NWSL expansion: Where things stand as the league looks to add a 16th team

With the NWSL expected to select the league's 16th team before the end of this year, Cleveland's chances of bringing professional women's soccer to the city have grown after a local ownership group secured land for a downtown stadium.

Cleveland Soccer Group (CSG), the group behind the city's NWSL expansion bid, and the Cleveland Metroparks Board of Park Commissioners recently announced the purchase of 13.6 acres of state land to build a $150million (£114.3m), 12,500-seat stadium on what is currently undeveloped land in the city's downtown.

"It's really where Clevelanders have been going for the last 30 years to enjoy professional sports," Michael Murphy , co-founder and CEO of Cleveland Soccer Group, told The Athletic last week. "It's about a five-minute walk from (the) home plate at Progressive Field, where the Guardians play in Major League Baseball , or maybe an eight-minute walk from mid-court where the Cavaliers play in the NBA ."

If their bid is successful, an NWSL team could be playing there, too, as soon as 2026.

The ownership group is the latest bidder to make headlines in a push to secure an NWSL club. The league has experienced explosive growth: there have been historic levels in attendance, team valuations are skyrocketing and the league's packaged TV deals have total $60million, which will soon be up for renegotiation. Expansion fees are also at record highs, with Bay FC and Boston paying a record $53m to enter the league .

CSG is pursuing a public-private partnership that remains an underutilized tool in women's professional sports, though more teams have begun to consider this as an option. Cleveland Metroparks purchased the roughly $4.2million state-owned property, where the stadium will sit , from the Ohio Department of Transportation, according to a statement. CSG will fund the purchase, with the stadium remaining publicly owned.

"I think it's really important because most stadiums in this country have had some public financing element to them," Murphy said. "If you look back in the state of Ohio even, maybe over the last 30 years, there's been about $2billion spent in this state across Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, (and) other cities on men's professional (sports), and over the same periods it's been $0 for women."

Murphy said his group's economic impact study projects $4billion in economic activity over 30 years from their new soccer stadium. This kind of success was already proven, he added, with the success of the 2024 NCAA women's basketball Final Four in Cleveland this spring. The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission estimated the tournament generated $32.9m in "direct spend" in northeast Ohio.

"That's one week," Murphy said, "and we're talking about building a sustainable business, a sustainable club with a global brand, hopefully, over the next 30 years. And that's something that's really exciting for Cleveland."

In Ohio, public spending by professional sports organizations is a hot-button issue, with the NFL 's Cleveland Browns pinballing between plans for a $1billion renovation of their lakefront stadium or a $2.4bn proposal to build a new stadium in nearby Brook Park. Both options would utilize public funds.

The Cleveland soccer stadium project is expected to cost a total of $283million, funded both in public and private funding, according to CSG's website . The group is seeking $90m in city, county and state funds. The stadium, once complete, would be publicly owned, with the NWSL team holding the stadium's lease. The women's team would be the primary tenant, followed by an MLS Next Pro team. While starting at a 12,500 capacity, the venue will be expandable to up to 20,000 seats.

The purchase of the land, however, is contingent on the ownership group winning their bid for an NWSL team. If the group's bid is unsuccessful, how they plan to proceed remains "to be determined". Murphy was confident in their chances, though, even as interest in NWSL expansion grows around the country.

"We think that our public-private partnership and location of the stadium is really unmatched among any other thing that we've heard," Murphy said.

"At this point in time, it's so important, we think, for clubs in the NWSL to control their facility, which means they control the play dates, they control the revenue that flows through them, they control the programming, just like many of the men's teams do."

The league's infrastructure problem

NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said last year that infrastructure is "probably the hardest problem to solve, long term, and one of the most important problems for us to solve as soon as possible". Finding a solution, in turn, would help fuel growth in the league.

"Every time we have an opportunity to right-size the investment in infrastructure in a market, which would typically happen when a team is being sold, or in an expansion context, we will do everything in our power to create the right incentives to be able to have an opportunity for the ownership group to invest in infrastructure," Berman said.

The league has since experienced nearly a full season of CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, which many consider the North Star for infrastructure goals in the league.

