You also have to consider that the $7.5 million expansion fee for CUSA and RSL came shortly after the league contracted and got rid of two teams (Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny). The league was on the verge of collapsing and those two team fees, plus the Adidas deal, helped right the ship. I'd wager the expansion fees would've been higher if they hadn't gone through those struggles.
https://justwomenssports.com/nwsl-expansion-plans-2024-utah-locations-questions-answers/ Based on the recent expansion articles, it seems like the Bay Area group has the most traction to be #14.
Bay Area has been in the public eye the longest, yes, so it's easy for articles to mention them; whether they have the strongest and most complete bid remains to be seen. As much as I would like them in with the effort they've put in to date, it feels like a smaller operation to me - I wouldn't be surprised if an MLS organization decides to go all-in on NWSL and leapfrogs the Bay Area group.
Still don't see the NWSL stopping at 14 teams. With this many interested ownership groups, they could likely get to 16 teams by 2026. Add two for 2024, one for 2025 & #16 for 2026. And there's always the possibility that a current team relocates in the next few years.
Oh I don't think anyone was ever considering that NWSL would "stop" at 14. It's just what's immediately on the table - and even then, as I said on the previous page of the thread, there's already talk of interested groups from this batch getting approved for after #14.
They are conscientious of expanding too quickly because it dilutes the quality of the product on the field. Players are spread out over more teams. Look what expansion did to Gotham. They were a playoff team one year ago, and then lost both goalkeepers to the expansion teams, including Sheridan (NWSL GK of the year) and Haračić (Angel City starter). They ended up in last place. Just one example, but you can see why it would be risky to grow too quickly.
Gotham's not the best example to use... Yes, they lost some great players, but they arguably gained even more great players. Not only did expansion indirectly get them Mewis, but they also added not one but two top-notch GKs in Betos and Harris during the offseason, plus players like Kreiger and Yokoyama. So in their case, it's not that talent got diluted - it's just the pieces they brought in simply didn't work well together. Despite expansion pulling two other great GKs away from them, they got better on paper overall during the offseason despite there being two more teams in the league for players to go to. (I think the reason Gotham suffered was losing such a good coach, and while that was kinda from expansion, it was well before the draft, and isn't an on-field talent issue.) Because of the structure of the league, looking at any single team is never a good idea if you're trying to argue about "talent dilution". The main thing I've seen over in MLS discussions about "talent dilution" is the overall depth across the league. That is, are the starting XIs actually full of talent or not, and if they are, how much talent is on the bench. In a related sense, you also hear people talking about the general "quality on the field" of each game, i.e. is the overall product looking better or not. And we can see that this year in NWSL - while Gotham tanked, the only other team that got worse year-over-year was Washington, and their roster was barely touched. Every other team got better this year in a eye-test sense. There are three big things to consider for NWSL expansion and "talent dilution": 1. The domestic talent pool is way deeper on the women's side than on the men's, if only because there are way more NCAA women's programs than men's; NWSL expansion will not exhaust the pipeline like might be possible on the men's side. 2. The international market is way more favorable to NWSL than it is to MLS, as NWSL is competitive with (and, in many case, better than) leagues in other countries in terms of salary for the rank-and-file players. NWSL can compete with the UEFA leagues in a way MLS simply can't. 3. Even with these two concerns on the men's side, near-constant MLS expansion has only made on-field quality better and better each year. So the whole "talent dilution" worry simply hasn't played out where you would expect it to; no way it plays out on the women's side where you don't expect it to. Remember that the problem used to be that there weren't enough roster spots for all of the drafted players, so even promising ones would get cut. So there was plenty of growth available to accommodate the talent the league was getting. Now, all that said, there *is* a worry about rapid expansion - but it's a business argument, not a talent argument. You can't expand so much that the league starts to "depend" on expansion fees to run. Plus, expanding too fast also usually means that owners aren't being vetted enough, and people joining the league are more trying to ride a wave of interest rather than buckle in for the long haul. Based on the comparison between the old NASL our current MLS, expanding at a rate of roughly 1 team per year *on average* is a wholly sustainable rate of expansion, and only makes the on-field product better. You just don't want to hit three teams per year on average - and two per year on average is TBD.
So on that note of expansion rates: In 2020, we had 9 teams In 2021, we had 10 teams (+1) In 2022, we had 12 teams (+2) In 2023, we stay at 12 teams In 2024, we will have 14 teams (+2) So from 2020 to 2024, that's +5 teams in 4yrs. A tiny bit over the desired rate, but still mostly okay. If we +1 in each of the following two years, that should also be fine. If we +2 in 2025, though, that would be +7 in 5yrs, and I'd hope there's a pause after that.
