Haslam Sports Group closed a $205 million expansion agreement with the NWSL to launch a Columbus franchise in time for the 2026 season, according to people familiar with the transaction. The fee is the highest in league history and arrives five weeks after Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC began play as franchises 15 and 16.
The deal automatically validates Atlanta's $165 million expansion payment announced in September, which had been structured as the league's 17th slot. Columbus becomes 18. Haslam Sports Group, led by Dee Haslam and including the Edwards family as minority partners, operates the NFL's Cleveland Browns and owns stakes in the Milwaukee Bucks and Columbus Crew. The ownership structure mirrors the Crew playbook: anchor tenant in a controlled downtown stadium, integrated ticketing infrastructure, shared analytics staff.
The $205 million price point matters because it resets the floor for NWSL valuations at a moment when private equity has been circling legacy franchises. Angel City FC last traded hands at a $250 million valuation in early 2024. The North Carolina Courage, operating out of a 10,000-seat soccer-specific venue in Cary, is quietly fielding inbound interest at similar levels. Columbus now establishes that raw expansion slots—no stadium lease, no roster, no sponsor base—command nine figures in a league that didn't break $50 million per team on paper until 2022. For context, the Tampa Bay Rays sold for $206 million in 2004. Major League Baseball.
The timing is deliberate. The NWSL's new media-rights package with CBS, ESPN, Prime Video, and Scripts begins in 2025 and pays the league roughly $240 million over four years, a 40x increase from the expiring deal. Apple has been shopping for anchor content after losing MLS viewership targets. The league wants 20 teams by 2028. Columbus and Atlanta give it 18. Two more slots at $200 million each would inject $400 million into league coffers before the next round of collective bargaining in 2027, when players will demand a revenue share that actually reflects gate and sponsorship growth. The owners are pre-loading the war chest.
Haslam Sports Group operates Lower.com Field, the $315 million downtown Columbus stadium that opened in 2021 and seats 20,000 for Crew matches. The facility was designed with NWSL sight lines in mind—narrower pitch, retractable sponsor boards, separate locker room infrastructure. The women's team will share the venue under a lease structure that keeps concert revenue with the Haslams while splitting naming-rights income with the city. Dee Haslam, who chairs the Pilot Company truck-stop empire and sits on the NFL's Super Bowl and Major Events Committee, has been working the Columbus deal since October 2023. Her name was on the original Crew stadium term sheet.
The Edwards family involvement is worth noting. Jimmy Edwards runs North Point Hospitality, which owns 11 hotel properties in Columbus and holds the Hilton franchise rights for central Ohio. The play is obvious: visiting NWSL teams stay at Edwards properties, visiting families book Edwards room blocks, and the expansion team becomes the anchor tenant for a mixed-use development that doesn't exist yet but will be announced within six months. North Point bought a 12-acre parcel adjacent to Lower.com Field in August 2024. The zoning application goes live in March.
What to watch: NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman has a coach-search timeline that closes in May, which means Columbus will announce a general manager by March and begin roster construction under the $3.8 million salary cap during the summer transfer window. The stadium lease amendment hits Columbus City Council on February 10. The real signal comes from Atlanta, which now knows its $165 million bet was $40 million light. Expect ownership there to push for accelerated sponsorship deals and a naming-rights partner by June to justify the delta.
The league is already fielding calls from ownership groups in Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego. All three markets can now underwrite a $200 million entry fee if they control the stadium lease and have naming-rights inventory to sell. The NWSL just priced itself above Arena Football.
The takeaway
NWSL expansion slots now cost more than the Tampa Bay Rays franchise, and the league has two more to sell before 2028.
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