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A new second-tier U.S. women’s soccer league that is launching next year says it has attracted interest from numerous investors, including an Ohio group led by movie executives that will own a founding team and invest in the league itself.
WPSL Pro aims to bridge a “critical player development gap” in the U.S. women’s soccer system, according to a Wednesday statement announcing its planned 2026 launch. It will sit just beneath the two Division I U.S. women’s soccer leagues, the National Women’s Soccer League and USL Super League, which launched last year.
The new league already has 15 committed teams across markets including Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, New Jersey, Southern California, and more. It expects to have up to 20 teams when its inaugural season begins in 2026, and each team will pay a $1 million franchise fee, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to Front Office Sports.
The most recent team to commit is backed by Cleveland Soccer Group, which was founded by executives for independent film distribution company Gravitas Ventures. CSG counts as advisory board members former professional soccer players, including MLS veteran defender Justin Morrow and ex-Paris-Saint German goalkeeper Arianna Criscione.
In addition to backing one of the founding teams, CSG will invest in the league itself, and is also planning a new $50 million, 10,000-seat stadium in downtown Cleveland. That arena is expected to open next year and will be the home stadium for both the new WPSL Pro team and CSG’s MLS Next Pro men’s team. (MLS Next Pro is a Division III league within the U.S. soccer system that launched in 2022.)
CSG’s involvement in WPSL Pro comes after a failed effort to score a NWSL expansion team last year. It ultimately lost out to a Denver-based group that won with a record-breaking expansion fee of $110 million.
WPSL Pro says that “at the heart” of its business model is the idea that “what’s good for the athlete is good for business.” With that in mind, it intends to employ a profit-sharing model between clubs and athletes. Further specifics of the profit-sharing model were not disclosed, but WPSL Pro will not be the first organization in the realm of women’s sports to try a revenue-sharing model. Athletes Unlimited, which was founded in 2020 and today operates women’s softball, volleyball and basketball leagues, shares profits with its athletes. Unrivaled, the upstart 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, tried a similarly novel approach, enticing athletes to participate by handing out equity stakes to the players it recruited for its first season.
WPSL Pro says that for early investors, the new league “represents an opportunity to get in at the ground floor of the next major growth engine in women’s sports.”
Committed markets include Austin, Wichita, and Southern California.
A representative for WPSL Pro did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a representative for CSG declined to comment.
