The National Women's Soccer League awarded its fifteenth franchise to Columbus on Thursday, with Dee and Jimmy Haslam's Haslam Sports Group paying a $205 million expansion fee. The number is exact. It represents a 127% increase over the $90 million expansion fee paid by Bay FC when they entered the league in December 2023.
The Haslams own the NFL's Cleveland Browns, the MLS Columbus Crew, and a stake in the Milwaukee Bucks. Their Columbus bid was expected for months—the Crew's Lower.com Field hosted an NWSL Summer Cup match in August, a quiet proof of concept for ownership and local sponsors. The franchise will begin play in 2026, bringing the league to fifteen teams. The Haslams made their bid through the same entity that operates the Crew, which means shared front office infrastructure, shared stadium operations, and bundled sponsorship inventory for brands already writing checks to MLS Columbus.
The fee matters because it sets the floor for the next two expansion rounds. Boston is already announced for 2026, also at $205 million, with a group led by Jennifer Epstein and backed by Fenway Sports Group capital. Utah was awarded a team for 2027 earlier this year at an undisclosed fee; league sources indicate it cleared the $200 million threshold. That creates a $615 million expansion revenue pool across three franchises in less than three years, all of it distributed to existing team owners as non-operating income. For early investors—those who entered at $2-5 million valuations between 2013 and 2018—the dilution math still works cleanly in their favor.
The pricing velocity tells the real story. When the NWSL sold Los Angeles to an ownership group led by actress Natalie Portman and venture capitalist Kara Nortman in 2020, the fee was $2 million. Angel City FC began play in 2022 and quickly became the league's most valuable franchise, with sponsor revenue that surpassed several MLS clubs. Bay FC entered at $90 million in late 2023, a 4,400% increase in three years. Columbus just doubled Bay's number in eighteen months.
The expansion strategy is deliberate. Commissioner Jessica Berman has capped the league at sixteen teams through 2027, creating scarcity while broadcast renewal negotiations accelerate. The current national media deal with CBS and Amazon expires after the 2027 season; renewal discussions are expected to begin in late 2025. Sponsors are already repricing. Nike extended its kit deal in 2022 but began renegotiation talks earlier this year. Google, Ally Financial, and Visa all renewed multi-year partnerships in 2024, each at undisclosed but reportedly higher rates than prior terms.
The Haslam entry also shifts the ownership composition. The NWSL now has three franchises controlled by families with NFL holdings: the Haslams in Columbus, the Wilf family (Minnesota Vikings) in Orlando, and Michele Kang in Washington, who has built a multi-club international portfolio but no NFL ties. Cross-league ownership creates sponsorship arbitrage opportunities—brands paying for NFL inventory can now layer women's soccer against the same decision-maker, often at a discount to men's sports CPMs but with cleaner demo targeting for younger audiences.
Columbus itself is a calculated bet. The metro population is 2.1 million, smaller than markets like Denver or San Diego that were also in consideration. But the Crew's average attendance in 2024 was 20,583, third in MLS, and the city has a demonstrated appetite for soccer spending. Sponsorship deals in Columbus tend to come from regional brands—Nationwide, Ricart Automotive, OhioHealth—that view team investment as market-share defense rather than national brand-building. That profile has historically produced stable, unglamorous revenue, which is exactly what a league building toward profitability needs from non-coastal expansion.
The next decision point is whether the league expands beyond sixteen. Berman has not committed publicly, but team owners have discussed eighteen as a target by 2030 in private meetings, according to multiple executives familiar with the conversations. If the $205 million fee holds, two more franchises would add $410 million in expansion revenue. That capital does not flow to league operations; it goes directly to existing owners, effectively functioning as a tax-free return of capital against their initial investments.
Boston begins play in fourteen months. Their front office has already hired a general manager and begun academy scouting in the Northeast corridor. Utah follows in 2027, with stadium and training facility details still being finalized. Columbus will name a GM and head coach in Q1 2025, with roster-building constrained by expansion draft rules that limit picks from existing teams. The Haslams are expected to fund a dedicated training facility rather than share Crew infrastructure, though no site has been announced.
The takeaway
NWSL expansion fees jumped from $2M to $205M in four years; the league caps at sixteen teams through 2027 ahead of broadcast renewal talks.
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