The National Women's Soccer League awarded its 18th expansion franchise to Columbus on Tuesday, collecting $205 million from Haslam Sports Group—the billionaire family that controls the Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans. The team begins play in 2028.
Columbus becomes the second club awarded this cycle, following Atlanta's $165 million commitment announced earlier. The Haslam deal guarantees Atlanta's payment clears in full, according to league sources. The two fees together represent $370 million in expansion capital flowing to NWSL ownership in under twelve months, more than double the $53 million combined fees paid by Boston and Utah when they entered in 2026. Haslam Sports Group also owns the MLS Columbus Crew, which means the NWSL club inherits stadium infrastructure, sponsor relationships, and front-office overhead already being amortized. The synergy is not theoretical: the Crew's Lower.com Field hosts 20,000 seats and carries a naming deal that runs through 2031.
The Columbus award matters less for what it says about Ohio than what it signals about league valuation velocity. When Bay FC paid $53 million to enter in 2024, that number looked expensive. The $205 million Haslam paid represents a 287% premium in four years. For existing NWSL owners, that's accretive: their equity stakes are now being marked against a franchise price north of $200 million, which changes the math for private-equity conversations, media-rights negotiations, and expansion-fee splits. The Haslam family brings two things: capital and credibility. They own three professional franchises across two leagues, and their presence in NWSL legitimizes the asset class for other NFL owners quietly sizing women's-sports exposure. Worth noting that Dee and Jimmy Haslam's net worth sits near $7 billion, meaning the Columbus commitment is being funded from balance-sheet cash, not levered against the NWSL asset itself.
The Atlanta deal, led by Heather Walker and previously contingent on league approval timelines, now clears without friction. Walker's group had committed $165 million with an understanding that a second expansion award at comparable or higher valuation would follow. The Haslam price delivered that condition, which means Atlanta's capital is locked and the league's expansion-fee split—distributed across existing owners—can be modeled cleanly. For a team president running financial planning, that's the difference between a $15 million capital call estimate and a $20 million one. The league is also past the risk that Atlanta's owners request a valuation step-down if no comparable deal materialized.
Columbus and Atlanta bring the NWSL to 18 teams by 2028, up from 12 teams in 2022. The league added six clubs in six years, each at a higher price than the last. The velocity suggests demand is outpacing supply, which should influence media-rights negotiations set to kick off in 2025. The current CBS and ESPN deals expire after the 2027 season, and the league will enter those conversations with 18 markets, billionaire ownership, and a $205 million expansion comp to anchor valuation models. For a rights buyer, the question is whether the NWSL can hold that trajectory or if the $205 million Haslam paid reflects a local-market premium that won't generalize.
Haslam Sports Group's portfolio now includes three men's franchises and one women's club, a ratio that matches the Kroenke family's setup with the Rams and Angel City FC. The pattern is billionaire families diversifying across gender lines within sports, not private equity buying women's teams as standalone bets. That distinction matters for how these clubs get resourced: Haslam can cross-sell sponsorships, share scouting infrastructure, and route stadium deals through a consolidated real-estate strategy. The NWSL Columbus club will benefit from that operational density, but it also means the franchise is a line item inside a broader sports conglomerate, not a thesis-driven investment that needs to hit IRR hurdles.
Watch for two follow-on events. First, the league will name a commissioner search timeline now that expansion is locked; the current leadership structure has been interim since late 2023, and an 18-team league with $370 million in fresh capital needs permanent executive leadership. Second, the Haslam group will name a team president and general manager by mid-2025, which will signal whether they're running the club as a Crew subsidiary or building a standalone front office. If they hire from MLS, it's the former; if they hire from WNBA or European women's football, it's the latter.
The $205 million fee is now the NWSL's pricing floor for any future expansion, which means the league has six years to prove it can generate enterprise value that justifies that entry cost.
The takeaway
Haslam's $205M Columbus fee sets NWSL expansion pricing floor and unlocks Atlanta's $165M, delivering $370M to owners in twelve months.
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