Maybelline Women’s Lacrosse League Sets Inaugural Season for Summer 2026

Following on the success of the WLL’s Championship Series and All-Star Weekend earlier this year, the league is gearing up for its 11-week season debut.

Alex Aust Holman of the WLL’s Maryland Charm / Courtesy of the WLL

Just over nine months after announcing the launch of the Maybelline Women’s Lacrosse League (WLL), the inaugural season is set for summer 2026, the organization announced today. The schedule for the 11-week season will be released by the end of the year and will include  eight regular season weekends, an All-Star break and three championship playoff games.

The WLL officially debuted at the 2025 Lexus Championship Series in February in Springfield, Va., where the league’s four teams—Boston Guard, California Palms, Maryland Charm and New York Charging—competed for the Championship Series Trophy with the Boston Guard coming out victorious. Then, on July 4, the WLL held an All-Star Weekend in Kansas City at CPKC Stadium. The former was the most streamed women’s professional lacrosse game ever on ESPN+, proving what WLL cofounder and president Paul Rabil has been saying all along: sports fans have an appetite for women’s professional lacrosse, and the WLL is ready to deliver.

The WLL in action / Courtesy of the WLL

The inaugural season of the Women’s Lacrosse League is coming in 2026

With the league’s Championship Series and All-Star Weekend drumming up plenty of anticipation around women’s professional lacrosse, as well as the return of the sport to the Summer Olympics in 2028, there’s never been a more electrifying time to be a lacrosse fan.

“We’re really excited about announcing that the WLL will officially begin its regular season in 2026,” Rabil tells SI Swimsuit. “That’s now in addition to our WLL Championship Series, which we launched in February. So like the PLL, the WLL will now have its Championship Series and its regular season. It’s a credit to the success of the initial launch and the excitement around the WLL and the players, the game outcomes. the partnership contributions and even the excitement within the halls of ESPN to continue to distribute more women’s professional lacrosse games.”

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In addition to Maybelline, the league’s title sponsor, brands like Gatorade, Lexus, Whirlpool and U.S. Bank have also backed the WLL. As for the powerhouse women who make up the rosters on the WLL’s four teams, many of the athletes are already household names. Rabil calls out  Charlotte North (Boston Guard), Alex Aust Holman (Maryland Charm) and Lizzie Colson (Maryland Charm) as just a few major players.

“They are already big names in lacrosse households, and so it’s a pretty exciting opportunity to help them build on that,” Rabil says. “Charlotte North shot 95 miles an hour at the WLL All-Star game. It’s an extraordinary feat and she just plays the game differently. Like you talk about when you see any athlete who is transcending their sport, it’s not just on the scoreboard, it’s their style of play.”

As for Aust Holman, a 2021 Swim Search finalist and two-time All American at the University of Maryland, the opportunity to be an athlete ambassador for the WLL is a role she takes great pride in.

“ It’s honestly an honor and it really is just a way to continue to push forward in this sport,” Aust Holman says. “I think it’s important to continue to try and fight for women’s sports in general, and so any hand that I can have in being a part of that fight is really special to me.”

Alex Aust Holman / Courtesy of the WLL

Rabil’s hope for the first season of the WLL is for the women of the league to feel motivated and inspired to compete for a championship before training in the off-season to get back out there again in 2027. He hopes to drive awareness to the WLL while helping the league’s star athletes become household names in sports through storytelling.

Women’s lacrosse is trending upward

As previously mentioned, the WLL’s 2025 Lexus Championship Series was the most streamed women’s professional lacrosse game ever on ESPN+. Additionally, participation is soaring at the collegiate level. While there are 77 men’s Division I lacrosse programs in total, there are currently a whopping 131 NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse teams, with several schools planning to add varsity women’s lacrosse programs in the 2026-27 season, including UW-Superior and Brandeis.

Five-time SI Swimsuit model Katie Austin, a former Division I lacrosse player at USC, is incredibly grateful to see a rise in both participation and viewership of the sport. When she played her first collegiate game as a freshman in 2013—the same year the women’s lacrosse team was added to USC’s athletic program—Austin says rule books were passed out to spectators. Today, she spots young girls walking around her L.A. neighborhood with a lacrosse stick in hand and smiles at how far the sport has come.

In addition to the WLL creating a lucrative pathway for women to succeed as professional athletes, Austin points out that the league’s players have the potential to capitalize on additional opportunities, like content creation, to share their stories and grow their personal brands.

“We saw it with Olivia Dunne firsthand, how much she brought awareness to the sport of gymnastics,” she says. “Obviously gymnastics is a huge sport, but at the same time, she really empowered herself on social media. I see so many lacrosse girls doing that now which is so smart, and to utilize social media to grab awareness is so powerful.”

The format of the WLL and where to watch

When the WLL debuted at the 2025 PLL Championship Series in February, the tournament was played in lacrosse sixes. However, the WLL piloted a 10x10 format for the league’s All-Star Weekend in Kansas City in July, and is pivoting to the traditional format—consisting of nine players and one goalie on each side—for the 2026 regular season. While sixes is a condensed, faster-paced format of the game, 10s is played on a larger field at a slower pace.

In late June, ESPN and the Premier Lacrosse League signed a five-year media rights partnership agreement, which includes the distribution of all WLL games and drafts beginning with the 2026 season. All games in the inaugural WLL season will be streamed on ESPN+, while select matches also on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.

For more information, visit thewll.com.