The NWSL will add two more teams in 2026, commissioner Jessica Berman says

Berman told the Washington Post that the league's next round of expansion talks will start later this year. She gave no hints as to which cities the league wants.

NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman at the league's college draft in Philadelphia earlier this year.Read moreElizabeth Robertson

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published May 9, 2023, 4:14 p.m. ET

After adding teams in Salt Lake City and the San Francisco Bay Area next year, the National Women’s Soccer League will add two more teams in 2026, commissioner Jessica Berman told the Washington Post on Tuesday.

“We do expect for the 2026 season to add two more teams,” Berman said. “That process will begin later this calendar year, and through the process we ran in 2022 for this round of expansion, we have an incredible amount of interest from qualified investors who want to get in early.”

When the NWSL announced its Bay Area franchise last month, the league let slip for the first time that it was ready to expand past what will be a 14-team circuit next year. The Wall Street Journal also reported in January that the league has a deal in place for a team in Boston, with both markets’ ownership groups expected to pay $50 million-plus expansion fees.

The door is now officially open for at least one more team.

In January, a source with knowledge of the league’s process told The Inquirer that while there were informal expressions of interest from some local groups, none of the “at least 10 formal bids” came from here.

After Berman’s interview, an NWSL spokesperson told The Inquirer that previous bidders won’t get priority in the next round. That would help Philadelphia’s chances if a local bidder steps up.

There is ample women’s soccer history in the region, as Philadelphia had teams in both of the NWSL’s predecessor leagues: the Women’s United Soccer Association from 2001-03 and Women’s Professional Soccer from 2010-11.

If the NWSL expands to Boston, it will leave Philadelphia and Atlanta as the only cities to have had teams in the two previous leagues but not the current one. (The spokesperson said there’s “no news to share” about Boston’s bid right now.)

Philadelphia also has a long history of drawing huge crowds for U.S. women’s national team games, including 49,504 fans at Lincoln Financial Field in August 2019 — the largest attendance for a U.S. women’s team standalone friendly game in program history.

But as with potential expansion in the WNBA, Philadelphia lacks the most important puzzle piece: people with huge amounts of cash who want to spend their money to bring pro women’s sports here.

That said, while local fans might not get their hopes up, there are many reasons for Berman to be bullish right now.

The league’s current broadcast deal with CBS ends after this year, with multiple suitors expected for the next deal; there’s a women’s World Cup this summer; and the U.S. and Mexico have bid to co-host the next one, in 2027, a year before Los Angeles hosts the Olympics.

2027 is also a year after the U.S., Mexico, and Canada host the 2026 men’s World Cup, which could make for an unprecedented three-year run of this country hosting the world’s biggest soccer spectacles.

Before then, the U.S. will host a Concacaf women’s Gold Cup next year that welcomes the top four South American teams as guests along with the top eight teams from North and Central America. (The U.S. also will host the Copa América, South America’s championship, with teams from this region as guests.)

“Even though our [team] valuations have increased in a meaningful way, to $53 million with the team we sold to the Bay Area,” Berman said, “we’re still really early in our process in terms of our growth and where we think this league is going to be in three to five to 10 years. A lot of investors are recognizing that and are excited to begin that process of mutual due diligence with us.”