English soccer’s top-flight Women’s Super League has announced its international broadcast mix for the 2025-26 campaign ahead of its kick-off tomorrow, with a total of 13 new partnerships agreed across a swathe of territories.
Larger, regional deals include Azam TV (Sub-Saharan Africa), beIN Sports (South East Asia), Dubai TV (Middle East and North Africa), Fox (Mexico and Central America), and a pan-regional deal with women’s sports-focused streamer W-Sports.
That wide-ranging W-Sports partnership in particular covers the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Australia and Japan), the Caribbean region (with French-language commentary), and Sub-Saharan Africa.
It also covers France, and the remainder of Europe, excluding the UK and Ireland, the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), the Nordic region, Israel, Italy, and Spain, all of which have deals in place.
Additionally, a host of single-territory deals have been agreed.
In Europe, Belgium’s RTL, Dutch broadcaster Ziggo, Norway’s VG, and Spanish heavyweight Movistar will cover the league, as well as the broadcaster SportKlub in both Croatia and Slovenia, while Italian pay-TV player Sky Italia has snapped up a highlights-only deal for the WSL.
In Asia, rights will be split in China between Migu, Hayu, and iQiyi, while in Japan, WSL will be shown by streaming service U-Next.
Australia’s Free-to-air Nine network and its Stan Sport service have consolidated their soccer rights in the country with the WSL pick-up, while deals in Brazil with GOAT and X-Sports, Canada with media giant Rogers, and Israel with broadcaster Charlton, round out the WSL’s international broadcast mix.
IMG, the global sports and entertainment heavyweight, has also been appointed as the WSL’s media rights distribution agency on a multi-year deal and aided in the brokering of these deals.
Furthermore, as with second-tier WSL2 fixtures, any games not selected for broadcast by the league’s partners in these territories will instead be shown live on the WSL’s YouTube channel.
In expanding its international coverage, the WSL is looking to capitalize on a 2024-25 campaign that saw great demand outside of England.
Indeed, the league revealed that 76% of the total broadcast audience in the 2024-25 campaign, which amounted to 72.1 million, came from international coverage.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the WSL has also agreed a multi-year radio coverage deal with major player TalkSport.
Through the three-year deal, TalkSport will air live game commentary of 16 games per season, as well as pre-and post-game discussion and other content surrounding the league, including at least two interviews per season for each of the league’s clubs on TalkSport’s drivetime or breakfast shows.
