The NWSL will reportedly award Atlanta with an growth crew for a league-record-fee of $165 million in a bid fronted by AMB Sports activities and Leisure, the house owners of MLS’ Atlanta United and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, in accordance with The Athletic,
A proper announcement is predicted on Tuesday, which might make the Atlanta crew the seventeenth franchise within the NWSL. The membership would start play someday after the 2026 season and are set to stage their residence matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, residence of each United and the Falcons, with a soccer capability of 42,500. Additional specifics concerning the crew’s inaugural season aren’t public data right now.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium has a synthetic turf floor and wouldn’t be the primary NWSL venue to not have a pure grass subject – the Portland Thorns’ and Seattle Reign’s respective properties, Windfall Park and Lumen Subject, have synthetic turf and the Boston Legacy will play their first season at Gillette Stadium. The Atlanta crew, although, could be the primary growth crew to obtain the inexperienced mild from the NWSL regardless of a everlasting plan to play on turf.
The $165 million entry continues a gentle rise in growth charges for the NWSL, who reportedly obtained $110 million in January from the group that owns the Denver Summit, who will be a part of the league in 2026 alongside the Legacy. The Boston membership and Bay FC, which started play in 2024, reportedly paid round $53 million every to hitch the NWSL.
Atlanta’s soccer historical past
Atlanta has emerged as a hub of American soccer lately, first with the introduction of Atlanta United in 2017 and now with the opening of the U.S. Soccer Nationwide Coaching Middle subsequent 12 months within the suburb of Fayetteville. A lot of the latest progress was fueled by Arthur M. Clean, the House Depot co-founder who leads AMB Sports activities and Leisure and made a $50 million contribution for the U.S. Soccer coaching middle, which can bear his title.
Town’s skilled soccer crew, although, was a girls’s crew. The Atlanta Beat performed within the Ladies’s United Soccer Affiliation, the U.S.’ first skilled girls’s league, from 2001 to 2003, after which in Ladies’s Skilled Soccer from 2010 to 2011.
The same old gathering place for soccer in Atlanta lately is at Mercedes Benz Stadium, the house of each MLS’ United and the NFL’s Falcons. The stadium has hosted each the U.S. males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups on a number of events and most just lately welcomed the USWNT in April 2024 for a 2-1 win over Japan within the SheBelieves Cup. The USWNT set their attendance document for a pleasant on residence soil that day, with 50,646 filling Mercedes Benz Enviornment to soak up the victory.
Mercedes Benz Stadium can even host a number of video games at subsequent 12 months’s World Cup together with one of many semifinals.
