The biggest show in women’s sports this year was the NCAA Women’s Final Four that took place inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in early April. The national championship game between the University of Iowa and University of South Carolina peaked at 24 million TV viewers, a record-setting figure. It’s fair to say that the popularity of women’s sports is currently at an all-time high.
Michael Murphy and Nolan Gallagher want to help Cleveland take advantage of the women's sports boom by bringing the National Women’s Soccer League to town.
“We completely believe we’re at an inflection point in women’s sports. All women’s sports,” Murphy says. “What we’re trying to build here is something that’s sustainable. And, it’s aspirational, but it’s not crazy to think that the same impact the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame had 30 years ago, where it’s taken our city and put it on the map, that we could do the same by being really a leader here in women’s sports by building a stadium that’s for women’s soccer.”
The NWSL is the top women’s soccer league in the United States. Founded in 2012, it has 14 members in cities such as Los Angeles, Houston, Orlando and Portland.
A couple of things make Cleveland very unique when it comes to joining the roster of cities with an NWSL team. Currently, 11 of the 14 teams in the NWSL share a market with a Major League Soccer (the top men's division in the United States) team. Boston, which has been approved to join the NWSL in 2026, isn’t counted in that statistic but does fit the criteria. Those cities all have shown, to some extent, that soccer works there. Cleveland is not home to a team in the MLS, with the closest team being the Columbus Crew. The three cities with NWSL teams that don’t have MLS
counterparts are Louisville, San Diego and Cary, North Carolina. Cary, like Cleveland, has an MLS team a
little more than two hours away.
The other thing that makes Cleveland unique is the size of the city and the number of professional sports teams already in town. Cleveland has the smallest population of any city that is home to an MLB, NFL and NBA franchise. Adding a fourth top-level professional sports team begs the question of whether or not there are enough fans to support something in addition to the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Guardians and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Showing that there will be enough local support is something required by the NWSL as part of the process to be awarded a team.
“You want to be able to show that your community is going to support this team,” Gallagher says. “We did something called the 'Back the Bid' campaign, and we just announced that we had 12,000 pledges for season tickets. That idea was suggested, to some extent, by an owner in Los Angeles who said that she’s been through these expansion bids and processes, and a lot of teams, like, combinate. They tout their city and they use very colorful, positive language, but [the NWSL is] still, like, ‘Go show that there’s actual demand for a women’s team in the marketplace.’”
Those pledges, which have increased to more than 13,000 in the past couple of months, showcase how passionate Cleveland fans are for sports, which is no secret.
Cleveland is regarded as one of the best sports towns in the country. It’s just been one without professional soccer. The closest the city has come is in the indoor game, with the now-defunct Cleveland Force in the 1970s and ‘80s and the Cleveland Crunch, which played 16 seasons starting in 1989. The Crunch returned to play under new ownership in 2020 and is now a member of Major League Indoor Soccer, a league that began play in 2022.
At some point this year, the group will learn if it's awarded an NWSL team that would take the field in 2026.
“We’re very fortunate as a city because we have three professional teams. And then we have, I think, some of the most passionate fans that are out there in the country. I always say I think we have the best damn fans in the world,” says Rock Entertainment Group CEO Nic Barlage. “But when you look at it, there’s a little bit of a void when you look at soccer, which is obviously the number one sport globally, ahead of basketball.”
Building a stadium specifically for soccer is the hurdle that Murphy and Gallagher need to clear to make this happen. When the group previously applied for an NWSL expansion team in November 2022, it was denied, but it became clear that to make these dreams a reality, a stadium needed to be part of the plan. In an ideal scenario, this group would be able to build a soccer-first stadium in the Downtown Cleveland area, with both public and private funding. The aim would be to get started on construction this year.
RELATED: The Group Behind the Push for a Cleveland Soccer Stadium Wants $90M in Public Funds
The initial renderings of the stadium were unveiled on Thursday and circulated throughout social media. The group is asking for $90 million in public money to be used to build the stadium.
“There were 82 interested groups around the country,” says Gallagher. “We were trying to get an expansion team for 2024; we actually made it to the final four. We were there with San Francisco, which was awarded the team — Tampa Bay, which was not awarded a team. We weren’t awarded the team. We didn’t have a stadium. So, it was very obvious.”
This isn’t just a bet on the Cleveland sports fan embracing soccer, either. The game is coming to Cleveland whether Murphy and Gallagher secure an NWSL team or not, as they’ve already snagged an expansion team in MLS Next Pro, a second-tier professional league on the men’s side.
This is a parlay on the passion of the Cleveland sports fan and the continued rise in popularity of women’s sports. Women’s college basketball has reached never-before-seen levels of popularity and the WNBA has, too. While women’s soccer has certainly experienced moments in the spotlight, more could be on the way.
“I think it’s going to continue to grow,” says Greater Cleveland Sports Commission president and CEO David Gilbert on the popularity of women’s sports. “I don’t think what we saw around the Women’s Final Four here was just a moment in time.
“I do think that what we saw last year, or just now with women’s collegiate basketball this year, and what we’re seeing with the WNBA, where teams are consistently now selling out games; I don’t think it’s going to abate.”
There’s no way to know exact figures of how popular the sport will become in the future. No one has a crystal ball with the answer. But later this decade is the next FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027 followed by the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Those two events will have women’s soccer in the spotlight.
“Fandom is just going to increase significantly with the World Cup,” Murphy says. “So that Cleveland and Northeast Ohio really has a seat at the table as the whole world and the whole country is talking about this, that we are in the game, so to speak, and not on the sidelines anymore. We think the economic impact will be significant.”
For more updates about Cleveland, sign up for our Cleveland Magazine Daily newsletter, delivered to your inbox six times a week.
Cleveland Magazine is also available in print, publishing 12 times a year with immersive features, helpful guides and beautiful photography and design.
