The National Women's Soccer League awarded its 18th franchise to Columbus on Tuesday, with billionaire owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam paying $205 million for an expansion club that begins play in 2026. The price point is 54% higher than the $133 million Bay FC paid fourteen months ago.
The Haslams own the Cleveland Browns, Columbus Crew, and a stake in the Milwaukee Bucks. Their Columbus club will share Lower.com Field with the MLS side, a 20,371-seat downtown venue that opened in 2021 and already hosts concerts and international friendlies. The NWSL team gets immediate infrastructure—grass pitch, video boards, dedicated locker rooms—without stadium construction risk. The league announced the award without naming a coach, sporting director, or kit sponsor. Those hires typically surface 90-120 days after franchise confirmation.
The $205 million fee reflects two years of valuation momentum. Angel City paid $20 million in 2020. San Diego Wave paid $20 million in 2021. Bay FC paid $133 million in late 2023. BOS Nation paid $108 million in May 2024 for Boston's rights. Columbus slots between the two most recent deals, suggesting the league's internal pricing model now floors expansion clubs above $200 million in markets with existing MLS infrastructure. The Haslams' franchise is the fourth awarded since the 2022 CBA tripled minimum salaries and introduced free agency, structural changes that coincided with Apple's $240 million four-year media deal.
Columbus brings two things expansion markets since 2020 have lacked: an owner with adjacent team operations experience and a Midwest footprint the league has avoided. Angel City, San Diego, Bay FC, and Boston all landed on the coasts. Utah Royals returned in 2024 as the lone interior franchise added this cycle. Columbus sits 107 miles from Cincinnati, 144 miles from Pittsburgh, neither of which has NWSL teams. The Crew averages 20,844 fans per match this season, sixth in MLS. The question is whether Crew season-ticket holders convert or whether the Haslams build a separate supporter base from scratch.
The timeline matters for kit deals and local sponsorship. Clubs typically lock jersey-front sponsors 12-18 months before kickoff. Bay FC announced Alliant Insurance as its founding partner in March 2024, eight months before its February 2025 season opener. Columbus has until roughly summer 2025 to close a founding-partner tier and Q4 2025 for secondary inventory. The Crew's regional sponsor base—OhioHealth, Acura, Safelite—provides a built-in conversation list, though women's team valuations now run separately. Bay FC's Alliant deal is $3-4 million annually, per two people familiar with the structure. Columbus will need to match or exceed that to justify the entry fee.
The Haslams inherit a league with 18 clubs and no clear endpoint. Commissioner Jessica Berman has said publicly the NWSL could expand to 20-24 teams by 2030, but the league has not awarded more than two franchises in a single calendar year since 2020. If the pace holds at two per year, the league hits 20 clubs in 2026 and 24 by 2028. That assumes no contraction, no ownership defaults, and no markets returning fees. The league has not published an official expansion roadmap since the Apple deal closed.
Coach and front-office hires will surface by March 2025, when most NWSL clubs begin preseason camps. The Haslams' MLS front office has hired and fired three Crew coaches since 2021; whether they import that decision-making structure or build a standalone women's team executive layer will indicate how seriously they treat the asset. The franchise fee is paid. The infrastructure exists. What remains is whether the Haslams staff it like a $205 million business or a rounding error on the Browns' $5.1 billion Forbes valuation.
The takeaway
Columbus enters at **$205M**, setting a new NWSL expansion floor and giving the Haslams a second Ohio sports property to cross-promote or neglect.
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