Official: NWSL awards 2022 expansion team to Los Angeles

It’s well and truly official: NWSL is coming to Los Angeles in 2022.

The league announced Tuesday a large, star-studded and woman-dominated ownership group have been awarded an NWSL expansion team, scheduled to begin play in two years. Fronted by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, entrepreneurs Kara Nortman and Julie Uhrman and actress Natalie Portman, the ownership group alone is set to get the team a ton of attention.

Beyond those four, here’s the rest of the ownership roll:

The founding investor group includes Serena Williams and daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr., actors Uzo Aduba, Jessica Chastain, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, and Eva Longoria, late night talk show host Lilly Singh, former US Women’s National Team players including twelve representing Southern California including Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Rachel Buehler, Shannon Boxx, Amanda Cromwell, Lorrie Fair Allen, Ronnie Fair Sullins, Joy Fawcett, Angela Hucles, Shannon MacMillan, Tisha Venturini Hoch, and Saskia Webber, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and FIFA World Cup Champions Lauren Cheney Holiday and Abby Wambach, author and activist Glennon Doyle, Netflix VP Original Content Cindy Holland, tech entrepreneur and filmmaker Casey Neistat, Founding Board Member of Baby2Baby, Sabina Nathanson, Media Executive David Nathanson, Baby2Baby Co-President Norah Weinstein, and Bad Robot President and COO Brian Weinstein.

Wow, that’s a lot of star power across several fields.

The team is for now calling itself Angel City FC, although they vow that is a placeholder for now and the name will be officially decided and announced by the end of the year. Furthermore, reports indicate the venue will be announced later, although Dignity Health Sports Park is reportedly the frontrunner to host games for the new club.

“The growth trajectory of the NWSL is incredibly exciting, but we also need to be strategic and thoughtful about how fast we expand and the communities we partner with,” said NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird in a statement. “We’ve long sought the right partner in LA considering the NWSL fanbase that already exists in the region and the massive interest in women’s soccer in general. Those factors, along with an incredible ownership group make this an ideal situation and we couldn’t be more thrilled to move forward.”

More details are surely forthcoming, but for now, it’s a landmark day in the history of soccer in Los Angeles. If you’ve been waiting for an NWSL team to come here, the day is ours and now the work of supporting this venture really begins for the rest of us.

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