Atlanta's Women's Soccer Legacy Deserves a Comeback

Why Atlanta Needs an NWSL Team

In April the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) awarded an expansion franchise, the league’s 14^th team, to a city that is not Atlanta. Brandi Chastain, World Champion and the subject of women’s soccer’s most memorable photograph, headlined an ownership group that will bring the NWSL to California’s Bay Area. The NWSL, formed in 2012 as the third iteration of women’s professional soccer in this country, has scampered into cities across America over the past few years. Louisville, Los Angeles, San Diego, Kansas City, and Orlando have joined the league’s mature markets in Chicago, Portland, and Seattle. The eye-watering $125 million investment by Chastain’s group in their new team highlights the steady growth of the league, which is now in its 12^th regular season and regularly hosts over 10,000 fans and broadcasts nationally televised matches on CBS.

Atlanta is missing out on the exciting growth of women’s soccer. The familiar face one might expect to lead a venture for an expansion franchise, billionaire Arthur Blank, was rumored to be a finalist in the league’s most recent selection process, but his proposal came up short. Chastain’s group was chosen to begin play in 2024, and Boston will follow as the league’s fifteenth city. Atlantans enter the 2023 NWSL season with the closest teams over a six-hour drive away.

The lack of top-tier women’s soccer in Atlanta is a blemish on the city’s otherwise premier soccer scene and a break from its rich women’s soccer tradition. Atlanta has produced World Cup winners Linda Hamilton (1991, Wheeler High School) and Kelley O’Hara (2015 and 2019, Starr’s Mill High School). In the early 1990s, Atlantan Marilyn Childress spearheaded a successful push to include, for the first time, women’s soccer in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — a tournament the United States won in front of more than 70,000 in Athens’ Sanford Stadium. And in the 2000s, Mia Hamm, Briana Scurry, and Carli Lloyd entranced a new generation of fans while playing for the Atlanta Beat, the city’s professional team in the now-defunct WUSA and WPS leagues.

A poster from Marilyn Childress' push to include WoSo in the '96 Games and the largest home crowd to attend a US match to date

Despite losing out on recent expansion, Arthur Blank remains the most logical candidate to reestablish Atlanta’s women’s professional soccer in Atlanta. After winning the MLS expansion rights to Atlanta United in 2014, Blank received nearly a billion dollars in public money to develop Mercedes-Benz Stadium. These taxpayer dollars contributed to the success of United and boosted Blank’s wealth, with figures suggesting Blank’s initial investment in MLS is now worth twelve times what he originally paid. The public money Blank used to benefit his privately run club could be expanded to more Atlantans by purchasing an NWSL team. Atlanta United already owns the expensive training and stadium infrastructure needed for such a team to find success. The organization also has the necessary off-the-field experience to engage fans with an expansion franchise. Atlanta United’s management team has successfully stimulated a vibrant fandom since its formation, with Mercedes-Benz Stadium the most-filled stadium in Major League Soccer since its opening in 2017.

Former USWNT keeper Briana Scurry with the Beat in 2001

A new NWSL team could also increase access and equality in Atlanta’s youth soccer. At a recent event, for example, Matt Lawrey, the Director of the Atlanta United Academy, emphasized Blank’s dedication to accessibility in youth soccer, noting that the boys in the Academy play there for free. Accessibility for Atlanta United, however, stops here. Despite thousands of players in the metropolitan area, the Atlanta United Academy does not field any girls' teams.

Five NWSL teams have girls’ academies, and it's easy to imagine a future in which a women’s professional team may establish a similar set-up in Atlanta. In addition to creating more opportunities for Atlanta’s girls and producing higher-level local players, a free-to-play NWSL academy would lower the exorbitant financial barrier to entry in youth soccer that so many struggle to overcome. Atlanta’s girls deserve the same playing pathways as their male peers, and an NWSL franchise would help accomplish this equality.

2023 is a World Cup year. This summer, hundreds of thousands of Atlantans will watch the United States send its 23 best women’s soccer players to Australia and New Zealand to defend their 2019 World Cup title. These fans will have nowhere to channel their fandom at home once the tournament ends. If Arthur Blank does not provide this outlet, another consortium should fill the city’s women’s soccer void. Atlanta is ready for the NWSL.