17 May 2024
Minnesota Aurora has rekindled its efforts to become a National Women’s Soccer League expansion club.
The amateur women’s soccer club is finalizing a new deeper-pocketed ownership group and will throw its hat into the ring to become the 16th team in the NWSL, the top flight U.S. division.
NWSL currently has 14 clubs, with Boston set to become the 15th. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman told ESPN in April the league is looking to make a decision on the 16th club in the final three months of 2024. The two new teams would then begin play in 2026.
“We are excited about our chances, but we also know there’s going to be some really tough competition,” Andrea Yoch, an Aurora co-founder and the club’s chair of investor relations, told the Pioneer Press this week.
The NWSL has seen exponential growth in franchise fees and sale prices of current clubs in recent years. Boston and Bay FC, which joined the league this spring, each paid an expansion fee of $53 million. The Portland Thorns sold for $63 million and San Diego Wave went for a record $113 million, with a $120 million valuation, in March.
Yoch didn’t share who is included in Aurora’s ownership group and didn’t know what the current cost will be to join the NWSL.
“It is literally a bidding process,” Yoch said. “So I keep telling everybody it’s just like if you’re sitting at a charity event, and you’re writing your number down on a piece of paper to see if you get the item that you want on the table.
“You submit a number, you hope it’s in the ballpark,” Yoch said. “The good thing is, if we’re close or within a couple of groups, I think we will get that feedback and be asked, ‘Hey, can you come up with some more money?’ But until everything submitted, we just won’t know.”
Yoch said NWSL has been open about how the expansion process is not just about the money, but also the expansion club’s overall market, the market size and its support for women.
Aurora, which has 3,080 community owners, has had strong fan and sponsorship support over its first two seasons in the USL W League. Aurora averaged 6,189 fans for home games at TCO Stadium in Eagan last year, and the Vikings have agreed to increase capacity to 7,000 for the 2024 season.
Aurora retained 90 percent of its sponsors from last season, have added nine new brands and will have more than $500,000 in sponsorship revenue this season, Yoch said.
“All of those things are going to be things that we have that no other city is going to have,” Yoch said.
Aurora’s proposal will also point to the success of the Minnesota Lynx in the WNBA, the Minnesota franchise in the PWHL and popularity of the Big Ten women’s basketball tournament at Target Center.
“We’re working hard on all the things that make Minnesota great and why we know players would be happy to live in our community, why they would feel safe living in our community; that’s a big thing,” Yoch said. “It is bigger than the dollars. Now, we also still have to come up with dollars.”
Aurora initially tried to join the NWSL in 2022 but pulled out because the still needed to “secure the necessary investment,” the club said that December.
“Unlike the last time,” Yoch said Thursday, “which was a little bit of a moonshot, this time I’m feeling really good.”
Yoch left her role as Aurora’s president to a role focus on generating investors. The club was started from scratch by a small group and then its community owners, but needed wealth.
“One of the things I say to everybody is the beauty of Aurora as it was founded by a group of normal people,” Yoch said. “The hard part about going out and finding this money is that the team was founded by a group of normal people. … But the amount of help and networking that we have gotten from leaders across the state has really once again been very humbling.:
Yoch said the new investor group is a mix of “men, women, Minnesotans, for the most part, and people who believe in what we’re doing.” Aurora’s 3,80 community owners will be included in its NWSL bid.
But without a fixed expansion fee set, how high can Minnesota’s bid go?
“They might say, ‘This is out of control,’ ” Yoch speculated. “Or maybe there’s a point where everybody says, ‘All right, if this is what it’s worth.’ And we know it’s going to double and triple within a few years, it’s going to be cheaper to get in now in 2024 for a 2026 season, then it will be in 2028 and 2030 because everything is skyrocketing for women’s sports.”
ESPN said about a dozen prospective ownership groups, including Denver and Cleveland, are expected. A bid in Tampa was a finalist in 2022 while Atlanta is believed to be putting a bid together.
Aurora has produced two undefeated regular seasons and a pair of playoff runs in the USL W League in 2022-23. Their third season starts May 23.
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