Nahomi Kawasumi loves soccer.

It may seem like a no-brainer: a professional athlete who continues to be delighted by the game she plays for a living. Yet plenty of stars have more conflicted or ambivalent relationships to the sport while others sound outright jaded. In her memoir Forward, Abby Wambach describes her early revolt against family pressure to play amid fears that she’d have to choose between soccer and herself. “I spent my summer at soccer camp, all the while plotting ways to rebel,” she recalls.

On the men’s side, Italy’s Mario Balotelli has famously likened scoring points to delivering mail. “I do not celebrate my goals because it is my job,” he says. “When a postman delivers a letter, does he celebrate?”

‘Naho’, on the other hand, consistently uses the word ‘joy’ to describe her experience of playing. “I’ve been asked why I liked it so much from an early age,” says the former Japanese Women’s National Team and current Sky Blue FC star. “I think the primary reason was just the fun and joy I found in the game.”

Kawasumi is one of Japan’s most decorated players, a 2011 World Cup champion who scored two goals in the semi-final against Sweden to carry her team into the epic final match against the U.S. She earned an Olympic silver medal with the team in 2012 and was on Japan’s 2015 World Cup team that lost its rematch against the USWNT in the final.

After joining the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in 2014, she scored nine goals and five assists in her debut season with the Seattle Reign and established a single-season record for nine assists in the 2017 season.  Recently she was traded to Sky Blue FC, where she’s already making her presence felt.

As an international player with experience in both the Japan and U.S., Kawasumi has perspective on the life-changing difference a World Cup victory can make, as well as the importance of consistent fan support, what it takes to create a successful women’s league and how media coverage can help or hurt the game.

Winning the World Cup was a peak experience for Kawasumi and her teammates – indeed, for the entire country which was still reeling in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck in March earlier that year. “It was an extremely joyous and momentous time for us,” she says. “I felt like we had really accomplished something. In the past, the major title had been with America but once we’d knocked them off, we realized how hard it was to get there and maintain that level of play. But just the fact that we were able to go through that process and see what it takes to win was a really beneficial and powerful experience.”

The women were hailed as heroes in Japan and for a while there was increased interest in the women’s J-League, but that eventually waned. In part, that had to do with the nature of Japanese fandom, according to Kawasumi. “If a team is doing well people will praise them but if they’re not, people aren’t really aware of them or following them,” she says. “It’s really important that we have the women’s league but if the women’s national team isn’t doing well and getting media coverage, it’s likely that the women’s league is also not getting that same coverage. One depends on the other.”

Women’s soccer has a steadier fan base in America, she believes. “Regardless of whether it’s the World Cup or the Olympics, in the U.S. the game sustains a higher level of fans. Of course, I want there to be a larger base in Japan, but we really don’t have that kind of culture.”

Both countries share one unfortunate commonality: a substantial gap between what male and female players are paid. The difference, Kawasumi says, is that in Japan it’s virtually impossible for women to make a living strictly on their soccer pay. “There’s an enormous pay gap between the men’s and the women’s game. For women, if you’re not working outside of the game, you’re not able to play,” she explains. “There are about five women who play on my club team that also play on national teams and get endorsements. INAC Kobe is the only team in the league where you might get by without having to work.”

The result is that players have no time for any kind of outside life because working takes up every hour not spent practicing. “There’s just no money,” she says. “It’s really important for us to have a pro league so the women aren’t working and can just focus on soccer. I admire the NWSL in that you can get a salary. It’s not high but it’s accepted. I don’t know if there are enough women in Japan who find it unacceptable enough to really motivate change and push to get a pro league.”

Despite the national team’s status, increased media coverage doesn’t always help their cause, fueling perceptions of the team that have nothing to do with soccer. “In Japan, you’ll often see articles about how someone is cute or things that don’t really reflect on the game or their performance as professionals,” Kawasumi contends. “As long as people continue to interview at that low level, the game won’t grow. It’s hard to maintain interest when we’re talking about those kinds of personal qualities instead of the game.”

Having representation at the highest levels of FIFA is also important to growing the women’s game, she contends. Ideally, the future she envisions includes a huge fan base, wide media coverage and equitable pay. “I want it to be an everyday occurrence that there’s a high level of play across all countries,” she says, “and people who support a thriving women’s game.”

In the meantime, she continues to enjoy herself. As incredible as the World Cup victory was, she also brings up the day she joined the Seattle Reign and began playing in the NWSL as one of the most inspirational of her career. “There’s something every day,” she says. “When I first started playing in elementary school, it was really fun but the more I do it, the more fun it becomes. I believe that in the entirety of my career, this is the most fun I’ve ever had.”

