[1] Sixteen clubs applied for 8 places in the inaugural season of the league: Arsenal, Barnet, Birmingham City, Bristol Academy, Chelsea, Colchester United, Doncaster Rovers Belles, Everton, Leeds Carnegie, Leicester City, Lincoln Ladies, Liverpool, Millwall Lionesses, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, and Sunderland.

A shortened bridging season took place, branded as the FA WSL Spring Series, with teams playing each other once from February to May 2017.

Sunderland was moved down to tier 3 in the women's football pyramid after not receiving a licence whilst Brighton & Hove Albion and West Ham United were added to the league.

[18] The league was extended to twelve teams for the 2019–20 season, with Yeovil Town relegated after going into administration and being replaced by Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, who gained promotion from the Championship.

[20] At the conclusion of the 2020–21 season, four first-team managers resigned from their positions at WSL clubs Birmingham, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Aston Villa.

[28] Clubs' annual wage bills were expected to be approximately one-tenth of those in the now-defunct American Women's Professional Soccer.

[38] When the 2012 WPS season was cancelled in the United States, Lincoln Ladies manager Glen Harris said that the next destination of that league's British players would be decided by "pounds, shillings and pence.

She cited the £250,000 fee paid by Tottenham Hotspur for Bethany England, while some Reading staff were required to work multiple roles from lack of investment by its affiliated men's side in the EFL Championship.

[47] In March 2019, the Women's Super League agreed a multi-million sponsorship deal with British bank Barclays from the start of the 2019–20 season.

The three-year sponsorship deal is reported to be in excess of £10 million with a prize money pot of £500,000 for the league champions for the first time.

[53][28] Most shirt sponsorships for women's sides affiliated with men's clubs are bundled and not sold or valued separately.

A report in The Telegraph compared this spending to the £186 million those clubs' spent on agents' fees for men's player transactions from 1 February 2022 to 31 January 2023.

[56] In July 2022, The FA declined a £150 million offer from an unnamed private equity firm to purchase the league.

[57] As of 2021[update], matches are broadcast and streamed in the United Kingdom and Ireland via The FA Player, Sky Sports, and the BBC (UK only).

Internationally, select matches are broadcast in at least twelve countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden, and the United States.

[59] During the 2017–18 season, many WSL games were broadcast on television by BT Sport, online and red-button by the BBC (UK only), and via the league's Facebook page.

[64][65] Some games in The FA Player were excluded, such as those broadcast on BT Sport in the UK and Ireland due to licensing rights.

[66] In March 2021, the FA WSL announced a new record-breaking three-year domestic television rights deal with Sky Sports and BBC, beginning with the 2021–22 season.

[67] Believed to be worth around £8 million a season, it was the biggest broadcast deal of any professional women's football league in the world and marked the first time that the WSL's rights had been sold separately from the men's game.

[68] In July 2024, YouTube was listed as a new streaming service for non-broadcast WSL matches and select Women's Championship fixtures, as part of a transition from the FA Player.