By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The National Women’s Soccer League just announced a multi-year sponsorship and licensing deal with online retail giant Amazon.
The expansive agreement is a major boost for the NWSL, but also for women’s sports in general, which has been seeing rapid growth over the past few years.
The agreement makes Amazon the Exclusive Retail Sponsor of the NWSL. As part of the sponsorship, Amazon Prime is also the presenting partner for the NWSL’s Best XI Awards.
The awards recognize the best players by position on a monthly cadence throughout the regular season and give the fans a voice in selecting the league’s top 22 players in an end-of-season vote for the first and second team Best XI. For Prime, the NWSL says this represents an opportunity to bring fans closer to the players they love and joins them in celebrating the excellence of the athletes selected for this honor.
The sponsorship also names Amazon an official NWSL licensee. NWSL fans can now browse the Amazon Fan Shop for hundreds of officially-licensed NWSL products from Merch on Demand, Amazon’s print-on-demand service.
Selection includes t-shirts, hoodies, tank tops, and more, spanning every NWSL team, across men’s, women’s, and youth styles and sizes. Prices start at $24.99, with sizes across apparel ranging from XS to 6XL in most colors, with Prime members enjoying fast, free delivery on every order.
The selection includes unique kickoff designs to memorialize the debut of Prime Video’s inaugural coverage, which will be the 2024 NWSL Challenge Cup on Friday, March 15 at 8 p.m. EDT. The match will feature Gotham FC vs. San Diego Wave from Red Bull Stadium in Harrison, NJ.
As part of this collaboration, NWSL says it will also migrate match content from previous seasons using Amazon Web Services (AWS). This cloud-based media archive will enable NWSL to easily transfer historical footage and surface highlights, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage to enhance fan engagement by building a more personalized connection between fans, the league, and the players they love. In addition, AWS and Prime Video will begin testing a cloud-based game production solution for NWSL games to increase efficiency, lower production costs, and improve sustainability.
“We could not be more excited to continue to integrate Amazon more deeply into the NWSL family as they become our exclusive retail sponsor,” said NWSL Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer Julie Haddon. “Amazon’s global reach and customer-centric approach pairs perfectly with the NWSL’s fan-forward ethos. This partnership will not only amplify the NWSL’s fandom and growth, but will also offer our fans an easy and accessible way to support their favorite teams and athletes.”
This marks the latest sponsorship from Amazon for women’s sports, after becoming an Official Partner of UEFA Women’s Football in 2023. It also expands upon the previously announced multi-year rights deal that cemented Prime Video as the exclusive home for 27 NWSL matches each season at amazon.com/nwsl.
“This unique approach brings the expertise of several Amazon businesses together in service to the league and its fans, through collaboration across Prime Video, the Amazon retail business, Merch on Demand, and AWS, with the ultimate goal of increasing the profile of the NWSL and serving customers’ growing interest in merchandise, content, and technical innovation,” Amazon says.
The NWSL on Prime Video will be available to fans in the United States and Canada across hundreds of compatible devices worldwide, streaming from the web, or using the Prime Video app on smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, game consoles, and connected TVs.