The stadium opened in March, marking a historic moment for the NWSL . For the first time, an NWSL club was in control as a venue's primary tenant, thanks to its owners also being owners of the stadium. The venue was almost entirely privately financed by the KC Current owners, Angie and Chris Long, with an estimated $6million of the $117m stadium covered through state tax credits. The team also privately financed an $18m practice facility.

So far this season, the stadium has hosted 12 consecutive sellout NWSL regular season matches. The venue can host other events, too, which provides the team with a source of revenue that women's professional teams are usually not afforded. Next month, the stadium will host the NWSL championship match in what is sure to be a momentus conclusion to a breakout year for the league.

Being a primary tenant in a home venue is a luxury that most NWSL teams don't have.

Last year in San Diego, the Wave learned that Major League Soccer 's expansion club, San Diego FC, is set to be the primary tenants of Snapdragon Stadium when they begin to play in 2025. The Wave has called Snapdragon its home venue since 2022, setting multiple attendance records and drawing sellout crowds.

In Chicago, the music festival Riot Fest nearly forced the Chicago Red Stars out of SeatGeek Stadium, which is publicly owned by the Village of Bridgeview. The festival was set to be held in the stadium's parking lots on the same day as a Red Stars match. The conflict was eventually resolved when Riot Fest announced it would be moving the festival back to Chicago, about 30 minutes to an hour's drive away.

Considering that mishap, it is no surprise the Red Stars are actively looking for a new home.

Club president Karen Leetzow told The Athletic in August the team is working to move into the actual city of Chicago. "Every week, we're meeting with influential people here in the city who can help us get this done," Leetzow said. The team is also pushing Chicago to commit to public funding for a women's soccer stadium. They are competing with other teams for public funds, though, like the Chicago Bears and White Sox.

Even when a public-private partnership is secured, delays can ensue.

The league's 15th expansion team in Boston , awarded to Boston Unity Soccer Partners last year, has slowly been taking shape in New England. The ownership group proposed renovating George R. White Stadium in Franklin Park for the team's home venue. This would be secured through equity and involve a public-private partnership with Boston Public Schools, which would retain ownership of the stadium for its own use. But the project's progress has crawled, with ongoing backlash from locals.

Who else is bidding?

Berman told ESPN in April that about a dozen prospective ownership groups have signed non-disclosure agreements in this latest round of NWSL expansion bidding. On Thursday, an NWSL representative said the process remained "ongoing" and that the league was "enthusiastic about our prospects".

While the ownership group in Cleveland is one of the more high-profile bids, others have expressed their interests publicly. There's been bubbling interest in Cincinnati, where a local group expressed interest in "exploring an NWSL bid" in June. That group included Jeff Berding, president and co-CEO of Major League Soccer's FC Cincinnati and the club's controlling ownership group and management, "with support from a cohort of women executives".

In Colorado, another ownership group announced last summer their ambitions to bring a professional women's soccer team to Denver by 2026. When they said this in 2023, the group expressed interest in either an NWSL or USL Super League team.

And there's also been public interest out of Jacksonville, Florida, with Robert Palmer, owner of Jacksonville Armada, announcing in December the formation of an entity called Jax Downtown Pro Women's Soccer to explore its own NWSL bid.

Speculation has also swirled in cities such as Atlanta, where U.S. Soccer is heavily investing, and Nashville too. However, investors in those cities have not expressed interest publicly. An investment group with ties to Minnesota Aurora FC recently withdrew their bid for an expansion team, leaving open the possibility of revisiting the bid in the future.

Similarly, Cleveland's group was a finalist in the previous round of expansion bidding. When the group renewed its bid for a 2026 expansion, they came up with a "Back to Bid" campaign where fans can pledge $26 for a season ticket.

"We're excited to be almost over 15,000 tickets pledged for a team that doesn't exist in a stadium that doesn't exist," Murphy said, "and we think that speaks volumes about our market."

Murphy, and the rest of the ownership group, remain in stubborn pursuit of bringing an NWSL team to Cleveland. He was quick to quash any possible doubt.

"We think that Cleveland's a major league town. We're really focused on bringing the best soccer in the world to Cleveland," he added. "We think that's the NWSL, and we think that opportunity is here right now, and it's teed up. We're really optimistic that we're going to see it through."

(Top photo: Nick Tre. Smith / USA TODAY Sports )