ESPN is launching Women’s Sports Sundays, a new primetime programming franchise for top national WNBA and NWSL games starting this summer.
The network announced the move Thursday, about a month before opening pitch of the MLB season. For nearly four decades, the Worldwide Leader aired Sunday Night Baseball to cap off each summer weekend.
Now, it will replace those national baseball windows with women’s pro basketball and soccer games as the WNBA and NWSL each continue to grow significantly in both viewership and sponsor investment.
The series will last nine weeks and include 12 primetime games. Game broadcasts will be supplemented by studio programming as well as digital and social media coverage, according to ESPN’s announcement.
“This franchise is about more than showcasing games — it’s about building a consistent, high-profile destination that reflects the passion, excellence and cultural impact of women’s sports today, while giving athletes and leagues the stage they deserve,” said ESPN EVP of programming and acquisitions Rosalyn Durant.
Viewership for national WNBA broadcasts was up across all networks. For ESPN and ABC in particular, WNBA games averaged 1.3 million viewers across 25 windows, up 6 percent from the previous season.
After airing games on its cable sports network for several years, CBS carved out a Saturday national window on its broadcast network for premier WNBA matchups over the past two seasons, which in 2025 included a pregame studio show.
Numbers have been smaller overall for the younger NWSL, but growth has been even more significant. The league’s championship game drew more than 1 million average viewers for the first time in 2025.
Women’s Sports Sundays would figure to start some time after mid-June, when ESPN finishes coverage of the NBA and NHL playoffs. From that starting date, a nine-week sprint would take the network close to the start of the NFL and college football seasons.
Together, the two leagues represent a massive opportunity for ESPN at a time in the sports calendar that can be awfully quiet. By programming top games in a big weekend primetime window, ESPN can help continue the leagues’ growth while replacing a legacy property in SNB, which will air on NBC this season after ESPN and MLB mutually opted out of the final three years of a broadcast partnership.