via Getty
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 05: Serena Williams of the United States shows her emotion to the crowd after winning her Women’s Singles semi-final match against Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine on day eleven of the 2019 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 05, 2019 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
via Getty
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 05: Serena Williams of the United States shows her emotion to the crowd after winning her Women’s Singles semi-final match against Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine on day eleven of the 2019 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 05, 2019 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
Serena Williams made headlines in 2020 along with her husband Alexis Ohanian when the couple became major investors in a newly found women’s soccer team Angel City FC. Angel City FC along with San Diego Wave FC captained by Olympic gold medal winner, Alex Morgan, played in the NWSL for the first time in 2022.
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Both teams made their mark in the NWSL in the inaugural season with huge success, selling record tickets and garnering a lot of attention. This really helped NWSL to prosper and now the league is looking to build further on this success.
NWSL aims to expand
It has been recently revealed that NWSL is expanding with three new teams from San Fransisco, Boston, and Utah. San Fransisco and Boston will pay around $50 million in expansion fees. While Utah is between $2 and $5 million, as was agreed upon a few years ago.
This will be the first time that San Francisco will have a team in the NWSL, but both Boston and Utah have had teams in the past. Utah Royals FC was rebranded to Kansas City FC in 2020. And the Boston breakers ended in 2018 after five years.
The NWSL is in advanced discussions to add teams in Boston, Utah and the San Francisco Bay area, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.https://t.co/BI9qriyobY
— espnW (@espnW) January 28, 2023
San Fransisco and Utah are supposed to join the league in 2024 while Boston is after that. This is an amazing development for both the players and the sport as a whole. With the inclusion of these three new teams, the NWSL will have 15 teams in total, which is a huge number.
Serena Williams ACFC’s success in the inaugural season
When Serena Williams and a group of female investors decided to bring a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team to Los Angeles, they knew they had to make a splash. The team was able to fill out stadiums in almost all of its home games. And also sold around 15,000 full-season tickets without even playing a single game.
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With an average attendance of 19,105 fans and four sellouts, you are the best fans in the NWSL—not that we needed the numbers to tell us that!#AngelCityFC pic.twitter.com/I5v0xdlGV9
— Angel City FC (@weareangelcity) November 2, 2022
ACFC’s success in its inaugural season was a boon for women’s soccer in the United States, which has been trying to increase its profile and viewership for years. From a performance standpoint, Angel City finished 8th in the NWSL. But nonetheless, the popularity and influence that this club created were like nothing else. Now the team is readying up for the next season.
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Watch This Story: Serena Williams’ and Natalie Portman’s Success With ACFC Inspires Another Female-Led Group to Invest in Women’s Soccer
What are your thoughts on the inclusion of three new teams in NWSL? Let us know in the comments.
