NSL co-founder Diana Matheson, left, poses for a photo with former Canadian national teammate Christine Sinclair, an owner of Vancouver Rise FC, before the league's debut match last April.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Women’s soccer is proving to be big business these days.
This past Tuesday, Columbus was awarded the 18th franchise in the American-based National Women’s Soccer League for a reported US$205-million. That figure is almost double the US$110-million that the Denver Summit paid for their team last year, and substantially north of the US$165-million that Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank paid for his Atlanta expansion team just six months ago.
So it was little surprise that Canada’s Northern Super League – set to open its second season on Friday – is proving an interesting proposition to investors, if at a slightly cheaper price point.
“We’re seeing the same trajectory,” NSL president Christina Litz said at a season launch event on Wednesday. “Like, not at those multiples, but in terms of increases, we’re seeing that after Year 1 as well.”
The NSL franchise fee for its original six was $1-million per club. Just before the inaugural season kicked off last April, Michigan businessman Mark Mitchell acquired majority ownership of AFC Toronto, and last month, Arcadia MapleLeaf Soccer bought a majority interest in Ottawa Rapid. Litz was unable to provide specific financial details on those transactions, but added that there would be “more announcements coming.”
Just one year into its existence, the NSL is impacting Canada's women's national program
Suffice to say the NSL stands to benefit from today’s increased attention in women’s sports, even if the lofty franchise fees are being found south of the border.
“It 100 per cent has a knock-on effect to what we’re doing,” Litz said. “I would say likely in the NWSL, they’re getting close to the end of the maximum teams that they can have, with the kind of growth trajectory that they’ve been seeing, and so that definitely has investors looking at what are the other opportunities around the world.”
In Ottawa, Nick Sakellariadis, chair of Arcadia MapleLeaf Soccer, might be new to both Canada and the world of professional soccer, but he knows the business of sports. As the former owner of the Dayton Dragons, the Single-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds that nurtured players like Joey Votto, the American executive helped preside over the longest consecutive home sellout streak in North American pro sports history, standing at over 1,600 games and counting.
Although Sakellariadis is not afraid of new ideas – between bussing in senior citizens to sing Beatles songs at Dragons games and holding toddler races, he’s very au fait with outside-the-box thinking. His philosophy when it comes to sports is to never let a fan leave the stadium unhappy.
“I’m from the States, and so I’ve seen a revolution in women’s soccer – men’s soccer too, to be quite candid, but certainly women’s soccer over the last five years,” he said. “So that, to me, is a great analogy for what could happen in Canada if we put the right kind of business acumen, the right amount of capital behind it and empower it to grow and develop.”
NSL co-founder Diana Matheson, left, and president Christina Litz, seen at a promotional event ahead of last year's NSL final, are encouraged by the high prices that NWSL expansion teams are commanding south of the border.Neil Davidson/The Canadian Press
Away from the NSL C-suites and down on the pitch, the league is looking to build on the success of 2025, when it vaulted itself into the company of some of women’s soccer’s best and biggest. Average attendance was in the top five globally with more than 275,000 fans going through the gates and helping to generate around $30-million in revenues. Having had to sign almost 150 players to get the league off the ground a year ago, only around 30 new faces were needed this time around.
Following on from the first-year successes, talk of expansion has quickly sprung up, which makes sense to Jose Maria Celestino Da Costa. As the NSL’s vice-president and head of soccer operations, the Portuguese understands.
“We have a major saying in Portugal: talent can be born anywhere, right?” Da Costa said. “Talent doesn’t choose where it’s born. And right now, you can see it’s a massive country.”
While he’s understandably big on learning to walk before you run – the collapse of the defunct North American Soccer League in the eighties still stands testament to the folly of rampant growth and greed – he believes the league has a solid foundation to build on.
“We’re trying to focus more on the West markets, just for the equity in terms of the traveling piece,” he said. “It’s creating a little bit of an imbalance right there, when you look at it. But the idea is to have one more team in ’27 and potentially add the eighth team in 2028.”
NSL soccer is back. I feel it’s my duty as a Canadian to support this women’s pro league
In a country the size of Canada, travel will always be a serious consideration just to play club games. But given the high number of national team players in the league – there were 39 players with senior caps in the 2025 season – Da Costa and the NSL have instituted a 96-hour minimum rest period for Year 2 to put player welfare top of mind. That goes above and beyond FIFA’s mandated 72-hour minimum.
The NSL has managed to put a number of players on the Canadian national team since it launched last year, with breakthrough talents such as Delaney Baie Pridham and Kaylee Hunter earning their first caps and getting in the mix ahead of the 2027 Women’s World Cup. But two of those players – Emma Regan and Holly Ward – have since left the NSL to move to the NWSL.
Thomas Gilbert, the chief executive officer of Ottawa Rapid and co-founder of the Project 8 initiative that became the NSL, is concerned about being a springboard for young talent to move elsewhere.
“We have the potential to be a destination league, to be the place that national team players play on a consistent basis for the majority of their career,” he said. “And I think the fact that we’re potentially presenting some of that in our first season, in our second season, says a lot about where we will be in five years in our ability to retain that level of talent.”
Vancouver Rise FC captured the inaugural NSL championship, topping AFC Toronto in Toronto last November.Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
Cognisant of the need to retain talent, the league is working with CONCACAF, the regional governing body, to ensure that the NSL is represented in regional competitions, such as the CONCACAF W Champions Cup. Although it won’t be addressed in time to allow the Vancouver Rise – the 2025 champion – to compete, the hope is that NSL teams will be on that stage next year.
Given the fledgling status of that tournament – it started in 2024 - compared to the likes of the UEFA Women’s Champions League, Gilbert believes there is still a real chance to mould it into something definitive.
“There’s a unique opportunity in North America to build the property that is the highest level of women’s soccer in the world, right, the way that the Champions League exists on the men’s side,” he said. “And I think that us being here and being able to participate in that in a very active way, it inherently puts us in the conversation about the apex of the sport.”
Before that comes to pass, another champion will pick up the Diana B. Matheson Cup in November, hopefully paving the way to compete against the best in the United States and Mexico in 2027. And, as always, the league will be looking for better infrastructure options, with teams like AFC Toronto playing half of its games at Toronto’s BMO Field this season.
“Professional sport is a big economic driver, and women athletes are a natural resource we have in Canada that we’re world class at,” Matheson, the league’s co-founder, said. “So I’ve been saying for a bit, we’ve got a lot of maple trees, and we have a maple syrup industry for a reason. We waited a minute to start this, but this is big business and we’re just getting started.”