Angel City FC and the San Diego Wave each made their NWSL debuts in 2022. ACFC was an instant hit with its celebrity backing and hyper-charged branding that generated nearly 16,000 season tickets and record sponsorship and merchandise sales in their inaugural season. Last year, San Diego set an NWSL record with 20,718 fans per game—only two teams had averaged as many as 6,500 fans in the last pre-COVID season of 2019. The two clubs each paid an expansion fee of roughly $2 million.
The league’s first foray into California had triggered a gold rush. This year, the NWSL will set season records for TV ratings, attendance and revenue. Angel City and San Diego owners cashed in through sales processes at valuations of $250 million and $120 million. And it is not just the top of the financial table scoring, with Marc Lasry near a deal to buy a control stake in the North Carolina Courage at a roughly $108 million valuation for a club with the lowest attendance in the league.
The average NWSL team is worth $104 million, up 57% from a year ago, according to Sportico’s calculations, which are derived from conversations with more than two dozen team owners, executives and investors, as well as bankers and lawyers who work on team transactions. The 14 franchises are collectively worth $1.46 billion based on “control” sale valuations.
Angel City leads at $250 million, followed by the Kansas City Current ($182 million), Wave ($132 million) and Bay FC ($121 million). Click for a full ranking and methodology.
League Economics
The NWSL launched in 2013, and the Portland Thorns led the league in attendance each season through 2021. In 2019, Portland became the first team to average 20,000 per match at a time when most clubs generated $2 million to $3 million in annual revenue, with the Thorns the rare exception. The league was still tethered to U.S. Soccer, and the game’s national governing body wanted to avoid a third failure of a women’s soccer league at all costs. That kept a lid on investment, but the lid blew off after the 2021 season with new owners entering the NWSL and the end of the official relationship with U.S. Soccer.
NWSL attendance hit 1 million fans in 2022 for the first time, and this year will crack 2 million with the help of two new teams—Bay FC and Utah Royals—and a 26-game regular season, four more than last year. Half the league is averaging at least 10,000 fans per game this season. Average per-game attendance is up 10% after a 32% gain the previous year.
The 14 NWSL clubs will generate an estimated $215 million in 2024 regular season revenue, up 91% from last year, when 12 teams took the field. Revenue ranges from $6.5 million (Chicago Red Stars) to $36.3 million (Kansas City) with the average at $15.4 million, a tick behind WNBA clubs who were at $13.2 million last year but had revenue jump at least 30% in 2024, fueled largely by the arrival of Caitlin Clark.
Despite the record revenue, every NWSL club from Chicago to Kansas City is in the red, and the annual losses are bigger than ever, typically between $5 million and $10 million, according to multiple team owners. Losing money owning a soccer team is not unique to the NWSL, with most MLS teams not profitable, and the 20 Premier League teams operating at a collective $710 million loss for the 2022-23 season after player trading, with only four teams profitable in the world’s biggest soccer league.
Yet, the losses at this stage of the NWSL’s growth cycle are arguably a positive, as the NWSL transitions from a just-stay-in-business mentality to a new breed of owners who are investing capital to build the foundation of these nine-figure assets. NWSL revenue growth rates are dramatically higher than in MLS and the EPL.
In April 2023, Sixth Street became the first institutional investor to own a controlling stake in a team in a major U.S. league when it was awarded the Bay Area expansion team for a $53 million fee. Other investors included U.S. women’s national team veterans Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton and Aly Wagner. Sixth Street committed to spend $125 million to get the club up and running and hired 90 people ahead of its first regular season game just 11 months later.
Despite the quick turnaround from expansion bid to playing, Bay FC was able to generate more than $20 million in revenue during its first season and could approach $30 million next season with more lead time and people in place to help the sales cycle. The Bay Area has a rich women’s soccer heritage with storied programs at Stanford and Santa Clara, as well as a large corporate base and fans with high disposable incomes.