In 2020, we had 9 teams In 2021, we had 10 teams (+1) In 2022, we had 12 teams (+2) In 2023, we stay at 12 teams In 2024, we will have 14 teams (+2) . . . In 2025, we go to 15 teams (+1) In 2026, we go to 16 teams (+1) In 2027, we stay at 16 teams In 2028, we go to 18 teams(+2) With the amount of interest from just MLS owners, I see 18 teams by 2028 viable. All depends on the current state of the 12 teams and if they'll all still be where they are by then.
Harris and Betos as top-notch goalkeepers??? Are you F'n kidding me? Did you watch Gotham this season? Harris was terrible, and Betos was an average #2 keeper. They are both well past their prime. You obviously did not follow them. Krieger is 38 years old. She was solid but she is not Ali of old. Gotham took a huge hit with the expansion. Sheridan was the top goalkeeper in the NWSL this season. She would have been a huge difference maker at Gotham.
Anyway While something has been going on in BroSo, some NWSL expansion news: a group in Cleaveland has announced that they were one of the groups that applied in NWSL's current round of expansion bids. #NWSLtoCLE https://t.co/U4n3OVyPvC pic.twitter.com/JQAH4GFwHw— Cleveland Pro Soccer (@cleprosoccer) November 22, 2022 Not sure I put much stock in this bid... I can trust a USLC side to co-own an NWSL side, but I'm not sure an MLSNP side has the same resources. Plus, the NWSL page on their site doesn't include either Cali team on their NWSL map...
Cincinnati would get a team over Cleveland first. If the league plans to announce the return of the Utah Royals by the end of the year, they better get moving.
They are on top of it. The deadline is November. Announcement in early 2023: https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/nwsl-expanion-franchises-2024-jessica-berman-utah-royals/
Related to the impending sale of the Portland Thorns: there are more bidders for #NWSL expansion spots than there are available teams. The sale of Portland (and expected sale of Chicago) creates other entry points--at different prices. Previous reporting:https://t.co/W0gRF5Hedl— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) December 1, 2022
Expansion fees are buying shares of MLS, LLC (and SUM, LLC). What "saved MLS" was the formation of SUM, FMF, and InterLiga. LigaMX clubs used to play in the Copa Libertadores, and they used a mid-seasons winter break mini-tournament to determine a couple of their participants. When SUM was formed one of the first things it did was get the rights to InterLiga as well as the Mexico Men's National team sponsorship and broadcast rights in the United States. InterLiga was played in Los Angeles and the ticket, marketing, and broadcast revenues filled SUM's coffers - offsetting for Hunt/Kraft/Anschutz the losses incurred by operating MLS, LLC (and some of the costs they were individually incurring by operating their teams). The big money that still gives to this day is the Mexico Men's National Team. That's been the real cash cow. Another big early factor that really drew attention (because the Anglo press in the United States still gives basically short shrift to anything soccer related that isn't expressly in English) was the SARS outbreak. With the last minute relocation of Women's World Cup 2003 from China to the United States, SUM stepped in and took over the commercial and many of the operational controls of the World Cup. It proved that SUM was a marketing organization capable of handling itself in big situations, and it was also successful financially. When Cleveland (yes, Cleveland - not Salt Lake) and Chivas were granted expansion spots in November, 2003, the league was nowhere near collapsing, that period of time has passed. But it was desperate to get back to 12 teams and begin to expand its footprint and its ownership ranks. Anschutz had already sold Colorado to Kroenke, and bringing in Vergara/Cue and Wolstein would've seen team ownership go from 3 to 6 in just a couple of years. Wolstein then up and died, and while Paul Garofolo continued to "represent" Cleveland for years, he was never able to line up the money that Wolstein brought to the table. (I have a photo of Paul as part of the official delegation at BMO Field before its inaugural game in 2007). Fortunately for MLS, Dave Checketts stepped into the void and was able to get RSL up and running in Cleveland's stead in 2005. To be honest, most MLS teams continued to lose money on their own operations until relatively recently. But much of those losses since around 2010 have been them choosing to invest in the future growth of the league. These are very, very wealthy owners by and large. They're not into team sports for the ROI. But they don't necessarily want to burn stacks of cash, either. Those you read screaming "take the training wheels off" or end the Salary Cap (which the league doesn't have - it has a Salary Budget, but that's another discussion) don't understand why MLS is attractive to potential owners. SEM is why they buy in. They didn't buy in because they want to destroy single entity. Their investments are secure. The league isn't going to fail, and if they end up in last place every year, it's their own stupidity, not the fact that the Yankees or Man City make