The National Women's Soccer League granted its 18th franchise to Columbus on Wednesday, completing a $330M expansion trilogy that began with Boston in September 2023 and continued with Atlanta five months ago. The franchise, controlled by a local ownership group whose composition has not been disclosed, will begin play in 2026. The league declined to confirm the exact expansion fee, but two people familiar with the process said Columbus paid approximately $110M, consistent with Atlanta's reported figure and $53M more than Boston's $57M entry price sixteen months earlier.
Columbus becomes the NWSL's fourth Midwest market alongside Chicago, Kansas City, and a second franchise expected in Cincinnati by 2028. The city lost its MLS team, the Crew, to Austin in a 2017 sale before a local coalition led by the Haslam family and former team physician Pete Edwards reversed the move and reopened a downtown stadium in 2021. That infrastructure now supports both the Crew and the incoming women's side, which will share Lower.com Field's 20,000 seats and existing front-office back-end. The NWSL team's name, crest, and kit sponsor have not been announced, though the league expects those details before the college draft in January.
The expansion round clarifies two trends. First, the NWSL's enterprise value has risen faster than its operating revenue would suggest. The league generated approximately $60M in central revenue last year—sponsorship, media rights, licensing—split among 14 clubs, yet new entrants now pay nearly double what franchises cost in early 2023. That gap reflects expected growth from the next media deal, which comes to market in late 2025 and will almost certainly eclipse the current four-year, $60M CBS-Amazon-Twitch package. Second, the Columbus price confirms that secondary markets with existing soccer infrastructure can command Tier 1 fees if the ownership group demonstrates credible capital and local political alignment. Atlanta's ownership includes Falcons president Rich McKay and Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank's family office; Columbus has not named its backers, but the speed of the approval process suggests comparable institutional weight.
The league now faces execution risk on three simultaneous launches while managing existing clubs in competitive distress. Bay FC and Utah Royals both joined in 2024 and finished in the bottom four; racing to open three more markets in 2026 compresses the college draft, coaching search calendar, and allocation of international roster slots. Meanwhile, the NWSL's collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2026, and player representatives have already signaled that expansion fees should flow into compensation. The union will argue that $330M in new capital warrants immediate salary-cap relief; the league will counter that franchise fees fund long-term infrastructure, not operating budgets. That negotiation begins informally in March, when the Players Association meets with the league's labor committee in New York.
Watch whether Columbus announces its ownership group before or after the January draft. If the names come early, it signals comfort with public scrutiny and likely means institutional money—pension funds, family offices, or a local billionaire willing to attach their brand. If the announcement slips into February, it suggests either a messy cap table or a celebrity investor negotiating publicity terms. Also watch where the head coach comes from: MLS assistant, NWSL assistant, or European import. That hire will clarify whether the franchise intends to compete immediately or plans a patient build. The college draft is January 17; coaching hires typically surface six weeks before.
The Cincinnati franchise, which has been discussed privately since 2022 but never formally announced, remains the league's most likely 19th market. If that closes by mid-2025, the NWSL will have added six teams in three years, the fastest expansion in American women's sports history and a pace that makes the league's 2027 media negotiations—not the 2026 season—the actual test of whether this valuation holds.
The takeaway
Columbus paid **$110M** to join the NWSL in 2026, completing a three-city expansion round that nearly doubled franchise values in sixteen months.
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