Jimmy Haslam's Haslam Sports Group paid $205 million for the National Women's Soccer League's 18th franchise in Columbus, a 24% premium over the $165 million Atlanta paid five months earlier in November 2025. The fee surpasses the $200 million Charlotte FC and St. Louis City paid to enter Major League Soccer in 2019 and 2023.
The Columbus franchise will play at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, currently home to Haslam's MLS club, the Crew. The NWSL team begins play in 2027. Haslam also owns the Cleveland Browns, making him the only individual controlling franchises in the NFL, MLS, and NWSL simultaneously. The ownership structure mirrors his approach in soccer: Dee and Jimmy Haslam hold the majority stake, with minority partners drawn from Columbus business operators and Crew investors expected to follow.
The $40 million jump in five months tells sponsors and allocators that NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman is running a seller's market. Atlanta's November deal looked expensive at the time—$165 million represented a 65% increase over the $100 million Bay FC paid in February 2024. Now it looks like early-entry pricing. The league has added seven franchises since 2023, each at a higher fee than the last. Media-rights negotiations with CBS, ESPN, and Amazon are scheduled to close by September 2026, and the expansion pipeline creates urgency: late entrants pay more, or they wait until the next cycle in 2029.
The Columbus announcement confirms NWSL has moved past the expansion-for-survival phase and into the scarcity-manufacturing phase. Berman capped the league at 20 teams in January, with two slots remaining. Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Nashville have submitted preliminary bids. The league prefers ownership groups with existing sports infrastructure—stadiums, front-office talent, regional sponsorship relationships. Haslam checks every box. His Crew shares a training facility with the new NWSL team, cutting capital expenditure. Nike already sponsors the Crew; conversations about a joint kit deal with the women's side started in March.
For kit sponsors, the calculus is straightforward. NWSL attendance grew 29% year-over-year in 2025, averaging 11,400 per match. Television ratings increased 41% on CBS and 37% on ESPN compared to 2024. Brands that locked in league-wide deals in 2023—Ally Financial, Nationwide, Google—are paying $8 million to $12 million annually. Comparable NBA sponsorships cost $18 million to $25 million. The gap is closing. Nationwide renewed early in February 2026 at $14 million per year, a 40% increase.
Haslam's timing also protects him from the next valuation jump. The two remaining expansion slots will likely price above $225 million each once media rights close. If the CBS-ESPN-Amazon package exceeds $90 million annually—current industry whispers put it near $100 million—then a $250 million entry fee becomes defensible math. Columbus locked in before that benchmark.
Watch for minority-investor announcements in June. Haslam Sports Group typically brings in three to five partners at 5% to 8% stakes, raising $30 million to $50 million in secondary capital for stadium upgrades and academy infrastructure. The Crew model suggests Columbus NWSL will announce a naming-rights deal for its training facility by August, likely in the $3 million to $5 million annual range. Nike kit negotiations should close before the September media-rights deadline. The final two expansion cities will be named by November, probably at fees 10% to 15% higher than Columbus.
Haslam now controls three franchises in three leagues, with a combined enterprise value near $5 billion. The NWSL piece is the smallest but the fastest-growing. He paid $205 million for an asset that Atlanta valued at $165 million five months ago and Bay FC valued at $100 million fourteen months ago. The trend line is the thesis.
The takeaway
Columbus expansion fee is **24%** above Atlanta's November price, signaling NWSL's final two slots will clear **$225M** post-media deal.
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