An NWSL expansion announcement seems imminent as the Wall Street Journal announced Utah, Boston, and the San Francisco area will receive expansion teams. Utah and San Francisco are expected to play in the 2024 season, while Boston will begin playing later. San Francisco and Boston will pay a record $50 million expansion fee, while Utah will pay a reduced expansion fee. This is because of an agreement that was made when the Royals folded and moved to Kansas City.
NEW: The National Women’s Soccer League is set to add teams in Utah, Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area, with the coastal teams agreeing to record $50 million expansion fees.
— Rachel Bachman (@Bachscore) January 27, 2023
w/@jtoonkel: https://t.co/PRvWk8k4TA
Utah
Rumors of the Royals returning to Utah have been going around since last summer. Ryan Smith, the Utah Jazz and Real Salt Lake owner, guaranteed fans that the Royals would return sooner rather than later. Utah has the rights to use the Royals’ name and logo if they wish. The Royals will certainly receive a warm welcome, as attendance averaged second-highest in the NWSL in 2019, with an average of over 10,000 fans per game.
The Bay Area
An NWSL team in Northern California has been a long time coming. Sacramento had been rumored to receive an expansion team since 2019 and finally won a bid in 2021. However, the ownership group opted to move the team to San Diego, and thus the San Diego Wave was born. Stanford and Santa Clara University have strong, storied women’s soccer programs, so players from those programs may be tempted to sign with the new Bay Area team.
Boston
Long-time NWSL fans will likely remember the Boston Breakers, who folded in 2018. Now, it appears that the team may be coming back in the next few years. The Breakers originally folded due to financial strains. There were a few efforts to sell the team to the owners of the New England Revolution, but those fell through and the team disbanded. It is currently unknown if the Boston team will play in Gillette Stadium, like the Revolution, or if they will play elsewhere.
Which NWSL expansion team are you most excited about? Where would you like to see the league expand next? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on Twitter and check out Beyond Women’s Sports for more women’s sports coverage. Want to start watching the NWSL and WSL? You can do that here.
