The National Women's Soccer League awarded expansion franchises to Atlanta and Columbus, with the Haslam Sports Group paying a combined $205M entry fee for the Columbus team—the highest expansion price in women's professional sports. Atlanta's franchise sold for an undisclosed amount below that threshold, bringing the league to sixteen teams by 2026. The Haslam deal values a greenfield NWSL club at more than triple the $53M paid by the Bay FC ownership group in 2023.
The Columbus franchise will be owned by the Haslam family, who also control the NFL's Cleveland Browns and a stake in the Milwaukee Bucks. The Atlanta team will be majority-owned by a consortium led by technology investor and former Atlanta Spirit board member, filling the market vacancy after Atlanta Beat folded in 2010. Both clubs begin play in 2026, giving them eighteen months to secure venues, hire front-office staff, and complete player-allocation drafts. Columbus has no permanent stadium commitment yet; Atlanta is expected to share Mercedes-Benz Stadium with MLS's Atlanta United, though lease terms remain unannounced.
The $205M figure rewrites the economics of women's team sports. Two years ago, Angel City FC entered at a $100M valuation that felt ambitious. Twelve months later, Bay FC paid $53M for an expansion slot. The Haslam price suggests family offices and institutional bidders are underwriting future media-rights growth rather than current gate revenue. NWSL teams averaged 8,000 fans per match in 2024, trailing MLS's 22,000 but ahead of WNBA's 9,000. Media deals remain subscale: the league's current CBS and Prime Video agreements run through 2027 at a combined $60M annually, or roughly $4M per club. By comparison, MLS clubs receive $8M each from Apple's ten-year, $2.5B streaming package.
The timing reflects converging tailwinds. U.S. women's national team fixtures drew 1.5M viewers on Fox during the 2024 Olympic cycle, double the 2021 average. Nike and Visa extended NWSL sponsorships in the past six months, each in the mid-eight-figure range. Private-equity platforms have contacted at least four existing clubs about minority stakes, according to two team executives who requested anonymity. The Haslams' willingness to price Columbus at $205M suggests they expect the next media cycle to deliver per-club distributions closer to MLS levels, which would value franchises at $500M-plus on a revenue-multiple basis.
Atlanta and Columbus also solve geographic gaps. The league currently has no presence between Washington Spirit and Houston Dash, a 1,200-mile corridor covering 80M people. Atlanta's metro population exceeds 6M; Columbus sits at 2.2M but offers a concentrated soccer demo. Atlanta United averaged 47,000 fans per match in its debut 2017 season, proving the market's appetite. Columbus Crew won MLS Cup in 2023 and has sold out Lower.com Field consistently since opening in 2021. The NWSL clubs will inherit sponsor relationships and ticketing infrastructure, reducing startup friction.
League officials have indicated they will cap expansion at eighteen franchises, leaving two slots. Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Nashville have all surfaced in trade press as potential bidders. The next round of fees will test whether $205M was a Haslam-specific premium or the new baseline. Cincinnati's MLS team, FC Cincinnati, drew 25,000 fans per match in 2024, the league's fifth-highest average, suggesting latent demand. Cleveland would create an intra-state rivalry with Columbus and leverage the Haslams' existing Ohio infrastructure.
The Columbus franchise must complete its front office by September 2025 to participate in the league's expansion draft, where it will select unprotected players from existing rosters. Atlanta faces the same timeline. Both teams will compete for the same pool of international slots, coaching candidates, and venue dates. The Haslams hired Dee and Jimmy Haslam III's daughter-in-law, a former U.S. Soccer Federation executive, to lead the Columbus project, per a person familiar with the hire. Atlanta's ownership group has not named a president or general manager.
The next visible milestone is the league's 2027 media-rights negotiation, expected to launch formally in late 2025. CBS and Prime Video hold exclusive negotiating windows through March 2026. If the league takes the package to open market, private-equity-backed streaming platforms and traditional broadcasters will bid against a valuation backdrop set by the Haslam entry fee. Sponsors typically key contract renewals to media footprints, meaning Nike, Visa, and Nationwide's deals will also come up for renegotiation in the 2026-2027 window.
The Haslam transaction closed at $205M, but the Columbus team will carry additional stadium and academy costs not included in the entry fee. The league requires clubs to operate youth development programs by 2028, per updated ownership standards released in October 2024. Those academies typically cost $3M-$5M annually to staff and run. Stadium construction or renovation, if Columbus opts to build rather than share an MLS venue, would add $150M-$250M in project costs, based on recent comps like Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville.
The Haslams paid $1.05B for the Cleveland Browns in 2012, a price that now looks conservative against the franchise's $5.2B valuation in Forbes' latest NFL estimates. They are betting the NWSL follows a similar curve, compressed into a shorter window. The league's previous high-water mark was $100M. The new one is double. The next test is whether Cincinnati or Cleveland will pay $250M for slot seventeen.