The NWSL's 2026 season began with a record crowd of 63,004 at Denver Summit FC's home game. Columbus will join as the league's 18th team in 2028, with a $205 million expansion fee, reflecting the league's soaring team valuations.
Key points
NWSL 2026 season started with a record crowd of 63,004
Columbus awarded expansion franchise for 2028
Expansion fee for Columbus is $205 million
Average team value in NWSL is $200 million in 2026
Angel City FC is the most valuable team at $340 million
Mentioned in this story
NWSLJessica BermanJimmy HaslamDee Haslam
ColumbusAngel City FCKansas City CurrentBay FC
The National Womenâs Soccer League kicked off its 2026 season in March with a striking scene: an announced crowd of 63,004 watching Denver Summit FCâs inaugural home game, more than 20,000 tickets beyond the leagueâs previous high. But while an attendance record in a rollicking NFL stadium offered a visceral sign of the NWSLâs momentum, this week provided a perhaps even more impactful demonstration.
On Tuesday, commissioner Jessica Berman announced that Columbus, Ohio, had been awarded the leagueâs latest expansion franchise, due to begin play in 2028 as the NWSLâs 18th team. A group led by Jimmy and Dee Haslam, the billionaire owners of MLSâs Columbus Crew and the NFLâs Cleveland Browns, is paying a $205 million fee to secure the spot, a person with knowledge of the deal tells Forbesâ$40 million more than Arthur Blank, owner of MLSâs Atlanta United FC and the NFLâs Atlanta Falcons, agreed to shell out for an Atlanta expansion club just five months ago.
The price is also nearly double Denverâs $110 million deal from January 2025, and almost quadruple the $53 million paid by Boston Legacy FC and the San Francisco areaâs Bay FC in 2023. And it is more than 100 times the roughly $2 million expansion fees of 2021.
That sort of trajectory would have been unimaginable a few short years ago, when even the most successful teams would sell for less than $5 million, but all of the NWSLâs clubs have recently found themselves propelled skyward on a rapidly rising tide. Forbes now estimates that the leagueâs current teams (excluding Denver and Boston in their debut seasons) are worth $200 million on average, a 49% increase from last year. With particularly strong growth across the bottom half of the table, the median value is up even moreâ79%, exceeding $192 millionâand the floor sits at $140 million, twice the figure from 2025.
At the top of the league, Angel City FC remains No. 1, worth $340 million, followed by the Kansas City Current at $325 million. Four other clubsâBay FC, San Diego Wave FC, the Washington Spirit and the Portland Thornsâare worth more than $200 million as well.
For most of the teams lower in the ranking, the valuations have little to do with the current state of the franchisesâ business and instead represent bets by eager investors that the league-wide upswell will someday justify the lofty price tags. For instance, Chicago Stars FC, valued at $144 million after a league-best 106% jump from 2025âs $70 million valuation, generated only $7 million in revenue during the 2025 regular season, according to estimates.
Q&A
What is the expansion fee for Columbus's NWSL franchise?
Columbus's expansion franchise will cost $205 million, significantly higher than previous fees.
How much are NWSL teams worth in 2026?
The average value of NWSL teams in 2026 is estimated at $200 million, a 49% increase from the previous year.
Which NWSL team is currently the most valuable?
Angel City FC is the most valuable NWSL team, worth $340 million.
When will Columbus's NWSL team begin play?
Columbus's NWSL team is set to begin play in 2028.
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Forbes
That number should take a significant step forward this year now that the team has left SeatGeek Stadium in Chicagoâs southwestern suburbs for a better situation at Northwestern Universityâs Martin Stadium, more than an hour north. But the Starsâ long-term plans remain unsettled after they halted a push to play at a new Northwestern stadium next year in the face of resistance from Evanston residents.
Meanwhile, for all the buzz around the NWSL, the league saw its regular-season attendance dip 5% last year, to an average of 10,669 per game, from 2024âs 11,235. Explanations by soccer insiders vary, from unlucky weather to an overstuffed summer soccer calendar to macroeconomic trends that left fans with less disposable income to spend on tickets, but the most common hypothesis centers on the unavailability of big names like the Starsâ Mallory Swanson and the Thornsâ Sophia Wilson (who both gave birth in 2025) and Spirit forward Trinity Rodman (who had back and knee injuries) for all or most of the year.
Rodman and Wilson are back in action in 2026, and Swanson is expected to return later in the season, but the experience underlines the task ahead of newly installed NWSL chief marketing officer Rachel Epstein: cultivate a new generation of stars after the recent retirements of United States national team icons including Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe.
At the same time, no NWSL club is believed to have reached break-even yet, and with at least a couple of ownership groups projecting that they wonât cross over into the black until their top-line revenue gets into the $50 million range, profitability likely remains a long ways off for much of the league, even with several teams projecting year-over-year revenue growth of 20% or more for the next few seasons.
Of course, financial losses arenât entirely uncommon even in more established menâs professional leaguesâ12 of MLBâs 30 teams, and 16 of 29 in MLS, had negative operating income in 2025, according to Forbes estimatesâand the Current could get out of the red as soon as this year.
