Columbus lands the National Women's Soccer League's eighteenth franchise for an expansion fee of $205 million, more than double the $75 million Boston and Denver paid to enter the league in 2025. The team, controlled by Haslam Sports Group—the family vehicle that owns the Cleveland Browns and Columbus Crew—begins play in 2028. The fee sets a North American women's sports record and moves past the $55 million Las Vegas paid for the WNBA's Aces franchise in 2021.
The league awarded Columbus rights on Monday after a six-month process that considered bids from Nashville, Milwaukee, and a second Los Angeles group. Haslam Sports Group will own the controlling stake, with operating control expected to mirror the Crew's structure, where CEO-team president Jarred Stone reports to Browns owner Jimmy Haslam directly. The franchise joins a league that added Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC in January for the 2025 season at $75 million per team, and Atlanta in late 2024 at a fee not disclosed but understood to be north of $80 million. Columbus marks the fourth expansion club granted since 2024.
The $205 million valuation reflects two dynamics compressing on the same timeline. First, the NWSL begins exclusive media-rights negotiations in June with CBS, ESPN, and Amazon all expected to bid after the current deal—$240 million over four years with CBS and Amazon—expires in 2027. League sources expect the next cycle to approach $100 million annually, which would triple per-team distributions and anchor franchise valuations near $250 million on a revenue multiple basis. Second, corporate sponsors have moved women's soccer from experimental budgets to core allocations. Nike extended its NWSL kit deal through 2031 in December at $30 million annually, up from $8 million in the prior contract. Ally Financial, Mastercard, and Google Cloud each signed league partnerships worth eight figures since 2023, and team-level sponsorships have climbed from $2 million in average annual inventory in 2022 to $6 million in 2024.
Haslam Sports Group's entry also positions Columbus as the league's second two-club market after the Browns' MLS sibling, the Crew, drew an average of 20,844 fans per match in 2024. The NWSL team will play at Lower.com Field, the $314 million downtown stadium that opened in 2021 and seats 20,371. The Crew's average attendance ranks fourth in MLS, and the ownership group has secured local broadcast deals and sponsorships that typically take expansion clubs three seasons to assemble. The Haslam family also controls Pilot Flying J, the truck-stop chain with $48 billion in annual revenue, and sits on the short list of American families with both operating sports franchises and the distribution footprint to activate sponsorships at retail scale.
The NWSL now operates eighteen teams, up from ten in 2021, with commissioner Jessica Berman targeting twenty franchises by 2028. The league has not announced further expansion cities, but Nashville and Milwaukee remain in active conversations, and a Phoenix group led by former WNBA executive Diane Bock submitted preliminary materials in December. The next media deal closes in late 2025 or early 2026, which will either validate the $205 million Columbus price or expose it as the cycle's peak. Haslam Sports Group's valuation assumes $8-10 million in annual media distributions starting in 2028; if the CBS-ESPN bidding war lands closer to $75 million annually, Columbus overpaid by $40-50 million in net present value terms.
The franchise formally begins operations in early 2026, with a technical staff hire expected by summer and a head coach announcement by the 2026 NWSL Championship in November. The team will train at the Crew's OhioHealth Performance Center in Obetz and play a preseason schedule in 2027 before entering league competition in 2028. Haslam Sports Group declined to name a team president or confirm whether Stone will oversee both clubs, but two league sources expect the group to hire a dedicated executive from U.S. Soccer or MLS by June.
The NWSL's valuation curve now resembles the WNBA's 2019-2022 arc, when expansion fees climbed from $10 million to $55 million in three years before flattening. The difference: women's soccer has marquee international players—Marta, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan—whose global endorsement deals and social reach drive sponsor interest independent of league performance. The $205 million Columbus fee prices in that optionality. Whether the next bidder pays more depends on the size of the CBS check.
The takeaway
Columbus's **$205M** NWSL fee prices in **$100M** annual media rights; if the next deal undershoots **$75M**, the Haslams overpaid by **$40-50M** in NPV.
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