Is Netflix's Women's World Cup rights deal a good thing for American soccer?

Netflix scored a major coup in its ambitious live sports programming efforts by securing the United States broadcast rights to the FIFA Women's World Cups for 2027 and 2031.

FIFA announced the "landmark moment" on Friday, touting the subscription streaming giant as an "outstanding platform to further promote the game" with "unparalleled access to every match live and to immersive coverage."

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The deal with Netflix, which has over 80 million U.S. and Canadian subscribers, "isn't just about streaming matches" but "also about celebrating the players, the culture and the passion driving the global rise of women’s sport," according to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

“Besides broadcasting the tournaments themselves, Netflix will play a key role in terms of bringing the fascination of women’s football to a multimillion audience in the lead-up to both final tournaments, thereby enabling us to further increase their appeal," Infantino said in a statement.

FIFA and Netflix have every reason to pop champagne bottles over their partnership. However, American soccer fans also have every right to be skeptical about soccer's governing body handing over one of its premier tournaments to a streaming company that just experienced buffering issues with a single night of boxing.

First of all, American soccer fans have already heard the merits of having a subscription streamer carry live soccer games and create shoulder programming. Two years ago, Major League Soccer and Apple TV struck a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal, and it's safe to say that landmark pact hasn't cured all of MLS's broadcasting (and branding) ills despite having Lionel Messi grace the league with his presence at Inter Miami.

Case in point: Two weeks ago, the MLS Cup final between the Los Angeles Galaxy and New York Red Bulls drew only 714,000 viewers across Apple TV and linear broadcaster Fox, which saw a 47% decrease from the previous year's title match. The year before the Apple deal, MLS Cup final drew its second-best English/Spanish audience of 2.16 million viewers.

What's to blame for the decline? The most popular theory is that, while Apple TV has given MLS games a permanent home with a regular weekly schedule, it has fallen short in the promotion of the league and its players among a crowded list of content offerings of original shows and movies.

MLS ranked second in 2024 total attendance among all global soccer leagues, so the issue is the marketing of the league outside its local markets — something Apple TV was supposed to help address.

Netflix surely will do a fantastic job bringing the stories of women's soccer's biggest stars to a mainstream audience. FIFA is hoping the sport enjoys the same massive leap in popularity the way Formula One has been elevated by Netflix's "Drive to Survive" documentary series.

The FIFA/Netflix deal will be great for the non-sports fan who loves a great story, whether it's the underdog hero or the hated villain. And with three years to shape those storylines until the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil, some casuals will certainly be converted into devoted footy fans.

But don't blame American fans for taking a wait-and-see approach on whether it's a big win for women's soccer in the U.S. They've seen this movie before on another streaming service.

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