Aly Wagner has heard the critiques. When, in the course of calling a televised women’s soccer game, she points out that a defensive player is not marking the man in the box, inevitably a viewer will object, “But they’re not men.”

As a two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup bronze medalist with the U.S. Women’s National Team, Wagner is well aware of that fact – and she also knows how female soccer players actually talk during games. “It’s not sexist, it’s just quick. It’s functional,” she says.

Challenging assumptions is nothing new to Wagner. Since retiring as a player for the USWNT and the Los Angeles Sol, she has worked as an analyst for Fox Sports and ESPN, becoming the first woman to call a FIFA Men’s World Cup game on U.S. television. In an era when media coverage of women’s soccer still includes sexist gaffes (exhibit A: the 2018 Ballon D’Or awards) she is known for an ability to break down the technical aspects of the game and zero in on performances from players who often go unrecognized.

And while she is undoubtedly a barrier-breaking icon for women’s sports, Wagner believes that the greatest sign of real parity will be when gender is no longer a consideration. “I may be the odd one out on this, but I’m for ‘who’s the best person for the job,’” she says. “If it’s a woman, then so be it, but prove that you’re the best.”

Having said that, she also knows the importance of having female voices in media. “We see things differently in so many ways. You don’t want the same narrative being painted in every single game. Of course, there are experiences that I’ve had with the women’s national team that give me a greater understanding of what’s truly going on and what these women have gone through.”

The second act of Wagner’s soccer career started with a last-minute opportunity to be part of the 2015 Women’s World Cup. She had done some analysis for college games but had no aspirations to join the media. “I had no idea if I’d be any good,” she says. “I went out there and took a shot with it and really enjoyed it. I’ve embraced it ever since.”

Both as a player and while viewing games post-retirement, Wagner noticed gaps in the commentary. “When people would cover our games for the national team, the details weren’t being discussed,” she explains. “Someone would make an amazing pass and I’d think, ‘Why aren’t they talking about that? Why are they only talking about things that are at 30,000 feet when that one pass just opened up this whole play?’ It bothered me. My passion for the game is so deep and I love the layers and nuances of it. I wanted to share that with the audience.”

Once she began commentating, Wagner understood that it isn’t always possible to highlight the plays she wanted to due to the constraints of the format and flow of the game. Still, her goal is to bring a greater level of awareness to viewers. “I want to get down to the details that can either make or break a play or highlight a player who seemingly is innocuous but really, they’re doing amazing things,” she says.

Later she began calling men’s games, uncharted territory for a female analyst. Wagner expected criticism, but the viewers surprised her. “It hasn’t been a big issue,” she says. “It was literally one person that made completely silly remarks about me being a woman. Being in studios, you’re always going to have those negative voices on Twitter, but it’s been fine.”

Wagner and JP Dellacamera will be the lead broadcasters for Fox Sports coverage of the 2019 World Cup, which will include all 52 games aired live, an unprecedented level of coverage. Twenty-two will air on broadcast television and 27 on FS1. “The resources being poured into it are a big deal,” says Wagner. “There is so much that goes on behind the scenes to paint the picture and provide the graphics for the analysis.”

That investment needs to be highlighted and celebrated, she contends. “It takes brave people to recognize the value that is intrinsically here with women’s soccer and women athletes. It’s brave, but it’s also just good business. These are the people who will make the sport in America and worldwide, who are taking a chance to say, ‘We’re going to go against what has been the norm over the past 50 years.’”  

Executive Producer David Neal on Equity in Sports Media

From the beginning of his tenure at Fox Sports, David Neal had a clear directive about how to cover women’s soccer. After legendary former chairman David Hill and current President Eric Shanks hired Neal as Executive Producer of FIFA World Cup and Vice President of Production, they shared their vision for the upcoming 2015 Women’s World Cup.

“In the very first meeting we had after I’d come on board, they told me, ‘We don’t want you treating the Women’s World Cup like a laboratory for the men,’” Neal recalls. “‘We want the exact same full-throttle resources applied to the Women’s World Cup that will be applied to the men’s.’ There was complete equity, and that’s a real tribute to the leadership here.”

The approach worked. The 2015 tournament broke all viewing records, demolishing the tired but persistent argument that audiences are not interested in women’s sports. The final between the U.S. and Japan was the most-watched soccer game in U.S. history, attracting more than 25 million viewers.

