Dee and Jimmy Haslam paid $205 million for Columbus's NWSL expansion franchise, the highest fee in women's professional sports history and $40 million above Atlanta's commitment five months earlier. The team begins play in 2028, sharing Lower.com Field with the Crew. The deal closes a five-month pricing window that started when Atlanta agreed to pay $165 million with deferred terms, Boston paid $108 million, and Denver came in at an undisclosed amount rumored near $100 million.
The Columbus number matters because it guaranteed Atlanta's full fee. Atlanta's agreement included provisions tying final payment to subsequent expansion pricing—if the next franchise sold below $165 million, Atlanta's obligation would adjust downward. The Haslams eliminated that risk. NWSL owners now bank $370 million in expansion fees across two cities within six months, with Denver and Boston adding roughly $208 million more. Commissioner Jessica Berman told the league's board in December that she expected $175-200 million per slot by mid-2025; Columbus delivered the top of that range.
The Haslams own the Cleveland Browns, part of the Columbus Crew, and hold stakes in the Milwaukee Bucks. Dee Haslam will chair the Columbus franchise. She's been visible at NWSL playoff matches since 2023, sitting near league executives and Atlanta owner Arthur Blank at the championship final in November. The family's Pilot Company, a truck-stop empire sold to Berkshire Hathaway for $11 billion in 2023, remains a secondary sponsor on Crew kits. That Berkshire connection is worth noting: Warren Buffett attended exactly one sporting event in 2024—a Crew playoff match in October, seated with Jimmy Haslam.
Columbus becomes the fourth NWSL expansion team to share a stadium with an MLS side, following Seattle, Portland, and Orlando. Lower.com Field seats 20,011 for soccer, opened in 2021, and already hosts Crew matches 17 weekends a year. The Haslams will pay rent to the local public stadium authority under terms not yet disclosed, but the arrangement mirrors the Crew's deal: approximately $1.8 million annually plus a percentage of suites. Shared venue costs explain part of the expansion fee efficiency—Boston Legacy FC is building a $200 million stadium in Norwood, which doesn't open until 2026. Columbus avoids that capital outlay entirely.
The $205 million price point also reflects NWSL's accelerating media landscape. The league signed a $240 million four-year media deal with ESPN, CBS, Amazon, and Scripps in November 2023, tripling prior rights fees. Columbus enters that cycle in year five, meaning the Haslams will negotiate their share of the next contract starting in 2027, one year before kickoff. Atlanta faces the same timing. Both franchises effectively bought into the league at a multiple of roughly 8.5x the current annual media payout per team, a discount to MLS expansion fees, which trade at 12-14x media rights.
What to watch: Columbus announces a general manager by June, per league timelines. The team needs a name, a crest, and a kit sponsor before season tickets go on sale in early 2026. Atlanta's first match is April 2026, and Columbus's front office will study those economics closely—ticket pricing, suite sales, and whether Atlanta hits its rumored 12,000 season-ticket target. Separately, the NWSL has one more expansion slot available before it pauses at 18 teams. League sources expect that announcement by September, with Nashville, Philadelphia, and a second Los Angeles group in the mix. The price floor is now $205 million.
The Haslams wrote the check five weeks after Boston and Denver kicked off, which means they watched two expansion teams draw an average of 11,400 and 8,100 fans respectively in their opening months. Those are credible numbers for year one, below Seattle's 10,000 average but above league median. The bet is Columbus, with a built-in Crew fanbase and no stadium debt, can start at 13,000-15,000 and grow from there. The city already has the third-highest MLS attendance per capita in the country. Dee Haslam's first hire will clarify whether she's building a team or a business. The fee suggests both.
The takeaway
Columbus's **$205M** NWSL fee locked Atlanta into its **$165M** obligation and set the floor for the league's final expansion slot.
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