Sixth Street manages $80 billion in assets and was just granted the right to invest in NFL franchises. The private equity giant’s NWSL investment is certainly not for altruistic reasons to support women’s sports. It has ambitions for Bay FC to be a $1 billion club.
Bay FC has been aggressive in spending on players. Ahead of the season start, the club acquired two-time Ballon d’Or finalist Asisat Oshoala from Barcelona, and it broke the transfer fee record for women’s soccer to poach Zambian star Racheal Kundananji from Real Madrid for roughly $800,000. On Tuesday, Bay FC revealed plans for its 8.5-acre practice facility and headquarters site in San Francisco to open in 2027. Yet, Sixth Street CEO Alan Waxman has bigger facilities plans for Bay FC and has made clear that the best way to create a world-class sports franchise is to own your own stadium.
No one has bet more on women’s soccer and the NWSL than Angie and Chris Long. In 2022, the Current owners opened the first training complex dedicated to a women’s pro team at a cost of $18 million. It was a warmup for the main course of the first stadium built specifically for an NWSL team, as well as the first stadium of any kind in downtown Kansas City. The final price tag for the privately funded CPKC Stadium was $140 million with JPMorgan financing the deal.
The Longs built KC-based investment firm Palmer Square Capital Management from $13 million in assets in 2009 to more than $30 billion. They are investors at heart and viewed the stadium as a way to control its destiny on everything from design to scheduling to revenue opportunities. NWSL owners and executives have flocked to Kansas City this summer to tour the building and pick the brains of the Longs on how they pulled this off.
The Current’s local revenue more than tripled to an estimated $35 million before any potential playoff payouts. There are still untapped revenue opportunities from sponsorships, ticketing, premium areas and non-NWSL events; the season ticket waiting list is more than 3,000. There is also the ability to add thousands of seats to the 11,500-seat venue, which would likely happen after the 2026 World Cup if ticket demand continues to outweigh supply.
Team Sales
This year continued the massive turnover among NWSL owners with four clubs sold. The Angel City sale set a record for the valuation of a women’s sports franchise at $250 million. Willow Bay, the dean of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and her husband, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger, are the new control owners of the franchise with a roughly 40% stake, while original investors Alexis Ohanian, Natalie Portman, Julie Uhrman and Kara Nortman retained stakes along with dozens of other investors.
Bay and Iger will invest an additional $50 million into the club that will go toward operations and investment in facilities and personnel. ACFC has been actively looking at practice facility options since it was awarded a team in 2020, and Iger’s connections in the market are expected to help move those plans along and potentially open new options.
Billionaire Ron Burkle is selling the San Diego Wave to Lauren Leichtman and her husband Arthur Levine, founders of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners in a two-part transaction. Leichtman and Levine bought the first 35% stake, and the deal on the remaining 65% is expected to close next month. The transaction carried a weighted average value of $113 million with the second tranche at $120 million. The sale price was set in January, and Sportico’s $132 million valuation reflects the continued rise in league prices.
San Diego ranks third in league revenue and is the rare club with four jersey partnerships, including a $2.5 million-a-year front-of-jersey pact with Kaiser Permanente. It is investing on its business side by hiring a chief revenue officer, as well as executives on the ticketing and partnerships side. It is also making progress on plans for its own standalone training facility following the retirement this month of Wave star Alex Morgan.
Earlier this year, Portland and the Seattle Reign were also sold. Siblings Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal paid $63 million for the Thorns, and the Carlyle Group and Seattle Sounders bought the Reign for $58 million.
Star power continues to be attracted to the league. Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn joined Ryan Smith and David Blitzer in the Utah Royals ownership suite this year. Last month, Magic Johnson was added to the cap table of the Washington Spirit.
