The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) announced on Wednesday that no matches will be played in June 2026 due to the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be held primarily in the United States.
The league remains focused on preserving competitive integrity and delivering a successful season, while continuing to explore innovative scheduling and operational solutions to address the unique challenges of this historic global event. The NWSL commissioner, Jessica Berman, had previously stated that the league would not completely stop during the men’s World Cup. There is a potential three-week overlap in July between the NWSL schedule and the men’s World Cup.With seven of the league’s 16 markets hosting World Cup programming, the NWSL is proactively adjusting its scheduling framework to accommodate the expected demands on stadiums.
League Statement
The United States will also be the main host of the Women’s World Cup in 2031. Historically, the NWSL has played during the Women’s World Cups, even though many teams lost players due to international commitments, but that trend is changing. The NWSL had a month-long break for the Olympics last year and a five-week break this summer to coincide with various continental competitions. The NWSL will kick off next season’s schedule on February 20, 2026, with the Challenge Cup, a match between the winner of the NWSL Shield and the NWSL Championship. It will mark the earliest start of the NWSL in a calendar year and its first competitive match in February since the league began playing in 2013. The regular season will begin on March 13, 2026. The league will expand to 16 teams with the addition of expansion teams in Boston and Denver. Each team will play a balanced schedule of 30 games. Next year’s NWSL Championship will be played on November 21, 2026. That match will be played just three days before the start of an international FIFA window, which will include a Concacaf W championship tournament of direct elimination that serves as qualification for the 2027 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games. Four Concacaf teams will qualify directly for the 2027 World Cup in that tournament. Most of the U.S. women’s national team roster plays in the NWSL. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Olympics, which means the United States automatically qualifies for the Games as the host.Part of the challenge we have is figuring out the literal logistics of how we manage our business against the backdrop of the men’s World Cup in so many of our markets, and that’s the process we’re going through right now.
Jessica Berman
