ADVERTISEMENT NWSL Scales Up Production Ops To Match League’s Exponential Growth By: Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. • Posted on: March 31, 2026 • 7 minute read ADVERTISEMENT With two new expansion teams and viewership/attendance on the rise, the league’s production/broadcast arm and its partner NEP Connected Solutions are busier than ever The first three weekends into the 2026 NWSL season are already in the books, and the league’s in-house broadcast and production operation is firing on all cylinders. With the league’s expansion to 16 teams adding 58 matches to the schedule for a total of 248 world-feed productions, NWSL’s broadcast team has scaled up accordingly. That means more control rooms at NEP’s South Florida Production Hub, a larger technical footprint spanning both coasts, and a growing suite of camera technology — including MindFly ref cams, Canon PTZ goal cams, and drones. The 2026 season marks the third year in NWSL’s landmark four-year domestic-media–rights agreement with CBS Sports, ESPN, ION, and Prime Video and introduces the league’s partnership with streaming service Victory+. As part of these deals, NWSL’s in-house team will oversee nearly all the 220 matches featured on national platforms this season, along with dozens more on the league’s NWSL+ DTC streaming platform. Inside the truck onsite in Denver for the Denver Summit’s record-breaking sellout, which aired on CBS “There are multiple weekly calls, with both the production and engineering teams, to ensure we keep the network look and feel aligned with the NWSL look and feel,” says Meg Buchan, senior director, broadcast and production, NWSL. “We’ve built great trust with each partner over the last few years and continue to execute at a high level. The best compliment we receive is when people don’t know whether it was an NWSL- or network-produced show.” Bigger League, Bigger Productions: NWSL’s Broadcast Machine Expands for 2026 To handle the 58 additional matches resulting from the expansion, the league has grown its production and technical teams, and, fortunately, NEP Connected Solutions was able to provide the necessary control rooms to produce the added matches at its South Florida Production Hub. NWSL’s nationally broadast matches have 12 cameras, including the RF Steadicam seen here during the Denver Summit’s sellout at Empower Field at Mile High on Saturday. Besides producing world feeds for matches on CBS, ESPN, ION, and Victory+, NWSL’s in-house broadcast/production team works with Prime Video on its game broadcasts. The league also benefits from the fact that many of Prime Video’s talent and producers work on NWSL network and NWSL+ matches. “It is all about having a great relationship with them since we started the partnership,” says Buchan. “From the beginning, the collaboration included talent, production team, and engineering coordination since it was their first go-round producing women’s soccer. We appreciate how Prime treats our show the same as they do NFL, NBA, and NASCAR: high-quality pictures with high-quality storytelling.” In addition to serving the broadcast partners, the world-feed matches also provide the league with an invaluable training ground for former players to produce and announce games. For example, former NWSL player Nicole Baxter now serves as a producer, and Erika Tymrak, Kika Toulouse , Celia Jimenez, Merritt Mathias , and McCall Zerboni call games in the booth. New Toys on the Pitch: Ref Cams, Goal Cams, Drones During Opening Weekend, NWSL deployed a MindFly ref-cam system and will continue to deploy it on specific matches throughout the season. Drones will also be added to large-venue shows, as was done for last weekend’s record-breaking Denver Summit FC vs. Washington Spirit match at Empower Field at Mile High, which aired on CBS. In addition, Canon is supplying Canon N300 PTZ goal cameras for all NWSL-produced broadcasts as part of its overall league sponsorship deal. An operator will use the remote pan-and-tilt functionality for many of this year’s shows. NWSL worked closely with NEP Connected Solutions to integrate the Canon goal cams (with custom-built mounts attached to different goal-net posts at each NWSL stadium), as well as the MindFly ref-cam technology. The National Women’s Soccer League’s newest team set the league’s single-game attendance record in its inaugural home game Saturday, when 63,004 fans showed up at Empower Field at Mile High on an unseasonably balmy March day to watch expansion team Denver Summit FC play the Washington Spirit. All In: NEP Provides Backbone for Coast-to-Coast Broadcast Ops This year, NEP is supporting all NWSL rightsholders and distribution outlets in some form — Prime Video, ION (Scripps Sports), NWSL+, Victory+ — as well as international and local RSN distribution. During Opening Weekend alone, NEP supported eight games that included 15 unique productions — a far cry from where the partnership began. “We started with four cameras using IP technology for transmission,” notes Buchan, “and have evolved to having 12 cameras for all national matches and seven cameras for the rest of our shows. We wouldn’t be where we are today, from a production-quality and execution standpoint, without NEP South Florida.” NEP Production Hub South Florida serves as the nerve center for NWSL’s weekly productions. Throughout the season, NEP will once again deploy and manage mobile units and crew onsite: all below-the-line crew, transmission from the venue, distribution, and archiving. NWSL games will be produced from NEP Production Hub in South Florida and NEP Production