and can spend five times what they can. And they why expansion fees really began to accelerate once the league got past Philadelphia. I'm not sure Toronto gets in today - but in 2006 having Ontario build the league a stadium was good enough to get MLSE (a Toronto holding company that also owns the Leafs, not the soccer league) a team. Expansion fees for NWSL will be similar. It will basically tell us what the market value for the league as a whole is. If you want to buy 1/14th of the league, how much is that going to cost? What is the revenue from league sponsorships and broadcast deals that the existing owners are going to have to give up worth? - or in the case now (as in MLS) how much are you going to save the other owners in losses by the league front office? It's pretty complicated math. Those values aren't just for today, but also looking forward. But also note that there is value in expansion. A larger national footprint gives the league more attractive media and sponsorship rights. More owners also means more ability to handle the sudden reversals of any specific ownership group due to legal issues, social issues, market downturns in their real businesses, or a myriad of other things. When the Vergara/Cue experiment with Chivas ran out of steam and more pressing issues in Guadalajara with CDG pulled funding and attention, the collective owners of the existing MLS teams were able to easily buy out the franchise rights - which they turned a nice profit on when they eventually sold them to the LAFC consortium. Right now, I'm not sure the NWSL owners could suffer buying out any of Portland, Chicago, or Sky Blue much less more than one of them. I've lost the thread and rambled on too long.
Where'd Tampa come from? NEWS: three cities remain in contention for the @NWSL's 14th expansion team—boston, tampa and san francisco. the highest initial bid is well over $40 million. when the league last expanded, prices sat in the low single-digit millions. w/ @novy_williams:https://t.co/PoEZ8asXZI— Emily Caron (@_emcaron) December 16, 2022
FYI, the Tampa group is led by the MLB's Rays owner. Deep pockets but MLS failed there. Would prefer San Francisco. And what happened to all of the MLS-backed groups? None are finalists?
If it was MLS back club Austin would be the way to go. But SF has a better chance of being successful. Austin should be in next if they are serious along with a team in East. Vancouver would be great after that for a Canada based team. Can’t imagine a Canadian league separate from NWSL since it’s tough to create one.
I just wonder where these MLS-backed groups went to or did they all back out due to the expansion fee going up?
we would love to connect with fans, investors, and overall supporters who want to bring back a Boston team
Concern in Boston is where would they play? Main reason for the Breakers folding was a poor location.
I'm not entirely surprised. With the reported amount of bidders, plus the lack of public action from a lot of MLS sides that had previously given lip service to bid plans, it make sense that more established sports groups were going to be in the mix, whether they'd gone public before or not. For the MLS sides, I'm guessing that it is most likely a cost thing *more on that later - even if a multi-billionaire can easily plop $200-300m on an MLS expansion bid, it's a lot more difficult for a $200-300m operation to plop down $40m on its own NWSL expansion bid. I do somewhat worry about the lack of MLS-backed finalists, for a few reasons MLS-backed groups have established fan bases to tap into and recognizable brands already in the soccer world, plus they usually already have their own facilities and can share operating staff to greatly lower overhead cost. Worth noting that the MN Aurora withdrew their bid for NWSL - and for USL SL - because the timeline was too short to find proper investment. And all three of these NWSL expansion finalists are big money established sports groups - Sixth Street holdings (San Antonio Spurs, RMA, FCB) in the Bay Area, the Henrys (Boston Red Sox, LIV, the Boston Globe) in Boston, and Sternberg (TB Rays) in Tampa. And that's kinda my big concern*, getting back to how these are all basically big-money groups without a lot of US-based soccer experience. It kinda looks like NWSL considered big money and not much else about having well-rounded bids. Of course, there's plenty we haven't been told yet about each bid's content, but that's all still in the dark for us fans. For example, unless these groups already have a plan to build a stadium fresh, none would own/operate their own venue. Not a huge problem for the Bay Area group, which early on reported that they'd likely use the Earthquakes stadium. The Tampa group has been talked about with Al Lang, but that's too small for NWSL, and of course we all remember the problem the Breakers had with finding an appropriate stadium in Boston. Considering that the Bay Area group already had the US soccer experience and was only missing a big investor before this recent news came out, I'm definitely hoping they're the one to get the expansion bid. Because I have way too many questions about the other two bids (all questions that I wouldn't have with MLS-backed bids).