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National Women's Soccer League commissioner Jessica Berman answers a question during a press conference ahead of the 2024 NWSL Championship match between the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit at CPKC Stadium. (Kylie Graham-Imagn Images)
Another National Women’s Soccer League team announcement is imminent, with commissioner Jessica Berman announcing the three finalists for the league’s 16th team on Friday.
Ahead of the NWSL championship, Berman sat down with reporters to speak on the state of the league. During that time, she revealed that Cincinnati, Cleveland and Denver are all finalists for expansion. The announcement comes on the heels of Cincinnati announcing on Thursday that WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark had joined its ownership group.
Prior to the Clark announcement, ESPN had reported that Cincinnati is being considered a favorite due to its ownership group being led by MLS side FC Cincinnati and existing infrastructure. Already, a stadium purpose-built for soccer, the 26,000-seat TQL Stadium, exists and has played host to a number of USWNT games in the past.
“Her accomplishments and contributions to women’s sports is incredible, historic. It’s changed the game for everyone, and she’s amazing,” Berman told reporters Friday, about Clark. “Having her interest in the NWSL is an honor. We couldn’t be more excited about her having shared her own personal story about having been a young soccer player and loving the game.
“Her messaging around being a multi-sport athlete is so important for young kids who aspire to be just like her, and the future is bright for how we could potentially work with her or others who are influencers and interested in engaging and growing our league.”
Should either Cleveland or Denver be selected, they would begin play in temporary stadiums with intent to build permanent homes. Already, the Cleveland group has partnered with Cleveland Metroparks to acquire a 13.6-acre lot near Progressive Field, home to the MLB’s Cleveland Guardians, to build a stadium. No such plans have been revealed for Denver, and Berman did not provide an update on potential details surrounding a stadium in the Mile High city.
No matter which team is selected, the 16th expansion team will launch in 2026 along Boston’s previously announced expansion team. On Friday, Berman said all three teams have begun operating under the assumption that they would be awarded said expansion team in order to make such a launch — with a 15-month runway — possible.
“We don’t have any concerns about their ability to be ready,” she said. “And the league is resourced to be able to support for that launch period to ensure that they have a successful launch.”
With the expansion draft being eliminated under the league’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Berman said that club’s are learning how to adapt to the new system. The league, meanwhile, is “developing mechanisms to ensure that those teams can be competitive.”
In other topics from Friday’s press conference…
On growth: For the third-straight year, the NWSL experienced rapid growth on all fronts. Berman announced on Friday that the league’s addressable audience has reached 46 million people — a 36 percent increase YOY. Additionally, the league broke the attendance record with 2 million people attending throughout the season, a 47% increase from last year. That averaged out to roughly 11,250 people per game.
In the first year of the league’s new media rights deal, which included games being available to watch on national television for the first time, viewership reached more than 14 million total across every single game. Across six matches in the playoffs so far, more than 2 million people tuned in. From a social perspective, the league grew its followers by 111% and engagement by 57%.
On support for minority groups post-election: “Whether Trump was president or Kamala was President, we’re committed to the values of our league, and we stand for inclusivity, excellence and unity, and we’re going to continue to live by our values and support everyone in our ecosystem, inclusive of our fans, our players, our employees in every community where we operate.
“We’re committed to ensuring that our players and our staff get all of their needs met, whether that’s health care, other protections around mental health, any support that anyone in our ecosystem needs, they will get.”
Leagues “have to create stars” like Caitlin Clark: When asked about takeaways from the WNBA’s banner year, Berman cited the need to create stars like Clark and relatability for fans.
“I think the takeaways from the WNBA’s success are clear. Number one, you have to create stars. You have to help fans to relate to these incredible athletes, in order to drive people to prioritize watching and attending games and really reach beyond your core audience. That happened for them, and it’s resulted in incredible growth for the WNBA, which has effectively been a rising tide for all of women’s sports.
“I think the second takeaway, which is also really important, is that this didn’t come out of nowhere. I know I’ve heard Commissioner Engelbert and others at the WNBA talk about the fact that Caitlin Clark has been emerging as a star for three straight seasons. Of course, she transcended this year and reached the average American. Everyone, I think, knows who she is and knows where she plays, which is incredible. But it was a build over several years. These things don’t happen overnight. It takes time to build the kind of authentic stars and stories that will resonate the way that she has.”
On the future of the Summer Cup: “As it relates to Liga MX Femenil, we’re really excited for the beginnings of what we have done together, and we think the future is bright for us to be able to continue working together. We are the foundational drivers of the professional game in this region, and we collectively take that responsibility very seriously. We continue to work closely with them on the ways in which we can continue to build on the momentum that we began this year, which was a first of its kind in the women’s game, and we think there are a lot of opportunities with them. Otherwise, we have regular conversations with the Northern Super League, who’s launching in the spring in Canada.
“I’ll give a shout out to Diana Matheson, who’s a former NWSL player, who we support and are excited to see be successful. It’s not easy to launch a league, so we will be here to make sure that we do everything we can to create the environment that she can create a league that will allow for our entire region to continue to rise as we think about the international game.”
On San Diego Wave FC: “Across our ecosystem, our policies and our procedures are available to everyone, players, technical staff and employees, and through our processes, we investigate and take action on any complaints that are brought to our attention. We remain committed to ensuring that those policies are enforced and education exists for everyone to make sure that they know that we are here to support them in all ways that they need. … The investigations that we’ve done in the past, universally, to the extent there was any misconduct identified, it was actioned.”
On North Carolina Courage sale and allegations of sexual harassment against Mark Lasry: “Ownership that comes into the league is vetted through our robust process and due diligence and that would be no different for that circumstance. We don’t have any news to report about that transaction.”
On growing infrastructure: “There’s probably nothing more important than our teams controlling their own destiny, both from a stadium and a training facility perspective. It is very high priority for me and my office to identify ways to continue to create more circumstances where CPKC Stadium is not the only or the last purpose built stadium.
“There’s a strong interest in investing in infrastructure for women through the recognition that men’s sports have grown the way they have over the last 50 years because of that seed investment that went into infrastructure. Although I don’t have any specific news to share, we will be issuing and are currently working on a white paper that will make clear what the community benefit is, both from a social as well as economic perspective, to investing in purpose built infrastructure for women’s sports.
“We’re also thinking about it from a training facility perspective, and when we look at the changes that have happened just in recent years, only this season, we actually brought in three situations, three cities, where our teams are now in dedicated buildings and training facilities in Utah, Seattle and Angel City recently announced, and it’s also, I believe, been announced, and to come in the coming years, in the short term, Portland, Bay and Boston. It’s going to become the norm from a training facility perspective, and on the stadium front we’re going to work to solve it as quickly as we can.”
On the future of club academies: “I think what you’ll see in the NWSL beginning as soon as 2025 is a stake in the ground around the pathway to pro and an iterative process year over year where we’ll be really intentional about the place in the ecosystem where our investment will make the biggest impact.”
Berman also cited Michele Kang’s recent $30 million investment in U.S. Soccer, which will primarily target the youth development system, saying that the league will “work really hard to ensure that we’re working in lockstep with U.S. Soccer, making sure to complement and not compete in any places.”
