Officially, owner Arthur Blank and the city of Atlanta were granted an NWSL expansion franchise last November.
Unofficially, NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said Wednesday it was always a matter of when, not if.
Speaking together on a panel at U.S. Soccer’s Beyond The 90 live event in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Berman and Blank raved about the potential of the league, which has seen the average valuation of its clubs grow threefold in merely a couple years.
And after Blank’s notable investment in the MLS’ Atlanta United, which immediately became a league standard bearer as soon as it launched, Berman suggested that awarding expansion rights for the team that will play under the banner of Atlanta City FC was a long time coming.
“We had several meetings several years ago through the expansion process,” Berman recalled, “and basically we took his lead to say, ‘You let us know when you’re ready to do this with us.’”
That sentiment reflects Blank’s relatively unique standing among billionaire sports owners as someone nearly universally admired for how he treats the organizations he owns and their fans.
Underpromise and Overdeliver
While both the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’ Atlanta United have experienced turbulence on the field, they have consistently made gestures like offering fan-friendly concession prices under the Home Depot mogul’s stewardship.
And although the NFL’s salary structure makes it so disparities in roster spending are negligible, in MLS, Atlanta United have consistently ranked near the top in roster and transfer spend. That’s shown up at the box office, where the Five Stripes consistently rank near the top in attendance even despite recent on-field struggles in most of the years since winning the 2018 MLS Cup.
“When they say they’re going to do something, they do it way beyond what they promise. They’re under promisers and over deliverers,” Berman said of the Blank family. “All of the commissioners talk about teams being community assets. But they actually do it. And when you do it, you build generational fandom.”
The discussion came hours after U.S. Soccer announced a new competition named after Blank, the Crest Cup, which will be modeled after the men’s U.S. Open Cup that has been contested among professional and amateur sides across the country since 1913. The start date for the new tournament has yet to be announced.
Blank also contributed $50 million toward construction of U.S. Soccer’s new $250 million national training facility in suburban Atlanta, which opened in May.
Survival, then Rapid Growth
Atlanta City FC and a yet-to-be-named side in Columbus, Ohio, will become the NWSL’s 17th and 18th clubs after Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC became clubs No. 15 and 16 beginning this season.
While the NWSL is already among the world’s elite women’s sports leagues in any competition, Blank asserted his belief that growth potential remains enormous, referencing Sunday’s brand-launch event that was attended by approximately 15,000 fans.
The key, Blank said, is to “push this with a different kind of mindset. If we ask the question, ‘How high is up?’ So don’t focus on what’s acceptable, and what’s been the history, and what’s been the norm, and what’s better, etc. etc. Our brand launch on Sunday … was five times bigger than any brand launch in the history of the NWSL. … If you consider yourself the future of the women’s world game, it can be five times what it is today.”
The NWSL’s expansion trajectory has followed a similar path to MLS, which has grown from 10 to 30 teams since 1996, though NWSL is still earlier in its lifespan.
Like the Unted States top men’s league, the women’s first division briefly wrestled with contraction a half decade after contesting its first season in 2013. But similar to MLS’ rapid growth in the 2010s, the NWSL clearly turned a corner post pandemic, and Atlanta and Columbus will represent a doubling in size in the space of seven years.
Berman said the next challenge is making the greater sporting public aware of more of the league’s stars and personalities beyond, for example, U.S. national team star Trinity Rodman. In that respect, there are similarities to the WNBA, which is experiencing similar growth and the similar challenge of highlighting players beyond transformational superstar Caitlin Clark.
“Five years from now, when we’re getting ready for the 2031 World Cup to be in America, and (USSF President Cindy Parlowe Cone) is listing the iconic, historic, generational names, I want there to be more current players in that list,” Berman said. “Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, I give them all the credit in the world for transcending the game, and yes, Trinity Rodman is one of those. But it needs to be more true that the average American knows five to 10 of these players who are currently playing.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com