Washington Spirit women’s soccer players feel like ‘most popping team in D.C’ ahead of playoff run

The Washington Spirit women’s soccer team, the self-proclaimed “most-popping team in the city,” opens the playoffs at Audi Field on Sunday after a strong regular season that broke attendance records as more fans flock to women’s sports. 

Led by superstar Trinity Rodman, the No. 2 seed Spirit won 18 of their 26 matches in 2024 to earn home-field advantage in their first postseason appearance since their championship run in 2021. The path to another championship will begin with Sunday’s match against the No. 7 seed Bay FC. 

The NWSL’s three-round, single-elimination postseason tournament begins on Saturday and concludes with a championship match on Nov. 23 at the Kansas City Current’s CPKC Stadium, which hosted 13 consecutive sellouts this year.

 This year’s postseason is the culmination of a banner year for the 11-year-old women’s soccer league. The NWSL’s 14 teams welcomed more than 2 million fans, a 45% increase in attendance sparked in part by the U.S. national team’s Olympic gold medal performance and a surge in media coverage for women’s sports.

“There is finally recognition from the industry that there is an increasing demand for women’s sports content,” NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman told Forbes, citing the league’s media deals with ESPN, CBS and Prime Video. “It’s rapidly changing how women’s sports teams and leagues can and should be covered.”

For the Spirit, that increased demand has been accelerated by Rodman’s broad appeal. As the daughter of NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, she has the name recognition to headline commercials. In 2022, Trinity Rodman signed a four-year, $1.1 million contract that made her the highest-paid player in the NWSL.

She’s lived up to the hype. 

On the pitch, she flashed spectacular talent this season to rank second in the league in goals and third in assists. At the Paris Olympics, she netted three goals during the Americans’ gold-medal run.

But the Spirit aren’t a one-woman show. Rookie Croix Bethune led the league in assists this season, despite missing the final two months of the season with a knee injury she suffered while throwing out a ceremonial first pitch for the Washington Nationals. 

U.S. national team veterans Ashley Hatch and Casey Krueger provided a seasoned perspective as the young squad soared to the top of the NWSL table this year. 

“We are super talented. This team is very deep now. As the season has gone on, we’ve just been adding talent to what we’ve already had and I feel like we flow and mesh really well, and we did it quickly,” Bethune said. “It’s been an amazing season, and I feel like this team fights to the end.”

The Spirit’s on-field performances caught the eye of many fans this year, including NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson. The owner of the Washington Commanders doubled down on his investments in the nation’s capital, purchasing a minority stake in the Spirit in September. 

“[Spirit owner Michele Kang] is smart, intelligent, but also cares about the players off the field. And that’s what I do. I care about the players,” Johnson told The Washington Times. “It was a perfect match. She had already built a winning, successful team, and so I also liked that as well.”

According to a September report from Sportico, NWSL franchise values rose by 57% as the average club took in $15.4 million in revenue. 

Those projections place the young league ahead of the 25-year-old WNBA’s performance in 2023. Rookie sensation Caitlin Clark catapulted the WNBA to new heights in 2024, though, offering the NWSL a potential blueprint for the future.

“I feel like we can kind of ride that wave,” Bethune said. 

Investing in the Spirit was an easy call for Johnson. He’d considered investing in Los Angeles’ Angel City club before its inaugural season but decided to wait for the right fit.

Johnson jumped at the opportunity when Kang offered a stake in the Spirit this fall. It didn’t hurt that he already knew Trinity Rodman — he played against her famous father in two NBA Finals and held the soccer star as a child. 

“It’s really unreal,” Johnson said of his connection with Rodman. “That’s crazy when you think about that. I’m still in disbelief.”

In Johnson’s first game as an owner, Rodman notched a spectacular solo goal to even the score against the Portland Thorns. She celebrated the occasion with a mimed slam dunk in front of Johnson and Kang. 

“I love the way Trinity has approached the game,” Johnson said. “I think she still has a lot of room to grow and improve; we haven’t even tapped all the talent. She is so good, she doesn’t even realize how good she is yet.”

The NBA Hall of Famer joins a legion of famous faces interested in women’s soccer.

Though the NWSL — like most professional soccer leagues — is still losing money, actors and Olympians are joining ownership groups in force. Natalie Portman, skier Lindsey Vonn and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger count themselves among the NWSL’s illustrious group of owners. 

That star power does a lot to boost the young league. In D.C., the 6-foot-9 man in the owner’s suite is providing some extra motivation for the Spirit ahead of their playoff run.

“You want to show him there’s a good reason as to why he invested in us. We want to grow with him,” Bethune said. “I honestly feel like it’s a wake-up call that he’s taking the time to see how important we are. It’s Magic Johnson, like, come on.”

To secure a title, Rodman and the Spirit will need to win three matches in a row, starting with Bay FC on Sunday.

Recent years have been kind to the Spirit, which moved home games from small stadiums in Maryland and Virginia to the 20,000-seat Audi Field in D.C. last year. The team doesn’t typically sell out the stadium, but players say the atmosphere ranks among the best in the league. 

“It’s so nice playing in front of the D.C. fans. It’s so sick,” midfielder Hal Hershfelt said. “I feel like even friends on other teams that I have that play at our field; they’re like, ‘Ah, you guys have a great atmosphere.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know. It’s our home field.’”

If the Spirit secure a victory on Sunday, the club will host another playoff match on Nov. 16 or 17. 

Regardless of Sunday’s result, the record 2024 season is already a win for the upstart Spirit. 

“I feel like we’re one of, if not the popping team in D.C.,” Bethune said. “That’s great. A lot of people wouldn’t have thought that a women’s sport is one of the teams to watch in a city.”