Three years ago, the eventual NWSL champion Washington Spirit drew 5,379 people to their final home playoff game, about a quarter of Audi Field’s capacity. Their season had been marred by their coach being fired (and eventually banned by the NWSL) for creating a toxic workplace, and the players publicly begging the owner to sell.
In 2022, part-owner Michele Kang took full control of the team for $35 million, and spearheaded a factory reset. Fast-forward to earlier this month, when the Spirit’s two home playoff games sold out Audi Field with 19,215 and 19,365 fans apiece.
Under Kang, the Spirit have undergone a massive business transformation that’s delivered a lot more than ticket sales. The team no longer splits home turf among venues. It has made key investments in its athletes’ health and performance. And it also launched a visual rebrand of its crest and its color scheme. Now the Spirit are chasing another NWSL title in Saturday’s title game, but the atmosphere around Washington soccer and the entire landscape of the NWSL have completely shifted.
“It’s not all about winning. It is truly about people being vested in the movement of women’s sports,” Spirit VP of marketing Brandon Clark tells Front Office Sports.
It’s been a historic year for the league. Its new four-year, $240 million media-rights deal kicked in this season, increasing annual TV revenue from $1.5 million to $60 million. The San Diego Wave nearly doubled the league record with its $120 million sale in March, which Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, shattered in July by paying $250 million for Angel City FC. In August, the players’ association shook up its collective bargaining agreement, eliminating all drafts and trades without player consent. And the league easily passed the regular-season attendance record it set a year before, drawing the largest crowds in its history.
The Spirit have been at the forefront of that growth. The team used to play most games at 5,000-seat Segra Field in Leesburg, Va., until permanently moving all home games to D.C. United’s downtown Audi Field starting with the 2023 season. This season, the Spirit averaged more than 14,500 people at home matches, according to ESPN.
“There’s a certain legitimacy, I think, the second that you play in a place like Audi, versus playing in the suburbs where we were before,” Clark says. When the Spirit sent out membership renewals in August, 94% of season-ticket holders signed on for next year within a month, he says.
Kang has also said she’s looking to secure a practice space specifically for the Spirit (though working with government-owned land in the capital has been a challenge). The team currently shares facilities in Leesburg with D.C. United.
Investment in women’s sports science—Kang’s other big mission—has taken off with the Spirit. Dawn Scott, the team’s VP of performance, medicine, and innovation, told FOS in March that she helps players learn more about their menstrual cycles, and how tracking and making changes to food, sleep, temperature, and hormones can help with period symptoms. “[You] give the player the optimum support for them to be the best version of themselves,” Scott said. Kang also announced a $30 million investment in U.S. Soccer this week focused on growing the girls and women’s game.
All the money flooding into the team has translated to success on the pitch. The Spirit drafted Trinity Rodman in 2021, one of the national team’s “Triple Espresso” who led Team USA to a gold medal in the Paris Olympics. Washington also has NWSL Midfielder and Rookie of the Year Croix Bethune, who won the honor despite missing much of the season due to a freak injury at a Washington Nationals game.
“We have not gone without in terms of any resources from a content standpoint, from a brand-marketing standpoint,” Clark says. “I think that’s really how we’ve advanced so fast.”
The Orlando Pride, who will face the Spirit in Kansas City on Saturday, have gone through a total revamp of their own. Mark Wilf, who owns the Minnesota Vikings, bought the city’s MLS and NWSL teams in 2021, and the women’s coach was removed for workplace violations in 2022. The interim who replaced her, Seb Hines, had no head coaching experience, but this year became the league’s Coach of the Year. Now both Orlando teams are alive in their respective playoffs.
In many ways, the Spirit’s makeover is nearly identical to the WNBA’s New York Liberty. Nets owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai bought the team in 2019 and permanently brought it from a 2,100-person facility in the suburbs to a full-sized arena in the city. With that move came a new brand identity, including its first new logo and the Ellie the Elephant mascot (a nod to the use of elephants to prove the strength of the Brooklyn Bridge). The team drafted Sabrina Ionescu in 2020 and added major talents Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones, and grew a fan base that earned the league’s second-highest attendance this regular season, behind only the Indiana Fever.
Like the NWSL, the WNBA had a transformative season with skyrocketing attendance, viewership, and media coverage. The winner of the 2024 championship title? The New York Liberty.
The Spirit have a chance to get theirs next.
