the form of context followers of the league are drawn to. There’s a temporary point out of disgraced ex-coach Paul Riley, for instance, when the sequence delves into the Portland Thorns’ historic dominance. Whereas there’s point out of the Sally Yates report and pictures proven from the participant protests that adopted experiences printed by and Washington Publish that uncovered widespread abuse within the NWSL in 2021, not a lot else was talked about about that interval for the league.
Plainly was on goal, as Margolius stated the sequence’ creators made a acutely aware effort to maintain the narrative strictly targeted on the playoffs.
“Whereas I actually had an urge to be unique and make this stand out ultimately, I used to be much more conscientious of creating positive that I used to be not altering the storytelling ways simply because it was girls on the heart of it,” Margolius stated through the Q&A on Tuesday. “So typically after we cowl girls’s sports activities, we are inclined to water down the competitiveness or the fervour or the failure in lieu of very worthy tales, however tales of advocacy and household and the trials and tribulations of being a feminine athlete.”
That’s why, Margolius stated, they leaned closely into the grit and tenacity of the playoffs. That was doubtlessly on the threat of being too linear for some followers.
“On this league, there are stakes and there are heroes and there are underdogs,” Margolius stated. “All of the stuff you want for an important story.”
The sequence will definitely depart the viewers wanting extra — both extra entry, extra tales, or extra narratives —however it additionally leaves room for there to be extra. It’s an fascinating place for the NWSL, because it grapples with what the league’s future will appear to be because it grows by way of extra media publicity, high-profile buyers and growth.
For Margolius, the hope is extra tales will comply with.
“Collection like this can encourage extra of one of these storytelling and in doing so, we’ll develop the game,” she stated. “That’s the great thing about most of these sequence.”
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