The NWSL awarded its 18th franchise to Columbus on Monday at a $205 million fee, paid by Haslam Sports Group. The team starts play in 2028. The price is the highest in league history and 24 percent above Atlanta's $165 million commitment announced last fall.
Haslam Sports Group owns the Cleveland Browns and holds a minority stake in the Milwaukee Bucks. The Columbus bid includes participation from the Edwards family, which controls A&B Beverage in Ohio and has operated distribution rights for Anheuser-Busch products across the state since 1978. The team will play at a downtown stadium site not yet disclosed; Haslam has been in conversations with the city and with Nationwide Realty Investors, the real-estate arm of Nationwide Insurance, about a development anchored by the franchise. One person familiar with the talks said the group examined adaptive reuse of industrial parcels near the Scioto Mile but has since pivoted to a greenfield site closer to the Arena District. No lease has been signed.
The $205 million figure matters more for what it does to Atlanta than for what it says about Columbus. Atlanta's ownership group, led by private-equity executive Doug Hertz, committed $165 million in November with a condition: The league would hold the bulk of the fee in escrow until a subsequent expansion franchise sold at or above that price. If no deal cleared $165 million by December 2027, Atlanta could renegotiate or withdraw without penalty. The Columbus transaction satisfies the provision and releases the full Atlanta payment to the league. Two people involved in the negotiation said NWSL ownership had been privately concerned that no market would clear the Atlanta bar before the deadline, which would have forced either a discount or a public acknowledgment that the league had overshot valuation. Columbus removed both risks.
The deal also clarifies the league's near-term expansion ceiling. Commissioner Jessica Berman said in January that NWSL would consider up to two more franchises after Atlanta, with an internal target of 18 to 20 teams by 2030. Columbus fills the 18th slot. One remaining spot is expected to go to a market in the Mountain or Pacific time zone to improve scheduling balance; San Diego, Phoenix, and Portland have all been mentioned in owner conversations, though no formal bids are active. The league has told potential ownership groups that any bid after Columbus should expect to pay above $200 million, according to a term sheet reviewed by one prospective buyer. That floor effectively rules out secondary markets and narrows the pool to billionaire-backed groups in primary metros.
The Haslam-Edwards partnership follows a template the league has leaned on for four of the past five expansions: pair a family office with local real-estate or consumer ties to a lead investor holding another North American sports asset. The structure gives the league both capital certainty and downtown site optionality. Cleveland's Dee and Jimmy Haslam bought the Browns in 2012 for $1.05 billion; Forbes now values the team at $5.2 billion. Their son-in-law, JW Johnson, runs Haslam Sports Group day-to-day and has led conversations with Columbus city officials since early 2025. The Edwards family brings local sponsorship relationships and political access—A&B Beverage has been a naming-rights partner on Ohio State facilities and maintains close ties to the statehouse.
Columbus last hosted a professional women's soccer team in 2002, when the WUSA's Columbus Fury folded after two seasons. The city has since built infrastructure around the men's game—Crew Stadium opened in 1999 and was renovated in 2021—but no women's franchise has returned. The NWSL team will not share the Crew's venue; Haslam has told the league it intends to build a soccer-specific stadium with a capacity near 12,000, designed to accommodate potential expansion to 15,000 if demand warrants. No architect has been announced. Construction would need to begin by early 2027 to meet the 2028 kickoff.
The timeline gives the franchise roughly 30 months to hire a general manager, conduct an expansion draft, and sell founding sponsorships. The league's expansion draft structure grants new teams 12 unprotected players from existing rosters, with each current club allowed to protect 11. Boston and Denver used the format in February; both teams selected a mix of bench contributors and younger players on multi-year contracts. Columbus will conduct its draft in late 2027, concurrent with the yet-to-be-announced 19th franchise if one is awarded by then.
What to watch: Haslam Sports Group will name a team president by this summer, according to a timeline shared with the league office. Expect a candidate with prior NWSL front-office experience or a background in women's sports marketing; one name circulating among agents is a current executive at Wasserman who worked on the Angel City launch. Stadium site announcement likely comes in Q4 2026, tied to city council approval of infrastructure financing. Sponsorship conversations have already started—A&B Beverage is expected to take a founding partnership but not naming rights, which the ownership group wants to reserve for a national brand. And keep an eye on Atlanta's next move: The franchise has until June to finalize its stadium agreement with the city, and two people familiar said ownership is now pushing for capacity above the previously planned 12,500.
The league's media-rights renewal window opens in 2027. Eighteen teams create better inventory for a bidding process that already has interest from Amazon, ESPN, and NBC. The Columbus fee tells those broadcasters that the floor is north of $200 million and rising.
The takeaway
Columbus fee validates Atlanta's hold and resets league floor above $200 million, clarifying the cost for any final expansion slots.
nwslexpansioncolumbushaslamvaluationatlanta
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