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Graham haysESPN.com
Hollywood stars and more than a dozen former members of the US women’s national team formed a proprietary group to bring women’s professional soccer to Los Angeles in 2022.
The new team, which has yet to be named, was announced Tuesday.
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Led by venture capitalists Alexis Ohanian and Kara Nortman and businesswoman Julie Uhrman, the owning group also includes actresses Uzo Aduba, Jessica Chastain, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria and Natalie Portman, as well as the host of the show. interview Lilly Singh.
Serena Williams, who is married to Ohanian, is also part of the owning group.
Among the 14 former USWNT players who are part of the group are Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Lauren Holiday and Abby Wambach.
“I am proud to be part of this wonderful group that works to bring a professional women’s soccer club to Los Angeles,” said Ohanian.
“Mainly because I am a fan of the game, but also because I think there is enormous potential for the sport and it has been absurdly undervalued by too many people for too long. As someone who spends hours kicking a soccer ball with my Daughter of 2 years, I want you to have a front row seat for this revolution. “
Most of the former US players are native to Southern California or have ties to the area, as is the case with Hamm, who is also part of the proprietary group of Major League Soccer (MLS) LAFC.
The Angel City group did not indicate immediate affiliation with an existing MLS team or other entity, and said that a venue partner, as well as the club’s official name, would be announced at a later date.
Six of the nine current NWSL teams are affiliated with men’s professional teams, four with MLS teams, one with a United Soccer League (USL) team and one with Olympique Lyonnais of France.
The newest NWSL Racing Louisville FC team, which was announced in October and will play in the 2021 league, is affiliated with USL’s Louisville City FC.
Los Angeles had long been seen as a landing site for the NWSL, which is now in its eighth year of competition and does not have a California-based team.
Both the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) and Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) leagues, previous iterations of the women’s professional soccer league, had teams in Southern California: the WUSA San Diego Spirit and the Los Angeles Sol from WPS.
“We have long searched for the right partner in LA considering the existing NWSL fan base in the region and the tremendous interest in women’s soccer in general,” NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said in a statement.
“Those factors, along with an incredible group of owners make this an ideal situation and we couldn’t be more excited to move on.”
The Spanish superpower Barcelona publicly indicated its interest in deploying a NWSL team to the Los Angeles market in 2017, but an agreement was never reached.
Whether as part of a company with Barcelona or independently, LAFC has also frequently been linked to the interest of NWSL. Aduba, Ferrera, Garner, Longoria and Portman attended when the USWNT beat Belgium at LAFC’s Banc of California Stadium in 2019.
The other former national team players in the owning group are Shannon Boxx, Rachel Buehler, Amanda Cromwell, Joy Fawcett, Tisha Venturini Hoch, Angela Hucles, Shannon MacMillan, Saskia Webber, and sisters Lorrie Fair Allen and Ronnie Fair Sullins.
The Los Angeles team will be the eleventh team in the NWSL, following Racing Louisville’s debut in 2021.
Neither WUSA nor WPS presented up to 11 teams. The NWSL started playing in 2013 with eight teams and reached its previous mark of 10 teams in the 2016-17 seasons, before the Boston Breakers retired before the 2018-19 season.
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