The goal is to find an expansion city sometime this year.
Wanted: Someone with deep pockets who loves women’s soccer located in a city with a ready to go soccer stadium, a good corporate base and a good media market. Contact National Women’s Soccer League Commissioner Jessica Berman for details. The NWSL is looking for an 18th franchise and Berman promises that the league will award some owner an expansion team sometime during 2026. In November 2025, the league gave the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons franchise owner Arthur Blank an expansion franchise and that team will start play in 2028. “Now we will be 16 clubs across this country, firmly establishing the NWSL as a truly national league with incredible demand and interest for professional women’s soccer,” Berman said. “And in 2028, synonymous with what will be our next media rights deal, we will be 18 teams. I think we have been intentional about extending the ramp up period for all of our expansion teams as we move forward. It’s the reason we’re working on Team 18 in 2026 and hope to give them a very long runway. It is also the reason that we changed to a rolling process, as opposed to having arbitrary deadlines that are based on our timeline as opposed to their readiness.”
In January, 2025 the National Women’s Soccer League awarded its 16th franchise to the Denver market. Denver got the nod beating out Cincinnati and Cleveland. Presumably those two cities are in the mix for that 18th team along with places like Columbus, Ohio, Nashville, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Jacksonville. It has been a long road for professional women’s soccer leagues in the United States to find success. Two leagues have failed since 2001. The NWSL started play in 2013 and has struggled during its existence but it appears the league has stabilized its finances.
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