The National Women's Soccer League had the opportunity to showcase its new broadcast partners for the first time last week as it opened its 2017 season with a nationally-televised game on Lifetime and other games available through live streams on the go90 platform.

The new broadcast options were met with mixed reviews.

While the partnership with Lifetime is a major step forward for the league, which has never had games nationally televised throughout the entire season, the go90 streams are causing some headaches for NWSL fans and could be an issue for Portland Thorns fans Saturday as the club has a game broadcast on the go90 platform for the first time when it travels to face the North Carolina Courage.

In the NWSL's first four seasons, fans were able to access games for free on YouTube. While fans can still access games for free on go90, the streams are currently only available on the mobile app for iOS and Android devices. Viewers with Chromecast or AppleTV can cast the live streams from their phones to their televisions, but there is no way for fans in the United States to watch games on a desktop or laptop computer for now. International fans can stream the games on NWSLsoccer.com.

That is something the NWSL is working to resolve.

The NWSL recognizes that fans want there to be a platform to stream games on their computers and the league is hopeful that fans will have that option - likely through the go90 website at first - within "a matter of weeks," said Evan Silverman, Executive Vice President of Digital Media at A+E Networks and an NWSL Media board member.

"Loud and clear, we hear the fans and know that they are clamoring for an ability to watch the games on desktop and not just via an app," Silverman said. "That's something that's extremely important to us as well. We do expect go90 to support web browser-based viewing in the not too distant future and that's something we are working with them to make a reality."

Even though the NWSL was unable to provide live game streams online to begin the 2017 season, the new exclusive partnership with go90 provides other benefits to the young league. Go90 is paying the NWSL a rights fee to stream its games, which is an important step toward growing the league. And while the streams remain free to fans, go90 can bring in advertising revenue to the league as well.

"I think it's a huge net positive," Silverman said. "We're all trying to work together to grow the league and to support the great players that we have... I think it's an incredibly encouraging sign that a partner such as go90 was willing to step up and pay a multiyear rights fee to stream our games exclusively in the United States."

Fans encountered a few other hiccups with go90 in week one as advertisements inadvertently popped up in the stream during the middle of a game between the Boston Breakers and FC Kansas City. But the league has said that was a technical issue that has been resolved and shouldn't happen again.

"I think coming into the opening weekend because so much has happened in the last three months alone, there's going to be some snags," NWSL Managing Director of Operations Amanda Duffy said. "We're going to take a look across the board at everything that's happening and just make sure we know what our baseline is and what we need to address to make sure that the production is the quality we want and the fans can access it the way they are accustomed to."

While the NWSL is looking at ways to improve its broadcasts and fan access to the go90 game streams, having the first NWSL Game of the Week between the Thorns and Orlando Pride on Lifetime last week was a major boon for the league.

The NWSL announced its new extensive partnership with A+E Networks in February. Through the partnership, A+E Networks became a equity stakeholder in the NWSL and Lifetime agreed to a multiyear deal to broadcast a weekly NWSL Game of the Week. Lifetime will broadcast 22 NWSL regular season games this year and all three playoff games.

Last week's NWSL Game of the Week between the Thorns and Pride certainly demonstrated the advantage of having a partner like Lifetime. The broadcast included an extensive pregame show highlighting the athletes in the NWSL and professional game coverage featuring well-regarded and experienced broadcasters in play-by- play announcer Jenn Hildreth, analyst Aly Wagner, host and sideline reporter Dalen Cuff, as well as long-time broadcaster and World Cup winner Julie Foudy.

"I hope that the Lifetime broadcast reflected the level of investment and resources that we put into the production of the game," Silverman said. "We felt that the pregame and the game coverage represented how excited we are to have this property on our network and how committed we are to building an audience, telling the great stories of the league and the players and really growing (the NWSL)."

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg