Includes double header with the Fire in April.
CHICAGO, IL—On Thursday, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) announced their fixture list for their seventh season. It will once again be a 24-match schedule with each team playing the others three times. There will be a break between June 3rd and June 14th for the group stage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.
The top four teams will make the playoffs with the semifinal round on October 19-20 and the NWSL Championship on Saturday, October 26th.
The Chicago Red Stars begin their 11th season of play at defending champion North Carolina Courage on Saturday, April 13th with a 7pm CT kickoff. The home opener will be part of a doubleheader with the Chicago Fire the next Saturday.
The Fire will host the Colorado Rapids at noon CT while the Red Stars will host the Portland Thorns at 2:30pm at SeatGeek Stadium (neé Toyota Park). All tickets for the Fire match will include general admission to the Red Stars match. It is the fourth time the Fire and Red Stars have held a doubleheader in Bridgeview.
After the wackiness of last season’s fixture list which saw home stands and away stands of three (and would have been four to end the season had it not been for a rescheduled match against Sky Blue FC), the longest home stand and the longest away trip are both two and will happen twice during the season.
The Red Stars will have just one midweek fixture (August 21st vs. Orlando) and six on Saturday and five on Sunday. There will be two midweek fixtures away from home as well (August 14th at Sky Blue FC and September 11th at Orlando).
The full 2019 fixture list for the Red Stars can be viewed by following this link.
All NWSL matches will be streamed live on yahoosports.com this season after the league “amicably” terminated its agreement with Lifetime on Wednesday to broadcast matches with one year left in the contract.
THOUGHTS: This is not the best of timing for the league to announce the premature end of a TV deal—especially in a Women’s World Cup year. Granted, ratings were not that high, but a lot is being banked on its stars gaining exposure in the Women’s World Cup which will be broadcast by the networks of Fox.
It likely would have been better to keep the deal for one more year to build up the league in advance of the World Cup and then to promote it again after the World Cup—especially should the USA repeat as champions.
