Haslam Sports Group paid $205 million for the rights to field Columbus as the National Women's Soccer League's 18th franchise beginning in 2028, the league confirmed Tuesday. The fee is the highest expansion price in women's professional sports history and more than doubles the $100 million Boston and Denver groups paid for rights to the league's 15th and 16th teams just five months ago.
The ownership structure pairs the Haslam family—Jimmy and Dee Haslam control the NFL's Cleveland Browns and a stake in the Milwaukee Bucks—with the Edwards family, whose Columbus-based portfolio includes Nationwide and several regional retail anchors. The group will operate the club through the same entity that manages Lower.com Field, the $314 million downtown stadium that opened in 2021 for Columbus Crew and has hosted USWNT matches. The venue seats 20,000 and was built with women's professional soccer in mind; lease terms were not disclosed, though the Haslams control the facility operator.
The $205 million figure matters less as sticker shock than as the third data point in a clean upward line. Bay FC entered at $53 million in early 2023. Utah Royals re-entry that same year carried a $75 million tag. Boston and Denver crossed $100 million in September 2024. Atlanta, awarded in December, has not disclosed its fee but league sources familiar with the bidding process described it as "consistent with or above" the Boston-Denver threshold. Columbus resets the benchmark again, and three additional markets—Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia—are in advanced diligence with the league office, according to two people familiar with discussions. The NWSL has stated publicly it will expand to 20 teams by 2030; it is now 18 with five months left in 2025.
The Haslam involvement carries weight beyond the check. Jimmy Haslam has operated the Browns since 2012 and holds a 25% stake in the Bucks, purchased in 2014. The family's track record includes stadium financing, naming-rights sales, and sponsor cultivation in overlapping Ohio markets. Lower.com Field's anchor tenant, Columbus Crew, shares front-office infrastructure with the incoming NWSL side, creating revenue efficiencies around ticketing, hospitality, and kit sales that standalone clubs cannot replicate. The NWSL has prioritized ownership groups with existing venue control and adjacent team operations; this checks both boxes.
The Edwards family adds local credibility and non-sports capital. Nationwide, the insurance and financial services firm the family controls, already sponsors Lower.com Field and maintains brand presence across Columbus Crew assets. The NWSL has leaned into regional corporate partnerships as a hedge against national media volatility; Columbus enters with those relationships pre-wired. The league's current media deal with CBS, Amazon, and ESPN runs through 2027 and pays roughly $60 million annually. Rights negotiations for the next cycle begin informally this summer. Expansion fees in this range suggest ownership groups are underwriting their own media value, betting that the next deal will support team-level losses in the near term.
The 2028 start date gives the Columbus group three years to hire a general manager, sign a head coach, build an academy pipeline, and close jersey and kit sponsorships. Bay FC, which began play in 2024, spent 18 months in pre-launch operations; Boston and Denver had 12 months. The longer runway reflects lessons learned. Bay FC's jersey sponsor, PayPal, signed six months before kickoff at a reported $3 million annually; Denver's kit deal with Pinnacle Bank closed three weeks before opening day. Columbus will likely target announcement windows around the 2026 World Cup and the 2027 NWSL Championship to maximize sponsor interest.
Watch for Columbus to name a team president by September, likely drawn from MLS front offices or the WNBA, where GM-level executives have become a favored talent pool for NWSL expansion clubs. The Haslams will also need to finalize academy structures; Ohio Youth Soccer has 60,000 registered female players, third in the Midwest behind Illinois and Michigan, but no NWSL academy infrastructure yet exists in the state. If Cincinnati or Cleveland secures the 19th franchise, the league will need to adjudicate academy territories, a negotiation that has delayed previous launches.
The $205 million fee flows to existing team owners as a distribution, not to league operations. With 18 teams now confirmed, that implies roughly $11.4 million per club from this sale alone, on top of the Boston, Denver, and Atlanta fees distributed over the past nine months. Several veteran owners have used expansion proceeds to fund stadium upgrades and academy investments; Orlando Pride, for example, broke ground on a $25 million training facility in March funded in part by prior expansion distributions. The Haslams, meanwhile, are paying for certainty in a market where certainty now carries a quantifiable premium.