{"id":877752,"date":"2026-09-02T19:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T19:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/877752\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T19:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T19:02:14","slug":"tgls-womens-league-secures-media-rights-deal-with-espn-ion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/877752\/","title":{"rendered":"TGL’s women’s league secures media rights deal with ESPN, ION"},"content":{"rendered":"

TMRW Sports\u2019 WTGL, the women\u2019s version of TGL set to launch this winter<\/a>, has secured its first media rights deal, with matches set to air across ABC\/ESPN networks and Scripps Sports\u2019 ION.<\/p>\n

According to a report by Josh Carpenter in Sports Business Journal,<\/a> the deal is a multiyear agreement, though exact financial terms weren\u2019t disclosed. The 15 match days on WTGL\u2019s debut schedule \u2014 which will begin Nov. 8 \u2014 are expected to split roughly 50\/50 between ION and ESPN\u2019s networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cESPN and ION bring different but highly complementary strengths,\u201d TMRW Sports golf president Rufus Hack said in a statement. \u201cESPN gives us premier sports reach, credibility, and a platform that can connect WTGL with core golf fans and broader sports audiences. \u2026 ION brings broad free over-the-air distribution and, like ESPN, a proven commitment to women\u2019s sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor told SBJ that ION is paying a rights fee for WTGL, though he declined to specify the number. ESPN senior director of programming and acquisitions, John Suchenski, was similarly tight-lipped about ESPN\u2019s end of the arrangement. Lawlor said the negotiations with TMRW Sports stretch back more than a year, predating any formal WTGL announcement, and that he\u2019d made the trip to South Florida for multiple TGL matches during that stretch, and saw the value in adding another women\u2019s sports property to ION\u2019s lineup.<\/p>\n

ION already carries the NWSL, WNBA and PWHL, and Lawlor said the network wants women\u2019s sports programming year-round, something WTGL helps with since it plays in November and December, once the NWSL and WNBA seasons have finished up for the year. Every match is set to air on ION Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, which is more consistent than TGL\u2019s own matches, which have aired on different nights and networks across its first two seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people know where to find it, the fact that the league would be there every week,\u201d Lawlor said.<\/p>\n

ESPN has carried TGL\u2019s men\u2019s league since its inception and has also supplied on-air talent for those broadcasts. Suchenski said WTGL\u2019s talent lineup hasn\u2019t been finalized but told SBJ to expect \u201cprobably some differences\u201d from how TGL is currently presented. TMRW Sports will continue to handle production on WTGL in-house, as it does with TGL.<\/p>\n

TGL is still in the middle of its own two-year ESPN agreement, and Awful Announcing wrote in July<\/a> that ESPN was the front-runner to retain those rights in 2027 and beyond, per Carpenter\u2019s reporting at the time<\/a>. Wednesday\u2019s announcement didn\u2019t address that renewal, but Carpenter wrote that industry sources expect the men\u2019s TGL to return to\u00a0ESPN when its next season starts in early 2027, even though nothing\u2019s been formally announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TMRW Sports\u2019 WTGL, the women\u2019s version of TGL set to launch this winter, has secured its first media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,447381,65357,447382,447383,447384,427,251629],"class_list":["post-877752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-golf-media-rights","tag-ion","tag-scripps-sports","tag-tgl-on-espn","tag-tmrw-sports","tag-tv","tag-wtgl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}