The National Women’s Soccer League. Have you heard that name before? I’m sure you haven’t. It’s not something particularly largely broadcast on popular sports networks, like ESPN and Fox Sports.

However, despite the lack of coverage for games, players and the league in general, the NWSL is gaining in popularity. This past season, the playoffs were aired on Fox Sports 1. There have even been commercials featuring players like Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath.

The inclusion of more players from the United States Women’s National Team have also made the league more popular. Basically ever player that has been called up in the past year plays for an NWSL club.

There are only a few exceptions, with some players playing in college (Mallory Pugh, UCLA) and Gina Lewandowski, who plays for Bayern Munich in the German Women’s Bundesliga.

Other international players are joining the NWSL as well. Poliana and Andressa from Brazil both are on the Houston Dash, while Christine Sinclair of Canada plays for the Portland Thorns. Many international clubs have even drawn interest to the NWSL.

There have been reports that FC Barcelona’s women’s team is looking toward becoming an NWSL affiliate. Their relationship with the NWSL could be expanding a forming another team to the NWSL, according to Excelle Sports.

However, this is a league that doesn’t get much coverage, and honestly enough respect. However, soccer is growing in the United States. Look at the FIFA World Cup (2014) and the Women’s World Cup (2015). Many fans were glued to TVs and thousands of viewing parties across the country were held to watch both national teams. Many fans travel to Brazil for the men’s World Cup and to Canada for the Women’s World Cup.

Even after the World Cup hype ended, in 2015, stadiums started to fill up for NWSL matches, as many fans wanted to see the World Cup champions in action with their club teams.

The only thing I have against that is the focus of the NWSL seems entirely too focused on the national team players, especially the U.S. Soccer ones. I can understand it though; the NWSL is an American league, so that’s reasonable.

However, other players have started making names for themselves. That being said, the NWSL MVP this year was Lynn Williams of the Western New York Flash. That finally caught the attention of USWNT head coach Jill Ellis, who called Williams (and some other NWSL studs) in for camp in November.

Either way, the NWSL deserves a lot more respect than it gets. While their counterpart, the MLS (men’s league), gets plenty of on-air broadcast, the NWSL is basically only broadcast on YouTube. You know who is broadcast on YouTube? Players in the USL, which is the third tier league of American soccer (it goes MLS, NASL and then USL). The NWSL is getting the same coverage as a third league team. Why, or when, was that ever OK?

Progress is certainly being made in the NWSL. There are expansion teams, with the Orlando Pride being the most recent team to be added to NWSL. Even now, there are talks for more teams to be added. However, more coverage needs to be added too. It’s time to stop treating one of the most respected women’s leagues in soccer like they’re a third tier league team in men’s soccer.