By Laura Everett 1/29/23

The good news, first: In a story first reported by Jessica Toonkel and Rachel Bachman  in the Wall Street Journal,  Boston will indeed be one of the cities for the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) expansion for new professional women’s soccer teams. The less good news: Boston will not join Utah or the Bay Area in the 2024 expansion. When a Boston professional Women’s soccer team arrives on the scene is far less clear. 

As of this writing, there is no official announcement from the NWSL Board of Governors. 

In response to the Wall Street Journal, a league spokesperson said, “We remain engaged in our expansion process and are excited about our prospects. when we have news to share, we will do so.”

The bid to bring a NWSL team to Boston has been quiet since the announcement in mid December. Whether that is intentional or not is unclear. Neither the process for deciding by the NWSL Board of Governors, nor the details of the Boston bid are readily accessible to the public.  

The 2023 bidding process is being managed by New York-based consulting group and investment firm Inner Circle Sports. The July 2022 NWSL Board of Governors meeting announced the hiring of Inner Circle Sports, with the process led by principals Steve Horowitz and Rob Tillis, and Maddie Winslow. Boston-based Fenway Sports Group previously hired Inner Circle Sports to assist with the sale of limited assets of the group in 2019, and the purchase of Liverpool FC, including their Women’s Football Club, in 2010. 

NWSL expansion efforts for 2023 signaled only two new teams being added this year, with Utah nearly guaranteed. Additionally, Tampa was shortlisted with Boston and the Bay Area for consideration. News of Utah, Bay Area and Boston expansion teams would bring the league to fifteen total teams from the current twelve. 

Given the NWSL and NWSL Players’ Association recent self-initiated report on the need for increased trustworthiness and transparency following decades of sexual, racial and economic abuse, a clear timeline and process would be advisable. The NWSL is coming off multiple seasons where established owners have been forced to sell due to sexual, racial, and financial misconduct. Over the last few seasons,the NWSL Board of Governors, which includes team owners,  has been reluctant to force the sale of teams from known abusive owners. 

Bids from investors groups in Boston and the Bay Area are estimated at a record-setting $50 million dollars for the rights to participate in the NWSL. Utah’s entry bid is far lower at $2-5 million, due to their legacy status. Major League Soccer team Real Salt Lake retained the rights and options to the name “Utah Royals” when the NWSL team was sold and moved to Kansas City in 2020. 

The last round of expansion teams came in 2020 with Angel City FC & San Diego Wave. Their respective ownership groups bid between $2-5 million to enter the league. The last major sale of a NWSL team came in March 2022 when Y. Michele Kang bought a controlling interest in the  Washington Spirit for $35 million after a contentious ownership battle.  

The increased bid price for Boston and the Bay Area reflects both the growing viewership, investment and interest in professional women’s sports, both in women’s football internationally  and in American professional women’s sports generally. The Premier Hockey Federation recently announced a 2023-2024 doubling of team salary caps, following a January 2022 $25 million capital investment. The Women’s National Basketball Association announced a $75 million capital investment, which included local investor Linda Henry. Linda Henry is one of only two women among the thirty partners of Fenway Sports Group, where her husband John Henry is also the principal owner. John Henry also owns the Boston Globe and Linda Henry currently serves as CEO of Boston Globe Media. 

Boston’s bid comes from an all-female investors group, as previously reported by the Boston Globe, backed by: 

• Jennifer Epstein, founder of Juno Equity and the daughter of Celtics co-owner Robert Epstein, the investment group’s controlling owner 
• Anna Palmer, a general partner at Flybridge Capital
• Stephanie Connaughton, an angel investor, advisor and mentor with early stage start-ups
• Ami Kuan Danoff, co-founder and CFO of the Women’s Foundation of Boston, as managing partners.

The Globe also named Linda Henry, Chief Executive Officer of the Boston Globe, “as one of the smaller investors in the Boston group.” None of the smaller investors are known. Additionally, the Boston NWSL bid is backed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Ami Kuan Danoff and Mayor Michelle Wu are both Asian and the other three women are white.  

Read our essay “Making an Antiracist NWSL Bid for Boston”

The Boston bid group has not made anything more publicly available about the community engagement strategy or stadium location, though White Stadium in Franklin Park and Memorial Stadium in East Boston are under consideration. 

Local fans enthused about the Boston bid are left currently to their own efforts. An anonymous instagram account “@NWSLtoBoston” responded that they started the account, “after I heard there was an ownership group looking to bring a franchise to Boston. When that news broke in mid-December I was looking on IG (Instagram) for any official or fan pages and couldn’t find any. I knew how fan interest had been influential in getting a team in LA. So I figured we should show the fan interest in Boston, and decided to make one. Right now I’ve been using the account to share news about the potential franchise, as well as trying to highlight players from Massachusetts.” 

Boston’s lack of an immediately viable stadium is a potential reason for the delayed entry into the league. NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said in July 2022, “Facilities will be on the list of among the highest priority as it relates to investors and the requirements that we put forward in our considerations for what makes the right type of expansion team.” Neither of the reported stadiums are in professional shape. White Stadium at the nexus of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury seats 10,000 but would need major renovations. Built in the late 1940’s and operated by Boston Public Schools, the facility was slated for rehabilitation by Mayor Marty Walsh in 2013, but ultimately shelved due to costs.

Boston previously hosted a professional women’s soccer team, the Boston Breakers. The Breakers played in: the WUSA (Women’s United Soccer Association) which ran from 2001- until closure in 2003; the WPS (Women’s Professional Soccer) from 2009 until the league was suspended in 2012; The WPSL Elite (the Women’s Premier Soccer League Elite ) a semi-pro league from 2012 until 2013;  the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) which began in 2013 until the team ceased operation in 2018.

The chronic instability in leagues and underinvestment in professional women’s soccer created environments ripe for abuse and worker exploitation with which very few men’s leagues have to contend. Boston re-enters the professional women’s soccer world in a very different moment than when the Breakers folded in 2018. The NWSL is now entering its eleventh season. Professional women’s soccer is growing exponentially. There is an enormous amount of reform that still needs to occur, but the existential threat that professional women’s soccer will cease to exist is simply not present in the same way that it was in 2018. 

What remains to be seen is how the Boston expansion responds to this opportunity for growth, joy, and necessary reform.