On Friday, EA Sports released FC 25, the latest edition of the company's best-selling soccer video game — now with increased playability and storytelling on the women's side.

For the first time in history, EAFC — formerly known as FIFA — is throwing Women's Manager and Player Career Mode into the mix. In Career Mode, players now have full access to 2024/25 rosters across the world's top women's leagues: NWSL, WSL, Première Ligue, Frauen-Bundesliga, and Liga F plus UEFA Women's Champions League.

"It's been a few years since they've been implementing women into the game and I've had a presence in this community," Gotham forward Midge Purce told JWS at Thursday night's FC 25 launch party in New York City. "It's been fun to see that presence grow in a really authentic way. For the first time ever, women have Career Mode and that's a really sick addition that you wish came from the beginning, but it's really nice that it's being added now."

According to EA Sports, Women's Career Mode features all the same detailed capabilities as Men's Manager Career Mode, but also incorporates "unique challenges that exist solely within the women's game." 

FC 24's Ultimate Teams paved the way for Women's Career Mode

Last year, FC 24 introduced women's football athletes into the brand's popular Ultimate Team mode. This addition allowed users to create their dream squads with both current stars as well as titans of the game like Mia Hamm and Kelly Smith as well as comic book-inspired "Women's Heroes," or stylized versions of real-life legends like Sonia Bompastor.

This year's upgrade represents a significant shift in programming for EA FC, which ended its 30-year partnership with international soccer's governing body FIFA after the game's 2023 release. The success of 2024's Ultimate Team inclusion likely preempted EA Sports' decision to expand women's soccer offerings to Career Mode. In addition to the managerial track, FC 25 users can also start a career on the pitch, following a player from team to team as they build skills via training and gameplay.

"The key thing that we wanted to do was present the women's career authentically, and make it feel like it really was, not just like men's career with women players," EAFC 25 design director Pete O'Donnell told reporters at a July 2024 preview event. "A lot of the systems behind the two mostly work the same, but it's the financial models and other things that make a really big difference."

In FC 25, women's soccer stars are on par with the men

FC 25 is the second video game to feature a career track for athletes in women's sports, following 2K Sports' 2021 edition of NBA 2K.

However, NBA 2K's The W mode operates separately from the men's side, while FC 25 takes a more integrated approach, allowing users to transition from playing on a women's team to managing a men's team, while Ultimate Team also allows athletes from both men's and women's leagues to play on the same squad.

According to Purce, seeing women's soccer elevated to the same level as men's, even in video game form, can impact users long after they turn off their consoles.

"When you can see and play with other players, that's crazy — like there's [ACFC star Sydney] Leroux in the locker room," she said. "It just makes it easier for girls to be engaged in it in a way that we haven't been before.

"When I was younger I used to play what was known as FIFA, but I would've played more if there were women I could have played with. If I could've used [Japanese soccer icon Homare] Sawa, I'd have loved that. That would have been nuts."

EA FC's women's soccer offerings show broad appeal

And it's not just young girls taking advantage of EA FC's increased interest in the women's game.

In FC 24's first 24 days on the market last year, EA Sports released statistics showing that 357 million online Ultimate Team squads had at least one women's soccer star among their starting XI. Additionally, women's leagues accounted for four of the top 10 leagues in terms of representation across all online Ultimate Teams. 

"My brother, who plays EA a lot, he'll call me and get really upset about my ratings, or he'll use me and be like, 'You just scored a goal!'" Purce continued. "To be in the conversation — where they do know you and they're either happy or upset — that's sports. In the sports world, it's more important to be in the space than anything else."  

EA SPORTS FC 25 is now available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Wisconsin volleyball is off to the attendance races, with the No. 7 college squad averaging 8,620 fans per match this season to become this NCAA's best-attended program — narrowly beating Big Ten rival No. 1 Nebraska's 8,602 current average.

Other than the Badgers and Cornhuskers, no other college volleyball team has surpassed 6,000 fans per match this year, but Wisconsin is well on track to surpass even their own dominant attendance history in the sport.

If they finish the season in the top attendance spot, the Badgers will snap a six season streak logging the second-best average crowds per year.

Even more, Wisconsin is on their way to blasting through their program-best mark, set when 7,761 fans per match filled the bleachers in 2022.

The growing demand for Badger volleyball is also translating into significant revenue boosts for school.

"We're really, really excited; we're going to exceed $2 million in volleyball ticket sales for the first time ever," Wisconsin deputy athletic director Mitchell Pinta told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this week. "And we're largely sold out for the rest of our matches at the Field House for the remainder of the season."

