NCAA Division 1 - Women Live Streaming and TV Schedule

About NCAA Division 1 - Women

The NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship, also known as the Women’s College Cup, is an annual soccer tournament usually played each November through December in the United States among teams in Division I, which is the top tier of collegiate sports.

The first NCAA tournament, which started in 1982, had just 12 teams and was won by UNC-Chapel Hill. It did not become an exclusively Division I championship until 1988 when the NCAA created two other separate tournaments for Division II and Division III.

Over the years, the number of teams featuring in the Division I Women’s Soccer Championship has steadily grown in size. In 1993, it added four more teams, and three years later doubled in size 32; by 1998, this number had grown to 48.

The Women’s College Cup did not reach its 64-team format until 2001. There are over 330 soccer teams nationwide with Division I status that feature in 31 conferences including the Ivy League, the Patriot League, Atlantic Coast, and the Pac-12. In addition, there are teams that participate in the season that are recognized as “independents” so they do not belong to a conference for a specific sport.

Under the 64-team format, the pool is selected as such: 31 teams receive automatic bids, and 33 receive “at-large” bids. The 31 teams that get an automatic ticket are all winners of either their respective conference tournaments (28) or win their regular conference season titles (3) – notably the West Coast, Pac-12, and the Ivy League conferences do not have separate conference tournaments.

As for the other 33 teams, they are selected based on how they perform during the regular season (which runs from August through November). Another major factor is also the overall strength of a team’s conference – so a team competing in a more “difficult” conference will be given preference in selection over a team featuring in an “easier” division.

Once the 64 teams are selected, they are then seeded and divided up into four brackets of 16. Unlike in basketball, in which every team gets a ranking, the women’s soccer tournament only focuses on the top 16 teams. In addition, when deciding to make the groups, tournament organizers take into account several factors: teams in the same conference and teams who are seeded can not play each other in the first or second rounds, and also to minimize travel as much as possible.


The teams then play each other in a single-elimination format until each group has a bracket winner. Each top seed in the bracket always gets to play all its games on home turf until they get to the actual final four of the College Cup, which will feature the four group winners of the respective brackets.

The winner of this tournament ultimately is crowned the national champion of NCAA Division I women’s collegiate soccer. Players in this tournament also get the opportunity to win the coveted Hermann Trophy, an annual award given to the best women’s soccer player in the United States. Past recipients of this prize include USWNT legend Mia Hamm and Canadian icon Christine Sinclair; more recent winners include Crystal Dunn and Canada’s Kadeisha Buchanan.

UNC-Chapel Hill is by far the most successful side in NCAA Division I Women’s soccer history. Although other teams, such as Stanford, have recently enjoyed success lately, the 2019 final, which was live-streamed online, saw Stanford have to show their mettle in a gritty shoot-out against North Carolina after a tense scoreless match that went to overtime, thus showing that the Tar Heels continue to remain a serious competitor for the coveted title each and every season.

Media Coverage

Interest in the women’s game has grown exponentially over the years, and TV coverage has naturally expanded at both the local and national level in the United States. The NCAA Division I Women’s College Cup also has seen increased viewership, with live streaming and on-demand options proving to be especially popular with fans who want a more on-the-go experience.

Internationally, such as in Canada and the UK, there are TV broadcasts and live streaming selections available for fans throughout the course of the tournament as well as over the duration of the regular soccer season.