The NWSL has also recently notched some off-field victories, including an updated national broadcast schedule that features prime-time matchups on ESPN on Sundays and additional media partners in Victory+ and the Womenâs Sports Network, along with new deals with CVS and Panini trading cards that follow league-level sponsorship revenue growth of almost 50% in 2025. And the NWSL is poised to maintain its position as the worldâs most competitive womenâs soccer league after implementing a âhigh impact player ruleâ to persuade stars like Rodman to stay in the U.S. with salaries that go beyond the salary cap.
Against that backdropâand with Deloitte projecting global revenues in elite womenâs sports to surpass $3 billion in 2026âthe North Carolina Courage are believed to have an agreement to sell a significant minority stake to Avenue Sports Fund at a reported valuation of $155 million. On top of validating numbers across the rest of the league, the deal would bring another billionaire into the NWSL fold in Avenue chairman Marc Lasry, following recent transactions involving Gail Miller (Utah Royals), Bob Iger (Angel City) and Lauren Leichtman (San Diego), as well as powerhouse investment firms Carlyle (Seattle Reign FC) and Sixth Street (Bay FC).
âWhen I look back on my career in professional sports, the thing that has made the difference in all of the professional sports leaguesâ success is having blue-chip ownership who not only have the resources but the desire and vision to invest in the product,â commissioner Jessica Berman recently told Forbes.
Putting the deeper pockets to good use, many teams have begun building new practice facilities, and Current owners Angie and Chris Long privately financed the $140 million construction of CPKC Stadium, which opened in 2024 and has turbocharged the teamâs business. The Summit are also building a new home field, scheduled to open in 2028, and the Legacy are renovating Bostonâs White Stadium for their sophomore season.
âClubs are investing in the hard infrastructure that will change the economics of the game substantially for them for generations, not just for the next three years,â Legacy president Jennifer van Dijk says. âYou see it most specifically in the business in terms of schedule preferenceâif I can play on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons and in the windows where I have the best chance at getting my stands full, that is a massive differentiator.
âThe second place it shows up is that youâre actually participating in concessions revenue, parking revenue, some other operational revenueâany sort of venue sponsors, of course. When youâre a tenant, you donât get any of that.â
The league could hit another inflection point in 2028 with the start of its next media rights package, which is expected to carry a dramatically higher price than the current dealsâ reported average annual value of around $60 million. Adding to the optimism around that negotiation, regular-season TV viewership rose 22% in 2025, to 214,000 per game, and the CBS audience for the league championship game in November peaked at 1.55 million.
The bullishness is reflected in the revenue multiples underlying teamsâ valuations. This year, Forbes generally pegs top NWSL clubs at between eight and ten times their revenue from the most recent completed season, and with help from the lower-ranked franchises, the leagueâs average value of $200 million is 11.1 times the trailing yearâs average revenueânot quite at the level of the NBA (12.9 times trailing-year revenue) but outpacing the NFL (10.7x), the NHL (8.9x), MLS (8.9x) and MLB (7x). Only a year ago, the NWSLâs figure stood at 8.8x.
âMyself and a lot of my colleagues grew up in a world where being a pro athlete was not a viable career path as a woman,â van Dijk says. âAnd to see that change just within our career span, itâs really meaningful, but also itâs good business, which frankly is just as exciting.â
THE MOST VALUABLE NWSL TEAMS 2026
#1. $340 million
Angel City FC
One-Year Change: 21% | Revenue: $38 million | Owners: Willow Bay andBob Iger
Angel City FC's Gisele Thompson hugging her teammate SveindĂs JĂłnsdĂłttir during a game.
Karen Hickey/ISI Photos/Getty Images
#2. $325 million
Kansas City Current
One-Year Change: 18% | Revenue: $38 million | Owners: Angie and Chris Long
The Kansas City Current's Debinha kicking the ball.
Jay Biggerstaff/NWSL/Getty Images
#3. $230 million
Bay FC
One-Year Change: 35% | Revenue: $23 million | Owner: Sixth Street
The Houston Dash's Danielle Colaprico hugging her teammate Kiki Van Zanten.
Tim Warner/NWSL/Getty Images
#12. $144 million
Chicago Stars FC
One-Year Change: 106% | Revenue: $7 million | Owner: Laura Ricketts
Chicago Stars goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher.
Scott Taetsch/NWSL/Getty Images
#13. $142 million
Utah Royals
One-Year Change: 49% | Revenue: $9 million | Owner: Gail Miller
The Utah Royals' Lara Prasnikar.
Chris Gardner/NWSL/Getty Images
#14. $140 million
Racing Louisville FC
One-Year Change: 59% | Revenue: $10 million | Owner: John Neace
Racing Louisville's Emma Sears.
Chris Carter/NWSL/Getty Images
METHODOLOGY
To rank the most valuable National Womenâs Soccer League franchises, Forbes examined recent transaction data and spoke to more than two dozen industry insiders, including team and league executives, team owners and investors, investment bankers, advisors and consultants.
Revenue figures are estimated for the 2025 season and are rounded to the nearest $1 million. Playoff and non-league games were excluded from the revenue calculations, as were player transfers.
Team values include the economics of the teamâs stadium but not the value of the stadium real estate itself. The valuations similarly take into account ancillary revenue streams that are captured in the teamâs financial statements, such as income from sponsor signage or events at the teamâs practice facility, without directly measuring the value of those other assets. The listed team owners are the principal owners; other investors are omitted.
Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC, expansion clubs that began play this year, were excluded from the ranking. The future expansion teams in Atlanta and Columbus, scheduled to begin play in 2028, were also excluded.
