On Friday, November 15th, the 2024 edition of the NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship gets underway. Except for the College Cup, which will be on ESPNU, all other matches of the tournament will stream live on ESPN+.
The bracket for the tournament (NCAA.com) was announced on Monday, November 11th. A printable PDF version (with really small print) can be downloaded from the NCAA.com website.
How to Watch
In the United States, all matches of the first four rounds of the 2024 NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship will stream live on ESPN+ (plus.espn.com), which is a paid streaming service from ESPN that is separate from its cable/satellite/etc. channels such as ESPN and ESPN2.
The College Cup — i.e., the national semifinals and the final — will be shown live on the ESPNU channel and will be available via ESPN+.
For live scores, the official NCAA.com interactive bracket is the best option, though sometimes there may delays or other issues in updating. For following individual matches, StatBroadcast provides more detailed statistics.
Format
Tournament Structure
The tournament consists of 64 teams competing in a single-match knockout bracket. Only the top 32 teams are seeded.
The First Round will be played over the weekend of Friday, November 15th, to Sunday, November 17th. Each seeded team normally hosts their opening match.
The Second and Third Round will be played on Friday, November 22nd and Sunday, November 24th, respectively. Each pair of Second Round matches is usually hosted by the highest seed among the four teams, though sometimes the next-highest seed will host if the top seed is unable to host due to scheduling conflicts or other issues. The Third Round match is also hosted at the same campus site, even if the host is eliminated in their Second Round match.
The Fourth Round will be played on the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving, so either November 29th or November 30th. As with the opening round, the higher-ranked team typically hosts the match.
The College Cup will be played the first weekend of December, with the national semifinals on Friday, December 6th, and the championship match on Monday, December 9th. This year, the College Cup will be held at the home of the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage: WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina.
Extra Time and Penalties
For the 2024 season, the NCAA has reverted to its traditional sudden death overtime rule — a.k.a. the “golden goal” rule — for tournament matches. (See Rule 7.2 of the NCAA Soccer – 2024 and 2025 Rules Book.) This is in contrast to the normal FIFA tournament format of playing two full periods of extra time.
Also, the extra time periods are shorter: 10 minutes each, versus 15 minutes under the normal FIFA format.
If no team has scored in the two periods of extra time, then the match will be decided via a standard penalty shootout.
First Round Schedule
Notes:
- All times listed are Eastern.
- Schedule is subject to change.
- Hyperlinks link to the match’s ESPN+ stream.
- The home team is listed first.
Friday, November 15th
4:00 p.m. ET
4:30 p.m. ET
5:00 p.m. ET
6:00 p.m. ET
- #1 Duke vs. Howard
- #2 North Carolina vs. South Carolina Upstate
- #2 Wake Forest vs. Morehead State
- #3 Ohio State vs. James Madison
- #3 South Carolina vs. East Carolina
7:00 p.m. ET
- #3 Iowa vs. Missouri State
- #4 Notre Dame vs. Milwaukee
- #4 Texas vs. Boston University
- #4 Virginia vs. Princeton
- #5 Kentucky vs. West Virginia
- #6 Auburn vs. Florida International
- #6 Minnesota vs. South Dakota State
- #7 Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee
7:30 p.m. ET
8:00 p.m. ET
- #5 TCU vs. Stephen F. Austin
- #5 Wisconsin vs. Maine
- #7 BYU vs. Santa Clara
- #8 Saint Louis vs. Kansas
- #8 Texas Tech vs. LSU
- #8 Vanderbilt vs. Lipscomb
Women's Soccer Express 