Screenshot from Technical Proposal June 2023
After a lengthy absence, the NWSL is coming back to Boston. The league announced today that Boston Unity Soccer Partners, an all female core ownership investment group, has been awarded expansion rights for the 15th NWSL team expected to begin play in 2026.
Boston Unity Soccer Partners, is led by Juno Equity Founder Jennifer Epstein (who is also a Boston Celtics minority owner). Joining Epstein as managing partners are strategic marketer and brand builder Stephanie Connaughton, Women’s Foundation of Boston Co Founder/CFO Ami Danoff and Flybridge Capital General Partner Anna Palmer.
On bringing a team to Boston:
“Boston is the greatest sports city in the world, and we are thrilled to bring the NWSL back to this passionate fan base,” said Epstein. “Our goal is to build a championship-caliber franchise that the city can be proud of, both on the pitch and in the community. We will be relentless and daring in our quest to add another chapter to the city’s unrivaled sports legacy. We thank Commissioner Berman and the NWSL board for believing in us and in Boston and are grateful for the unwavering support of Mayor Michelle Wu and her team, who have been instrumental in bringing professional women’s soccer back to Boston.”
Something to note, according to the NWSL press release, members of the investor group come from diverse sections of the Boston economy with 95% of invested capital being invested by women and 40% by investors of color. Monarch Collective, which is a fund focused exclusively on investment in women’s sports is also an investor. Monarch Collective was founded by Kara Nortman and Jasmine Robinson.
With Nortman being a co-founder and co-owner of Angel City FC, a question was posed to Commissioner Berman on the post announcement media call regarding any league rules regarding investment in multiple teams.
“First let me just say we are extremely supportive of finding ways for people who are aligned in our values and in particular women, and what Kara is doing with Monarch, and excited that we found a way for her to support the launch of this team here in Boston”, said Berman in the first part of her response. “We as a league have been following the path of other sports leagues in terms of what we have allowed and what we haven’t in terms of multi team investment and we are actually in the process of developing some more policies in writing with our Board that will dictate how we handle these situations on a go forward basis”.
As announced earlier in the summer, the Boston team is expected to play at the George R White Memorial Stadium in Franklin Park. Boston Soccer Unity Partners plans to invest about $30 million dollars to help with the renovation of the stadium which will be shared with Boston Public School system. Plans for the renovation were shared back in June as part of a proposal and included upgrades to the existing structures as well as building a new track and retractable seating that would increase capacity to 11k on game days. There had been some mentions of temporary bathrooms and questions regarding the retractable seating as being seen as temporary facilities to which Epstein reassured there was no plan for temporary bathrooms and they are constructing the stadium as if it is going to be their permanent home.
More on from Epstein on the capacity of White Stadium and potential future growth:
“I think what’s important to us here in Boston, we have these five storied franchises here and our fans are used to really an elevated and very exciting fan experience and we want to create something similar. So, when we thought about the size of White Stadium for our launch, we want to sell out that stadium from day one and have it be the same unrivaled fan experience that Boston fans are used to. So we will start there and we will grow as we need to grow.
With play set to begin in 2026, this is certainly one of the longest lead ups from announcement to beginning of play. Epstein provided some thoughts on that and how to keep the community engaged during such a long lead time:
“I feel very lucky we have a bit of a runway here because there really is a lot we need to accomplish before 2026. Going to renovate a stadium, we are going to build a practice facility, and we are going to build a great organization and then we are going to go out there and get phenomenal players to play on the team. We want to use this runway to build this team really within the fabric of the community so we will look for touch points throughout the way and bring them alongside with us on the path to 2026.”
This will be the first time there has been an NWSL team in Boston since the Breakers folded in 2018.