Should the Badgers reach that $2 million mark, they will see a massive 25% increase over the $1.6 million the team garnered just two seasons ago, and a near 18-fold growth from the $111,809 in volleyball ticket sales that Wisconsin logged in 2013.

Ultimately, the sky's the limit for both Wisconsin volleyball — and the sport at-large.

"If there's a saturation point on the demand for Wisconsin volleyball, we certainly have not seen it yet," said Pinta.

How to watch Wisconsin volleyball in action

With conference play kicking off this weekend, No. 7 Wisconsin will host unranked Big Ten foe Rutgers at 8 PM ET on Friday, before paying a visit to also-unranked Iowa at 3 PM ET on Sunday.

Both Big Ten battles will stream live on B1G+.

WSL side Liverpool opened their 2025/26 League Cup campaign with an emotional 5-0 win over WSL2 club Sunderland on Wednesday, dedicating the shutout victory to former manager Matt Beard after the 47-year-old's sudden passing last Saturday.

The match marked the Reds' return to the pitch following the postponement of their Sunday regular-season game against Aston Villa due to Beard's passing.

"It's a good win for Matt. We played with a lot of emotion," Liverpool defender Jenna Clark said afterwards, calling Wednesday "a really emotional night and an emotional few days for everyone involved with the club."

"We have pulled through together as a team the best we could and you saw that on the pitch tonight," Clark added.

Beard won back-to-back WSL titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014, departing the Reds in 2015 for a two-year stint with the NWSL's Boston Breakers.

He made his return to Liverpool in 2021, lifting the club back into the top-flight WSL by earning promotion his first season back at the helm.

"Matt will leave a huge void in the women's game," USWNT head coach and former Chelsea boss Emma Hayes said in a statement earlier this week. "He was one of a kind, and his loss will be felt by all. My heart goes out to his family, but I want to take the time to acknowledge what a special man he really was."​

How to watch Liverpool this weekend

Liverpool will continue their 2025/26 WSL campaign against Manchester United this Sunday, kicking off live at 7 AM ET on ESPN+.

The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup culminates on Saturday, when host nation England battles for their first tournament title in more than a decade in a top-tier final against Canada, who are hunting their first-ever world championship trophy.

The Red Roses' long dominance on the Rugby World Cup pitch has led them to eight finals in the competition's nine editions, with England emerging victorious twice — in 1994 and 2014.

On the other hand, Canada will make just their second-ever appearance in the World Cup final this Saturday, as the Maple Leafs aim for a decidedly different outcome from their 21-9 loss to England in the 2014 championship game.

The top-ranked Red Roses will also be looking to avenge their narrow 34-31 loss to New Zealand in the tournament's most recent 2022 edition when they square off against No. 2 Canada in front of an sold-out crowd inside London's Twickenham Stadium — with another women's rugby attendance record on the line.

"You feed off of that energy, especially knowing what this game is going to be," England defense coach Sarah Hunter said. "It's a cliché, but [the crowd] almost becomes the 16th person in those moments where you need them."

How to watch the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup final

England and Canada will battle in the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup final at 11 AM ET on Saturday, with live coverage airing on Paramount+.

While the No. 1 Kansas City Current have officially run away with the 2025 NWSL Shield, the race for top playoff seeding rages on, as the No. 2 Washington Spirit fights to hold their ground against an unpredictable No. 9 Houston Dash this Sunday.

Bolstered by star Trinity Rodman's return from injury, the Spirit enter the weekend on a nine-game unbeaten streak, going up against a motivated Dash side sitting just two points outside of postseason contention.

"Every game we just need to be a lot more clinical in the final third," Rodman said after last weekend's 2-2 draw with No. 11 Angel City. "We're doing all the hard stuff and then it's [lacking] quality at the end."

Washington isn't without top-table challengers, with No. 3 Gotham FC riding their own five-game unbeaten streak into a Friday night match against the No. 4 Portland Thorns, who sit tied for points with both the Bats and the No. 5 San Diego Wave in the NWSL standings.

"At this stage, almost everyone still has a real chance to make the playoffs, which is great for the league," said Gotham manager Juan Carlos Amorós after the Bats' 1-1 draw with Bay FC last Sunday. "But it also means nothing can be taken for granted."

How to watch the Washington Spirit and Gotham FC this weekend

No. 3 Gotham FC kicks off this weekend's NWSL action when they host the No. 4 Portland Thorns at 8 PM ET on Friday, with live coverage on NWSL+.

Then in Sunday's NWSL action, the No. 9 Houston Dash will visit the No. 2 Washington Spirit at 1 PM ET, airing live on Paramount+.