The National Women's Soccer League awarded its sixteenth franchise to the Haslam family for $205 million, more than double the $100 million Cincinnati paid in July and the fourth expansion sale above nine figures in eight months. The Columbus team, set to play at the 20,000-seat Lower.com Field starting in 2026, marks the NWSL's second Ohio franchise and the Haslams' third major-league property alongside the Cleveland Browns and Columbus Crew.
The deal was finalized last week after a competitive process that began in September. The Haslams—Jimmy, Dee, and their sons—beat out at least two other bidder groups, including a local real-estate consortium. The family already controls the Crew's stadium through a 2021 purchase that kept MLS in Columbus after a near-relocation to Austin. The $205 million fee goes entirely to existing NWSL owners as league expansion revenue, split across fourteen clubs under the league's current distribution formula. The Columbus franchise becomes operational in January 2026, allowing twenty-two months for front-office buildout, kit deals, and season-ticket deposits.
The pricing reflects acceleration, not plateau. Bay FC paid $53 million for San Francisco in January 2023. Boston followed at $100 million six months later. Cincinnati matched that figure in July 2024. Denver paid $110 million in October. Atlanta's fee, announced this week, was not disclosed but is understood to have cleared $150 million. Columbus resets the benchmark again. The velocity matters: five expansion franchises in nineteen months, each priced higher than the last, signal institutional conviction from family offices and cross-sport operators that NWSL assets will appreciate into the next media cycle. The league's current broadcast deal with CBS, ESPN, Amazon, and Scripps runs through 2027 at roughly $60 million annually. Renewal conversations begin next year. Comparables are instructive: MLS's Apple deal pays $250 million per season; WSL's recent UK rights went for $38 million annually. NWSL viewership rose 29 percent year-over-year in 2024, per Nielsen, and the playoff final drew 967,000 viewers on CBS, the league's largest non-World Cup audience.
The Haslam structure is also clarifying. Jimmy Haslam is CEO of Pilot Flying J, a $37 billion-revenue truck-stop chain sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2023 for an undisclosed sum that left the family with liquidity and minority equity. The Browns were purchased for $1 billion in 2012 and are now valued near $5.2 billion by Forbes. The Crew deal cost $230 million in 2021, stadium included. The NWSL franchise adds a third lever to a vertically integrated Ohio sports portfolio: shared sponsorship inventory, cross-promotion at Lower.com Field, and optionality on future Columbus real-estate plays near the Arena District. The family has not disclosed whether the NWSL team will carry the Crew's technical partnership with Adidas or pursue independent kit and jersey deals. That decision typically happens within six months of franchise award and will signal whether the Haslams view Columbus NWSL as a standalone brand or an embedded asset.
CBS Sports, the league's primary broadcaster, issued a statement calling the Columbus expansion "a natural next step" and noted Lower.com Field's existing broadcast infrastructure from Crew matches. Translation: the stadium is camera-ready, no capex required. The Crew averaged 20,844 fans per home match in 2024, sixth-best in MLS, and the club's season-ticket base is roughly 16,000. The NWSL will need a fraction of that—8,000 to 10,000 season tickets—to hit Year One revenue targets. Portland Thorns, the league's attendance leader, averaged 17,482 in 2024. Columbus should slot into the upper third of the table by Year Two if the Haslams fund a competitive roster and lean into Crew crossover marketing.
The league now has sixteen teams for 2026, with Boston and Atlanta also entering. Commissioner Jessica Berman said in November the NWSL is targeting eighteen franchises by 2028. Las Vegas, Tampa, and Nashville have all been named as under consideration. Expansion fees are expected to continue rising, though Berman has declined to specify a ceiling. The league's enterprise value—calculated by multiplying average franchise price by team count—now exceeds $2.5 billion, up from roughly $800 million in early 2023. Private-equity firm Sixth Street invested $240 million in the league in 2022 at a reported $1 billion valuation, implying a 150 percent return on paper in under three years.
Columbus also clarifies the NWSL'srift with certain legacy owners. The league's founding franchises, purchased for under $2 million apiece in 2012, are now watching expansion teams pay more than one hundred times their cost basis while contributing nothing to early-stage risk. Sky Blue FC, the league's New Jersey franchise, was sold to a New York-based group in 2019 for roughly $3.5 million and rebranded as Gotham FC. That team is now worth an estimated $75 million based on recent expansion comps. The divergence is sharp enough that one former league executive, speaking on background, said "there's a quiet expectation that someone will force a sale in the next eighteen months just to lock in the gain."
Watch the Crew's January front-office movements. The Haslams will need to hire a Columbus NWSL president, likely from within the Crew organization or poached from another NWSL club. Sporting Kansas City pulled the same move in 2020 when launching KC Current. The NWSL has a ninety-day window post-award for ownership to name key hires, file league paperwork, and open a Columbus office. Kit partner announcements typically follow within six months. Season-ticket deposits usually open twelve months before first kick, meaning April 2025. Sponsorship decks are already circulating. The Haslams' first public test will be attendance: can they move 10,000 season tickets before the stadium renders in glossy PDFs start to feel like real seats.
The takeaway
The Haslams' $205M Columbus bid doubles the NWSL expansion record and signals continued franchise appreciation into the next media cycle.
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