The National Women's Soccer League awarded its sixteenth franchise to Haslam Sports Group for $205 million, a league record that doubles the $113 million Bay FC paid for its 2024 San Francisco entry. The Columbus team begins play in 2028, giving the Haslams—owners of the NFL's Browns and a minority stake in the Milwaukee Bucks—a women's soccer asset in a metro that already hosts MLS's Crew.
The expansion fee reflects NWSL's post-broadcast deal valuation reset. CBS and ESPN collectively committed $240 million over four years in November, roughly $60 million annually across linear and streaming inventory. Median viewership climbed 27% year-over-year in 2024, reaching 625,000 per match on CBS primetime windows. Commissioner Jessica Berman has stated publicly the league targets $200 million per expansion club by 2027, a threshold Columbus just cleared ahead of schedule.
The Haslams inherit a tested market. The Columbus Crew averaged 20,844 attendance in 2024, third in MLS, and Lower.com Field—their $314 million soccer-specific stadium opened in 2021—provides turnkey infrastructure. The NWSL club will share the venue under a lease structure similar to Orlando Pride's arrangement at Inter&Co Stadium, where the women's team pays a fixed annual rent and splits concessions revenue. Haslam Sports Group declined to disclose the Columbus lease terms, but comparable NWSL-MLS stadium agreements range from $1.2 million to $2.8 million per season depending on match-day access and premium suite allocation.
The $205 million entry cost reshapes the league's balance sheet. NWSL operates as a single-entity structure with distributed ownership, meaning expansion fees flow to existing franchises as equity compensation. Each of the fifteen current teams receives approximately $13.7 million, a liquidity event for clubs still burning cash on academy builds and stadium lease negotiations. Angel City FC, valued at $180 million in its Series A raise last March, now holds a stake in a league with a demonstrated expansion price floor above $200 million. Private equity firms sizing women's sports allocations are already modeling NWSL franchise values using Columbus as the comp.
The 2028 timeline gives the Haslams thirty months to hire a president, general manager, and technical director, then recruit a coaching staff before the 2027 NWSL expansion draft. League sources expect the front office buildout to begin by June, following the April NWSL draft when Columbus can begin informal scouting. Bay FC's inaugural season provides the template: the club hired general manager Lucy Rushton fourteen months before kickoff and signed its first player, midfielder Abby Dahlkemper, eleven months out. The Haslams have no prior experience operating a women's professional team, but Dee Haslam has chaired the Browns' diversity council since 2020 and holds a board seat at the Cleveland Clinic.
The Ohio market now holds two NWSL clubs within 145 miles, with Cincinnati's expansion team launching in 2026 for an undisclosed fee believed to be near $85 million. That geographic density mirrors the Bay Area-Los Angeles corridor and the Washington-Baltimore axis, regions where local rivalries drove merchandise sales and secondary ticket pricing. NWSL averaged 1.4 sellouts per team in 2024; clubs in rivalry markets averaged 2.1. Columbus-Cincinnati matches will anchor the league's regional broadcast windows beginning in 2028.
The Haslams' $205 million bet assumes continued rights escalation. The current CBS-ESPN deal expires after the 2027 season, and league executives are already fielding inbound calls from streaming platforms interested in the next cycle. Apple, Amazon, and NBC Sports have each sent senior programming staff to NWSL playoff matches over the past eighteen months. The league's next media rights package will determine whether $200 million expansion fees hold or climb toward the $300 million threshold MLS commanded in its growth phase.
The Columbus franchise begins operations in January 2026 with administrative hires. The club's first player transaction window opens in December 2027.
The takeaway
The **$205M** Columbus fee sets NWSL's expansion floor above nine figures, forcing private equity to revalue existing stakes.
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