Women's sports expansion fees have exploded. How expensive are they?
Women's sports expansion fees have exploded. How expensive are they?
Jared Beilby, USA TODAYThu, May 14, 2026 at 1:05 PM UTC
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Two new WNBA teams began play this past weekend: the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire. When those franchises were announced in 2024, their reported expansion fees were among the highest in women’s professional sports history ($50 million for Toronto and $75 million for Portland). But in the two years since, expansion fees have skyrocketed.
In 2025, the NWSL announced a pair of clubs in Denver and Atlanta. Denver’s fee was listed at $110 million, while Atlanta reached $165 million.
In the WNBA last year, a trio of franchises was announced in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Per Sportico, each franchise paid a record sum of $250 million.
And then finally, the NWSL announced in April 2026 that a new club would be formed in Columbus for the league’s 18th franchise. Per reports, Columbus’ fee sat at $205 million, a record for the NWSL.
Compared to its men’s counterpart, the WNBA’s $250 million fees are just behind what the NBA’s Toronto and Vancouver expansion franchises dished out in 1993 and 1994. The NBA’s Canadian pairing paid $125 million each, or around $275 million in June 2025 dollars.
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The latest WNBA fees far outstrip those of earlier NBA expansion teams. In the 1980s, four franchises (Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, and Orlando) paid $32.5 million. Adjusted for inflation, that per-team fee is still only $93 million.
It’s worth noting that while the comparable NBA fees happened over 30 years ago, the WNBA is currently at 15 teams. When the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies joined the NBA in 1995, they were the league’s 28th and 29th franchises.
In soccer, St. Louis’ MLS franchise reached the $200 million mark for expansion fees in 2019 as the league’s 28th team — 10 more teams than it took the NWSL to break $200 million.
When adjusted for inflation, the MLS’s Nashville franchise — announced as the 24th team in 2017 with a $150 million fee — is the closest analog to the NWSL fee for Columbus. $150 million in 2017 is worth around $205 million in early-2026 cash.
Methodology note: A Spotrac list was used for NWSL fees. For the WNBA, a Sportico article was used. Fees were charted based on the award year, not the start year of the franchise.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: WNBA and NWSL expansion fees have soared past $200 million
Source: “AOL Sports”