To put that in perspective, the first time the USWNT team won a World Cup in 1991, American news outlets barely paid attention. The tournament itself bore no resemblance to the international spectacle surrounding the men’s game. In fact, FIFA wasn’t sure they wanted their brand associated with women, dubbing it the ‘1st FIFA World Championship for Women’s Football for the M&M’s Cup.’ The dubious logic behind this decision was based on the idea that the main sponsor, Mars, was the parent company for M&Ms. When the world champion U.S. team returned home, their plane was met by four people: two reporters, the coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team, and a friend of star midfielder Michelle Akers.

Twenty-eight years later, Neal and Fox Sports have been part of a fundamental shift in media coverage of women’s soccer, both through investment and the nature of the coverage itself. The sheer amount of money and resources Fox devoted to the 2015 World Cup was unprecedented and the overwhelming response has made even more possible as 2019 approached. “It was an emphatic validation of the fact that the women rightly needed to be covered and broadcast exactly the way we do the men,” says Neal. “The enormous success we had in terms of viewership gave us great momentum.”

Success is nothing new to Neal. In his 30 years at NBC prior to joining Fox in 2012, he produced nine Olympics, four NBA finals, two World Series and a Super Bowl pregame show. Along the way he earned 33 Sports Emmys and two Primetime Emmys and was recognized with a Peabody Award for NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Beijing.

One of his first moves at Fox Sports was hiring a broadcast team with an ability to break down the game for an increasingly soccer-savvy audience. In previous years both fans and players had noted that commentators tended to focus more on backstory and less on analysis during women’s games. For 2015, Neal brought on several people known more for their work on the field than behind a mic, including former USWNT midfielder Aly Wagner.

Their coverage of the World Cup was critically acclaimed and Wagner in particular has become known for an ability to break down the technical aspects of the game and zero in on performances from players who often go unrecognized. She has since become the first woman to call a men’s World Cup game. According to Neal, Wagner exemplifies what he’s looking for in a commentator. “A litmus test that we apply is for our team to tell the audience ‘why, not what,’” Neal says. “Ally can explain why someone scored or turned the ball over, not the fact that it happened. You can see that for yourself. That’s what our best commentators do, regardless of the gender of the players on the field.”

Another change had to do with storytelling. In previous World Cups, reporters seemed to go out of their way to make players seem approachable and non-threatening. The term ‘girl next door’ was used so frequently by journalists that one columnist sarcastically wrote an article entitled ‘Reports: Girl Next Door a Dental Hygienist, Not a Member of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.’

In contrast, Neal and his team focused on players as athletes. “Far from emphasizing some sort of perceived feminine qualities, this was about a world championship and we wanted to go at it full speed ahead,” he says. “There was no real variance from how we would cover men. That was the guidance I was given initially and consistently throughout, and it was the right way to go.”

That doesn’t mean storytelling went out the window, but the nature of it changed to reflect more about who players actually are than what might make viewers comfortable. “We had someone like Megan Rapinoe who was so open about her sexuality and her focus on being the best in the world at what she does, or like Carli Lloyd who is so driven that she would go out in the snow in the dead of winter in New Jersey and still work out,” says Neal. “People like that who open up to our profiles and features unit and allow us to tell their stories, that’s key to attracting and holding on to a significant television audience.”

With the U.S. men’s team failing to qualify for World Cup 2018, it’s an interesting time for U.S. Soccer, he believes. “The men’s program obviously needs to be overhauled. The women, on the other hand, are the reigning world champions. They’re the beacon of hope on the horizon.”

As the 2019 World Cup got closer, other countries have begun to invest more resources and coverage into their women’s teams. Neal hopes that approach becomes commonplace in the future. “I’d love to see women’s sports in general reflecting what we’ve been able to do with the Women’s World Cup,” he says. “Excellent athletes should be given appropriate coverage and it’s really not a question of men vs. women.”

Meanwhile, he’s been keeping a whiteboard in his office that tells him exactly how many days until the tournament kicks off. “You can be absolutely certain that as we build up for the Women’s World Cup, it will have exactly the same resonance and emphasis that any men’s event would have,” says Neal. “We’re looking forward to France.”

Sarina Wiegman began her soccer career as an outlaw. The Dutch Women’s National Team head coach first joined a soccer team along with her twin brother at age six, cropping her hair so no one would suspect she was female.

 “There was no girls’ soccer at all at that time,” says Wiegman. “I started with the boys team, which was actually illegal. Sometimes we had problems from parents but I really enjoyed it so I didn’t care.” 

