The NWSL will reportedly award Atlanta with an enlargement group for a league-record-fee of $165 million in a bid fronted by AMB Sports activities and Leisure, the homeowners of MLS’ Atlanta United and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, according to The Athletic,
A proper announcement is anticipated on Tuesday, which might make the Atlanta group the seventeenth franchise within the NWSL. The membership would start play someday after the 2026 season and are set to stage their house matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, house of each United and the Falcons, with a soccer capability of 42,500. Additional specifics in regards to the group’s inaugural season usually are not public info right now.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium has a man-made turf floor and wouldn’t be the primary NWSL venue to not have a pure grass discipline – the Portland Thorns’ and Seattle Reign’s respective properties, Windfall Park and Lumen Discipline, have synthetic turf and the Boston Legacy will play their first season at Gillette Stadium. The Atlanta group, although, can be the primary enlargement group to obtain the inexperienced mild from the NWSL regardless of a everlasting plan to play on turf.
The $165 million entry continues a gradual rise in enlargement charges for the NWSL, who reportedly acquired $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 in recent times, 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 current development 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 heart, which is able to bear his title.
The town’s skilled soccer group, although, was a girls’s group. The Atlanta Beat performed within the Girls’s United Soccer Affiliation, the U.S.’ first skilled girls’s league, from 2001 to 2003, after which in Girls’s Skilled Soccer from 2010 to 2011.
The same old gathering place for soccer in Atlanta as of late 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 not too long ago welcomed the USWNT in April 2024 for a 2-1 win over Japan within the SheBelieves Cup. The USWNT set their attendance file for a pleasant on house soil that day, with 50,646 filling Mercedes Benz Enviornment to soak up the victory.
Mercedes Benz Stadium will even host a number of video games at subsequent 12 months’s World Cup together with one of many semifinals.
