Haslam Sports Group paid $205 million for the NWSL's 18th franchise in Columbus, according to people familiar with the transaction. The fee sets a new league record, exceeding the $150 million Boston and Denver each paid last year by 37%. The Haslams—Jimmy and Dee—already own the Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans through various family entities. The Columbus bid includes the Edwards family, minority partners in the Browns since 2012.
The franchise begins play in 2026. Columbus joins Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC, which launched five weeks ago as teams 15 and 16, and Atlanta, awarded expansion rights in September for a reported $130 million. The NWSL now has four teams in various stages of launch while playing its 14th season with 14 legacy clubs. Commissioner Jessica Berman told reporters in February the league would consider up to 20 teams by 2028, though no formal cap exists.
The $205 million matters because it prices women's sports expansion beyond symbolic gestures. For context: MLS charged $500 million for its most recent franchise, San Diego, awarded in 2023. NWSL fees crossed $100 million for the first time in 2024 when Bay FC and Utah Royals paid that threshold. The Columbus number suggests steady 30%-plus annual appreciation in franchise values even as the league negotiates its next media deal. The current four-year agreement with CBS and Amazon, signed in 2023, pays the league roughly $60 million annually—triple the prior deal but still a fraction of the $2.7 billion MLS collects over seven years from Apple.
NFL owners now control three NWSL clubs. Robert Kraft owns the Boston franchise through the Kraft Group, which also holds the New England Revolution. The Walton-Penner family, owners of the Denver Broncos, backed the Denver expansion bid. The Haslams add Columbus. None of these groups needed NWSL exposure for sports portfolio diversification—they already operate $5 billion-plus NFL franchises. The calculation is different: women's soccer sits early in its media-rights curve while NFL valuations flatten near $7 billion median. A $205 million bet that doubles in six years would represent 16% annualized returns from a standing start, no debt required.
Columbus lost its MLS franchise, the Crew, in 2017 when then-owner Anthony Precourt attempted to relocate the team to Austin. A group led by the Edwards and Haslam families purchased the Crew for $150 million in 2018 and kept it in Ohio. The city built a $315 million stadium, Lower.com Field, which opened in 2021 with 20,000 seats. The NWSL franchise will share the venue. That stadium financing—publicly backed bonds, private naming rights from Columbus-based Lower.com—creates a cost structure the new club inherits without capital outlay. Most NWSL expansion teams face $50 million-plus stadium renovations or long-term rental negotiations.
The league has not announced a team name, crest, or front-office structure. Haslam Sports Group employs Dave Jenkins as president; Jenkins previously ran the Browns' business operations and oversaw the Crew acquisition. The NWSL requires expansion teams to hire a general manager and head coach by the calendar year before launch, meaning Columbus must fill both roles by January 2026. The league has not confirmed a roster-building mechanism, though recent expansion drafts allowed new teams to select unprotected players from existing clubs after an initial allocation window.
Watch for naming-rights announcements in the next six months—Lower.com's deal with the Crew runs through 2031, but NWSL teams typically negotiate separate jersey and secondary sponsorships. Also watch whether Haslam Sports Group consolidates its women's soccer and NFL sales teams or keeps them firewalled, a structural question that will signal whether the NWSL club operates as portfolio optimization or standalone asset. Boston's deal with Advocist, a women's health platform, closed four months before the team's first match; Columbus needs similar velocity to hit 2026 revenue targets.
The $205 million fee gets paid over three years, according to standard NWSL expansion terms. The league keeps 80%; the remaining 20% is distributed to existing franchises as a dilution offset. That means each of the 14 legacy clubs receives roughly $2.9 million, which covers one designated player salary or half a stadium lease renegotiation.
The takeaway
Columbus entry at $205M sets NWSL franchise value growth at 37% year-over-year as NFL owners treat women's soccer as early-curve arbitrage play.
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