Sports Jeff Kassouf
Apr 4, 2025, 09:11 PM ET
LOS ANGELES — Nationwide Women’s Soccer League commissioner Jessica Berman talked about Friday that she believes the league may per chance well develop as mountainous as the NFL, which has 32 teams.
“We have very ambitious plans for expansion,” Berman talked about on stage at U.S. Soccer’s SheBelieves Summit.
“Our board believes that we can be the size of the NFL, there is nothing that stands in the way of us doing that, other than having access to top talent. There’s certainly not a problem with the supply, given the size of our country and the level of talent that exists, we just need to figure out how to develop them strategically and intentionally.”
Berman talked about in January that she noticed “no reason” why the NWSL may per chance well no longer within the raze become a 30-team league. There are at the 2nd 14 teams within the league, with teams from Boston and Denver set to originate play in 2026 to bid the league to 16 golf equipment.
In a separate interview with ESPN on Friday, Berman talked about her imaginative and prescient is “a product of the size of our country and how many cities we believe could support a successful NWSL team.”
The league is rarely any longer actively running a spread assignment now however has “continued active conversations with interested groups,” she urged ESPN. Berman talked about there will not be any longer at the 2nd a timeline for the following spherical of growth past 16 teams.
Boston used to be well-liked to enter the league in 2023 for a $fifty three million growth price. Denver used to be formally announced in January for a $110 million growth price. They’re going to be the first growth teams to join the NWSL since the league’s new collective bargaining agreement eradicated all drafts, including growth drafts.
Loads of NWSL sources ranging from technical personnel executives to team house owners receive expressed concerns to ESPN referring to the NWSL expanding too rapid. Just one out of 14 long-established managers surveyed anonymously by ESPN closing year felt that 30 teams used to be an correct amount for the league to within the raze reach. 9 of 14 felt the league ought to stay to 24 teams or fewer.
Among the worries expressed by varied league sources are the scaling down of the on hand player pool as effectively as on hand coaches and technical personnel strengthen.
Berman urged ESPN on Friday that she thinks the depth of the player pool “is the right question to ask,” however she would not view it as a diagram back.
“The reason I think it shouldn’t rise to the level of concern is that there is no country in the world that has the access to the number, the sheer volume of actual and potential players that we have in this country,” Berman talked about.
“The challenge and the opportunity that we have, which needs to be part of the strategy of future expansion, is how we’re going to cultivate that pool of players in a wider base than has historically been the case because there hasn’t been a need for it — because the league was 10 teams.”