The NWSL has found its 16th franchise.
A group pining for an expansion team in Denver has won its bid with a $110 million expansion fee, more than double the previous NWSL record set by Bay FC, and already made its first payment to the league Tuesday, according to Sportico.
Denver was chosen over groups from Cleveland and Cincinnati. Caitlin Clark joined the Cincinnati bid, which NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman called an “honor.”
A representative for the NWSL told Front Office Sports that “the expansion process is ongoing, and we look forward to sharing more later this year.”
The group is led by future controlling owner Robert Cohen, the CEO of IMA Financial Group, who was also part of Denver’s WNBA bidding group who courted league execs with venue tours in August 2023.
The Denver fee demonstrates just how quickly women’s sports have exploded. In April 2023, the NWSL awarded a team to the Bay Area for a $53 million expansion fee, though the ownership group there did commit a total of $125 million for more resources. Boston won an expansion bid for the same price in September 2023. The next month, the WNBA picked its first in a series of expansion teams, awarding Golden State a team for a reported $50 million fee. In 2024, the league chose Toronto and Portland, both of which each paid similar expansion fees to Golden State but made nine-figure commitments to the league in total.
Expansion teams aren’t the only way the NWSL is attracting a boatload of new investors. In July, Bob Iger and Willow Bay shattered the league’s valuation record by purchasing Angel City FC for a deal valuing the club at $250 million. The record it dwarfed—March’s San Diego Wave sale valuing the team at $120 million—was also double the previous high of $63 million for Portland last January.
