NWSL Star Midge Purce Tired of ‘Derivative’ Marketing in Women’s Sports

Midge Purce has won an NWSL title and made a few dozen appearances for the U.S. women’s national team. Now she’s branching out into the media world, and has thoughts on how her league has been promoted until now.

“I’ve always felt that the NWSL, as well as the way that women’s sports in general is marketed, has been really derivative of men’s sports,” Purce, who missed the Paris Olympics with a torn ACL, said Friday at the Front Office Sports Huddle in the Hamptons event. In Purce’s view, the NWSL takes too much of its cues from MLS, entering the same markets and copying “their structure and their game plans.”

And it’s not just about looking toward MLS, Purce argued. American women’s soccer is too modeled off the European men’s leagues, from calling jerseys “kits” to many clubs choosing “football club” over “soccer club” in their name. That dynamic doesn’t take into account the product on the field, Purce said.

What’s the fix? Purce hopes to address NWSL’s branding struggles through her new show The Offseason, from her new company of the same name. The show has finished filming six 30-minute episodes that will premiere later this year. The reality-style show was filmed in Miami two weeks before the NWSL preseason with 11 athletes sharing one house. With talking heads and references to drama and alcohol, the trailer feels more like a fun, light reality show than a serious, heavy sports docuseries.

“The purpose of the show is to reform the way in which women and sport are marketed and consumed, as well as the athletes themselves,” Purce said. “The idea of doing The Offseason was trying to take a step back and look at the product that we have, which is completely different and a completely different audience, and say, what’s the correct way to market this?”

If The Offseason succeeds in attracting a wave of new fans to NWSL, it will be just the latest streaming series to boost the sport it highlights: Drive to Survive (Formula One racing) and Full Swing (golf) are some of the most prominent recent examples. And if you ask Wale Ogunleye, NFL alum and head of the sports and entertainment division at UBS, the intersection of sports and entertainment is only getting hotter as an investment area: “Sports and entertainment is almost a bulletproof industry,” he said on the same panel at FOS Huddle in the Hamptons. “Everybody wants to be entertained, no matter the time, the date, the structure, athletes and sports entertainment will be needed.”

Purce is hardly alone among athletes in actively seeking to have an impact on their whole sport or league through their off-field activities. Marques Colston, who played 10 seasons in the NFL and won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints, shared the stage with Purce and Ogunleye and remarked, “I think we’re seeing a shift where athletes are taking a more active role within their own ecosystem.” Colston, who launched an athlete-focused VC fund this year, and Purce, with The Offseason, are clear examples of the trend.