Goals, guests and 6,561 scenarios: inside ESPN on the biggest NWSL Decision Day yet
The final day of the regular season gave fans Gotham’s Shield win, a farewell to a Seattle hero and a new part-whiparound, part-watchalong show to take it all in As a player, Ali Krieger went into NWSL Decision Day focused on one result.
- For the first time, all of the final games of the NWSL season were aired by the same network.
- She was Gotham FC’s captain in 2023, the first time the league played all of the final games of the regular season simultaneously.
- The job, she remembers, was to not worry about the other games going on.
Krieger, now a lead analyst for ESPN, and host Kelsey Riggs Cuff anchored the coverage from headquarters in Bristol with a show that was part whiparound, part watchalong, and ultimately wholly new for the 14-year-old league.
Three years later, Krieger spent Decision Day with eyes on not one game but eight.
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