NWSL Schedule Release Day is finally here! A routine announcement in other leagues, the annual reveal of the regular season schedule has become something of holiday for NWSL fans due to the lateness and unpredictability of its timing. (Although it is happening earlier every year. We appreciate you, NWSL!)

Recently, teams have gotten into the festivities by creating reveal videos to celebrate the upcoming season in variably cute or clever ways. And how better for us to enjoy those videos than by mercilessly reviewing them?

Rather than a hard ranking, I have divided this year’s videos into tiers. The tiers aren’t strictly best-to-worst, but some are obviously better than others. You’ll see.

Let’s get into it!

The best of the best

The videos in this category demonstrate both creativity and good execution. These are our shining stars.

Utah Royals FC

I was wary of this Bridgerton parody at first because of goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn’s frankly atrocious British accent, but she won me over with her strong line readings. The place settings for each team are cute, and I enjoyed the catty little comments. Good video!

Washington Spirit

A well-executed parody that made the millennials on my timeline very happy. The announcer voice and grainy video are spot-on, and the opening line, “Woman’s soccer is all the rAgE” gets me every time. Plus, they took the delightfully petty step of making fun of just one other team.

North Carolina Courage

I rate this one highly in large part because smashing glass objects while safely encased in a mascot costume looks like it would be a lot of fun.

Better than the rest

What separates these from the best? Mostly my preference.

Angel City FC

The concept doesn’t wow me, but this video from Angel City has high production values, a sponsor tie-in, and fun references to all the teams. They kept me guessing on what food would represent Washington, D.C., so I guess they have the element of surprise in their favor?

Orlando Pride

Orlando get in some pun-ny burns on the other teams, and if you have that much hardware, you might as well show it off. But the concept and dialogue are a little dull.

Basically fine

They are what they are.

Chicago Stars FC

Just a little poem with all the team names in it and a simple video.

Houston Dash

This is fine. A little basic, but I see some effort here. Perhaps its biggest problem is that it compares unfavorably with Washington’s 2024 planner video.

Variations on a theme

This category is where we discover that NWSL social media teams do not coordinate on these videos to ensure that they’re sufficiently different. Not necessarily worse than the previous couple of tiers, these made themselves difficult to judge by being just too damn similar.

NJ/NY Gotham FC

The best of these name-that-team style videos is Gotham FC’s because… it’s funny! Sure, I can quibble with the choice of name for each team — why are the Spirit “Arizona Queens” when “Baltimore” was an option? — but whoever made this clearly had a sense of humor, and I appreciate that.

Gotham also get bonus points for a teaser video in which Taryn Torres steals the schedule from NWSL HQ.

Portland Thorns

I may owe the Thorns an apology for watching their video immediately after Gotham’s. Execution’s not bad, and it’s nice to see recent retirees Christine Sinclair and Becky Sauerbrunn (and the increasingly frantic host), but this is a very long video that doesn’t even include all the teams.

Bay FC

Now Brandi Chastain and Tess Boade are asking the questions!

Kansas City Current

Kansas City tried to do something a little different by challenging their players to guess the names of other teams instead of randos, but this is still the same concept. I’m sorry.

Low-to-no effort

This is where things get really rough. Creating content on a short turnaround has got to be difficult, but I’d like to send all three of these teams back to the drawing board.

Racing Louisville

No disrespect to Bethany Balcer, but my first thought upon watching this one was “low effort” (hence the category name). I understand that this is a TikTok video made in the style of many TikTok videos, but it seems like all Louisville did was find some random video game footage, hand Boats the closest mic, and have her read the schedule. At least write your star some jokes!

San Diego Wave

This made me question if San Diego has diverted all of their video funds to the legal department. Please try again.

Seattle Reign FC

File not found! They didn’t do one! No, a preseason training video doesn’t count. No points.