Hub in Los Angeles. In addition, TGI’s virtual signage runs through NEP for most NWSL matches. “NEP has built out additional control rooms and added graphics and replay devices to match our requirements,” says Buchan. “An additional service they provide is production for many of our local-club broadcast rightsholders. A single match could have as many as four distinct feeds with the U.S. broadcast, two local clubs, and an international broadcast.” This marks the first year NEP is serving as the technical and facilities partner for Prime Video, and it will be launching a new PCR at NEP Production Hub Los Angeles for those games. The launch of NWSL on Victory+ also added a client to NEP’s NWSL production portfolio this season. Beyond the Broadcast: NWSL+ Builds a Home for Fans Near and Far As the league and its popularity continue to grow, so too has the role of its NWSL+ DTC streaming platform. “Domestically, NWSL+ continues to provide a national platform for the additional inventory outside of our national broadcasts,” says Buchan. “Since it is a free platform, we see great success in local markets for fans who support the clubs and want to stay engaged on the platform.” The launch of NWSL on streamer Victory+ also added another client to NEP’s NWSL production portfolio this season. Meanwhile, on the international side, IMG continues to serve as a strategic partner in growing the NWSL’s global footprint, helping the league reach a record-breaking 400 million homes for last year’s championship game. “With the increase in international signings,” adds Buchan, “it’s very important for incoming players to know that their fans and family can still watch them play live or VOD throughout the season.” As the NWSL builds its original-content strategy, NWSL+ has become a viable home for popular docuseries like Prime Video’s For the Win and ESPN’s NWSL : The Final Third after their initial runs on those respective platforms. From Four Cameras to 400 Million Homes: The NWSL’s Broadcast Evolution The NWSL has come a long way since Buchan joined the league in 2022. And the distance traveled is perhaps best measured not in years but in cameras, control rooms, and distribution reach. “When I started,” she recalls, “we were producing four-camera matches with small prosumer cameras and IP-based transmission. Since then, the NWSL Board and our broadcast partners have trusted the broadcast team and given us the proper resources to produce some of the highest-quality live matches of any soccer property in the U.S.” Today, the broadcast operation spans two production hubs, serves a half dozen distribution partners simultaneously, and deploys cutting-edge camera systems at every venue. With 16 teams, 248 world-feed matches, and a global audience that reached 400 million homes for last year’s championship, the infrastructure built over the past four years is no longer catching up to the league’s ambitions. It’s helping drive them. “I couldn’t be prouder of the production, engineering, league office, and support team members,” Buchan says. “They show so much passion and put in the extra effort in all 16 of our markets and at NEP South Florida to help create an outstanding on-screen product, which directly feeds into the overall success of the league.” Sharing Upcoming Events Top Stories SVG GFX Forum 2026: Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PLAY Posted on: March 31, 2026 NWSL Scales Up Production Ops To Match League’s Exponential Growth By: Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Posted on: March 31, 2026 SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Flowstate AI’s Sahil Shah on Transforming Video Content with Intelligent AI Agents By: Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Posted on: March 31, 2026 MLB Opening Day 2026 TNT Sports Gears Up for <i>MLB Tuesday</i> With Matchup of Two AL Powerhouses By: Kristian Hernández, Senior Editor Posted on: March 31, 2026 MLB Opening Day 2026 MLB Local Media Continues To Innovate as Production Roster Grows to 14 Clubs By: Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Posted on: March 30, 2026 Op-Ed: Preparing for Agentic AI in Live Sports By: Claudia Barbiero, Global Marketing, PTZOptics Posted on: March 30, 2026 Layering Up: CVE, Neutral Wireless, Haivision and Grabyo Explore Live Remote Production Over Private 5G Networks By: Roberto Landini, SVG Europe Posted on: March 30, 2026 Victory+ Turns to Creator Economy, Bringing In Popular Women’s Sports Influencer ‘Coach Jackie J’ To Host Live NWSL Alt-Cast By: Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Posted on: March 29, 2026 UFL Kickoff 2026 New Venues, New Tech: How FOX Sports, ESPN Are Reinventing Their UFL Broadcasts for Year 3 By: Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Posted on: March 27, 2026 UFL Kickoff 2026 As UFL Structure Evolves, League Boosts Broadcast Infrastructure at New Home Stadiums By: Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Posted on: March 27, 2026 Where Winners Are Born: Gulfstream Park Is Ready for 75th Florida Derby With Sellitto Video Systems Powering In-House Broadcast, Venue Video By: Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Posted on: March 27, 2026 SVG GameDay, Ep. 9: Chicago Cubs’ Chris Simonson – Flying the W at Wrigley Field By: Kristian Hernández, Senior Editor Posted on: March 27, 2026 Read more Latest Headlines posts ADVERTISEMENT Related Articles SVG GFX Forum 2026: Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PLAY In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate... 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