The National Women's Soccer League

Fall Series

While all NWSL team owners called the the Challenge Cup a success, there were mixed feelings about scheduling more games. Without more games, many of the league's players would not compete from the end of July 2020 until training camp started in February 2021, assuming the pandemic was somewhat under control by that point. Baird knew, however, there were business risks to scheduling more games. Would a "fall series" be anticlimactic? What if the league was less lucky and positive COVID-19 cases disrupted the series, overshadowing the Challenge Cup's perfect record? Questions like these stuck in Baird's mind, but she pressed forward. She saw an opportunity for the league and its players.

Shortly before the conclusion of the Challenge Cup, Baird called Dan Weinberg at CBS to see if they could arrange a COVID-19-safe, in-person meeting to talk about the tournament. They met on August 10. On the day of their meeting, Baird thought there was a good chance that a number of college football conferences would cancel their fall seasons because of COVID-19. As predicted, news came during the meeting that the Mountain West Conference, which had a broadcast deal with CBS, was indefinitely postponing its football season. Baird seized the moment telling Weinberg, "We'll take those slots". Right then and there, she worked with Weinberg to create a slate of fall games around the broadcast windows now open because of the Mountain West Conference news. Remembering that surprisingly eventful meeting and Baird's resourcefulness, Weinberg said, "For like half an hour, we did talk about some big picture stuff. Then it pivoted to, [Lisa saying], 'Okay, here's what I'm thinking. What do you all think about it?' And we immediately saw that there could be some good synergy there, and that came together very quickly, very quickly".

On August 25, the NWSL announced that the Fall Series that would take place between September 5 and October 17. The league evenly split its nine teams into three regional pods (West, South, Northeast). There would be 18 games in all, and teams would play four games each, in different home stadiums. CBS would televise the game-of-the-week every Saturday in September and one of the two final games on October 17. CBS Sports Network would televise the game-of-the-week the first two Saturdays in October. CBS All Access would exclusively stream four games and the CBS broadcast coverage, and Twitch would exclusively stream seven games globally, including in the United States, and every game internationally (everywhere except the United States and Canada). Medical protocols, established during the Challenge Cup, would be in effect for the Fall Series.

As part of the series, teams partnered with local businesses and competed for the Verizon Community Shield. The local business partners of the top three teams by points – the Portland Thorns, Houston Dash, and Washington Spirit – received grants from Verizon. Portland's Mimi's Fresh Tees collected $25,000, Houston's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People got $15,000, and DC SCORES, a nonprofit focused on youth sports and education, received $10,000.

Many NWSL players opted out of the Fall Series either due to COVID-19 concerns, injury or both. Before the series, six members of the USWNT left the NWSL and signed with European clubs where many of them could get more playing time leading up to the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics (Summer 2021) and earn more money. A number of non-allocated NWSL players went to Europe on loan iii where there were fewer COVID-19 restrictions when it came to playing games and, as a result, more opportunities to develop on the field. Younger NWSL players benefited from the absence of many of the league's stars during the Fall Series.