Over 40 years later, Wiegman has become a driving force behind the evolution of women’s soccer in Holland and a pioneer as both player and coach. In 2001 she became the first female Dutch player to earn 100 caps and in 2017, she coached Holland to its first UEFA championship. FIFA named her as 2018’s World Coach of the Year and she is currently ranked number one on FIFA’s list of international coaches based on her win/loss record for the past twelve months. She is the third Dutch woman to earn a UEFA Pro coaching license and the first to serve as assistant manager for a men’s professional team.

The UEFA Cup victory was a gamechanger in Holland, a nation known for stopping work and turning orange during men’s championships. Matches began selling out within days of going on sale – and then within hours. “We wanted to get into the hearts of the Dutch population and we did,” says Wiegman. “It was really amazing what we accomplished that summer.” 

With success has come opportunity through sponsorships and media attention. It all comes down to showing the public who they are, Wiegman contends. “We play attractive, we work hard and we play as a team. That keeps the crowd interested.” 

All of which is a long way from the years of shorn hair and dodging disapproving parents. In the 80’s as Wiegman grew up, soccer was still considered a boys’ sport. Even when she found a girls’ team at age twelve, it wasn’t really accepted. “The opinion was that it was for girls who wanted to be boys,” she explains. “I had friends whose parents wouldn’t let them play, but my parents were open-minded and said,’You should do what you like and we’ll support you.’” 

A turning point came when legendary University of North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance invited Wiegman to join the team during the 1989 season amid a run of nine consecutive NCAA championship titles. “Playing with the Tar Heels totally changed my mindset,” she says. “In the Netherlands, I always thought that I was different from other girls because I wanted to play every day. People told me, ‘You’re too fanatic.’ When I went to Carolina it was like a soccer paradise for young women.” 

Returning home, she had one goal: to bring the level of women’s soccer in the Netherlands up to what she had experienced in the U.S. “I wanted to help,” she says. “I knew I couldn’t do it alone but I wanted to make a difference in the part of the sport I could control.  We needed facilities to train every day, good programs and good coaches. After twenty years, we finally got a system like that.” 

As much as she wanted to play, from an early age Wiegman also knew she wanted to teach sports. Coaching, however, wasn’t an option – yet. “There weren’t any prospects of being a coach as a woman when I was young,” she says. “When I got older, the game improved and there were more chances.” During her playing career she earned a UEFA A coaching license, working as a physical education teacher both before and after retirement. Like many female international players, Dutch women currently need additional income to sustain themselves 

Finally in 2007, she made the leap to full-time coaching. “At the time it was kind of a risk because it wasn’t very stable,” says Wiegman. “I wanted to work with ambitious people and make a difference in soccer so I made the choice.” In 2016 she became one of a handful of women to earn  a UEFA Pro coaching license after completing the Dutch Football Association’s coaching course and completing a one-year internship at Sparta Rotterdam. 

Having coached both men and women, she sees both the similarities and a few distinctions in how they need to be approached. No matter who you’re talking to, being specific in your feedback is important, she maintains. “If you want to improve the game and the players, you should always be specific. That’s why it’s good that we work with video analysis.” 

She believes in open communication and discussion, with a focus on the importance of understanding behavior. “If you want to have a group work together, it’s important to try to understand where behavior comes from,” she says. “It’s important with men also, but with women, when they don’t understand each other they can quickly separate into little groups because they look for support quicker and more easily, and that’s not what you want. You need to have some acceptance and understanding of each other.”  

When it comes to coaching, Wiegman thinks role models are critical but sometimes modesty or self-doubt can deter women from pursuing positions they deserve. “When there’s a job available, a lot of men think, ‘Okay, I’m just going to jump’ and afterward ask, ‘What is this about?’” she says. “And a lot of women think, ‘Am I good enough?’ I know I’m generalizing a bit but I’ve known a lot of women who think that way. We just have to go for the challenge because there are so many women that are very good in coaching.”  

As the sport continues to evolve, Wiegman wants to see opportunities for girls grow with it, including a pro league where women can earn a living wage. “For every player, there would be a place where she can play, at whatever level. If she’s really ambitious and talented and wants to become a Dutch national team player, then she’d have the facilities and opportunites to get there, but if she just wants to have fun with her friends, then there’s a club for her too.” 

Globally, she envisions women in positions throughout governing bodies like FIFA and UEFA  with upgraded facilities and more opportunities for playing and coaching. “It’s really important to educate women,” she says. “We want more women to be coaches and involved in other ways in soccer. They have to get chances.”