NWSL team values have soared in recent years, but they are arguably still cheap by at least one metric. Revenue multiples remain the standard for sports team valuations. Sportico values NWSL clubs at an average of 6.8 times revenue, which leaves it sandwiched between the WNBA and MLB—the four NWSL teams sold this year were for between six and 7.5 times 2023 revenue. It is a steep discount to the 11 multiple for NBA teams and 9.6 for MLS, despite the NWSL enjoying the best growth prospects.
Lasry recently signed a letter of intent, typically a non-binding document outlining the basic deal points, to buy 60% of the Courage at a roughly $108 million valuation. The billionaire expressed interest in acquiring the Reign and was in the running to buy Angel City. North Carolina has been a star on the field with a pair of NWSL championships in 2018 and 2019. However, attendance ranks last in the league this year and was second lowest in 2023.
Lasry’s potential deal, which does not include Steve Malik’s North Carolina FC USL team, would be at a rich 12 times 2024 revenue and akin to Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts’ agreement to buy the Chicago Red Stars last year at a similar revenue multiple. Both NWSL franchises have struggled on the business side but are seen as potentially valuable assets where a certain level of investment could unlock gains. Last year, the Courage raised $15.7 million at a $66 million valuation.
Malik founded the Courage in 2017 when he bought the franchise rights from the Western New York Flash. He is the longest-tenured NWSL owner, and if the sale to Lasry is completed, it would mean that all 14 NWSL teams would be either new franchises or have a new control owner since 2020.
What’s Next
The NWSL is generating real revenue at the league level for the first time, thanks to its new four-year, $240 million TV deal. A majority of that $60 million a year is production costs and marketing, but there is a cash component that is a major improvement on the prior CBS deal, which was worth $1.5 million annually and had clubs on the hook for production costs.
Teams are unlikely to see a disbursement from national media and sponsorship deals with league assessments eating into that cash, but Sportico does allocate gross revenue of roughly $1.5 million to each team for these deals. It means that 90% of NWSL revenue this year is local, with an estimated 10% from the league side, based on Sportico’s estimates. The short-term pact will get the NWSL to its next TV deal more quickly, and it will presumably be a major step-up based on the recent trajectory.
Clubs are investing in their facilities for a better experience for players and fans, as well as to generate more revenue. These facilities will also play a bigger role with the CBA extension reached last month that will run through 2030.
The new CBA provides players more freedom on where they want to play and is about attracting and keeping the best talent in the world in the U.S. The draft was abolished, and the caveats included in free agency when it was introduced in 2022 have been removed. The salary cap will jump to $3.3 million next year and $5.1 million by 2030. Players also cannot be traded without their permission, and there are no maximum individual salary caps. The CBA puts an onus on owners to invest in their venues to help attract the best talent.
The NWSL already has a leg up on talent and does not want to slip as European leagues increase their focus on women’s teams. A recent study by soccer analytics firm Twenty First Group found that 36% of the 50 best players in the world play in Spain, with almost all of the talent concentrated at Barcelona. The U.S. was next at 24%, followed by England, France and Germany. The top 500 players tells a different story, with 39% in the U.S. and England next at 15%. The top non-U.S. talent is heavily concentrated at a few clubs in each of the four major European leagues, while it is dispersed in the U.S., so that the weakest NWSL team is the 38th-strongest in the world, per Twenty First Group.
With the CBA in place, the league will focus on adding a 16th franchise. It will likely be the last team added for the near future, and the expectation is a big jump from the $53 million that Bay FC and Boston paid. Multiple owners made clear that they want a nine-figure franchise fee for team 16. Nashville, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Miami, Denver and Cleveland have all looked at joining the league.
The NWSL’s newest owners, including Sixth Street, the Longs, Carlyle, Ricketts, Blitzer, Smith, the Bhathals, Levine and Iger have transformed the growth mindset of the league and arrive with operational expertise and financial heft. The NWSL will want a high expansion price for its next squad, but even more important is a a similar ownership group willing to invest in facilities, players and the gameday experience.