‘Just getting started’: how San Diego smashed the NWSL attendance record

The San Diego Wave broke in Snapdragon Stadium by setting a National Women’s Soccer League attendance record, as over 32,000 fans watched a 1-0 win over fellow expansion side Angel City.

The record-breaking crowd is part of a trend in 2022 after Barcelona twice broke the worldwide mark for a women’s match this year, most recently with a 91,648 strong crowd in April.

The Wave crowd, meanwhile, topped the 25,000 fans who attended a Portland Thorns game in 2019 to set the NWSL record, and the team to the top of the league table.

It was 30 minutes before the crowd, electric from whistle to whistle and led by the Sirens supporter group, was rewarded with a goal when 17-year-old Jaedyn Shaw scored the first goal in Snapdragon Stadium history, on a header off a pass from Sofia Jokobsson. Shaw, a star on the US Youth National Team, joined the Wave in July after she was granted permission to enter the league’s Discovery Process in midseason, relinquishing her NCAA eligibility and allowing her to turn professional ahead of the 2023 draft. Shaw has now scored in every professional game in which she’s played.

Wave keeper Kailen Sheridan closed the door on Angel City’s best opportunity of the night in the 71st minute, diving to her right to save a penalty shot then snuffing out a rebound opportunity and smothering the ball before flashing an ear-to-ear grin to three defenders standing above her. Angel City never threatened again and the game ended 1-0.

Before moving into Snapdragon Stadium – built by San Diego State University, primarily for the use of its football team – the Wave’s home for its inaugural season had been nearby Torrero Stadium, capacity 6,000.

The team sold those games out, but their plan to move to the brand new,