ATLANTA — Atlanta’s expansion NWSL club will debut in 2028 and play its matches at the city’s renowned Mercedes-Benz Stadium. On Tuesday, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman officially welcomed Atlanta to women’s professional soccer as the league’s 17th club.
The ceremony in Midtown Atlanta featured Mayor Andre Dickens and U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone, as well as a partisan crowd of enthusiastic residents. But the man of the hour was billionaire NFL owner and philanthropist Arthur Blank, whose company, AMB Sports + Entertainment, will own and operate the team. Atlanta will join the league for a record expansion fee of $165 million.
Blank spearheaded the launch of MLS side Atlanta United in 2017, a project that established the city as a legitimate soccer market. A year after Atlanta United launched, Blank lifted the MLS Cup and set a new standard for success in the league. The right coach was paired with MLS veterans and international players who became breakout stars.
Sellout crowds and an incendiary stadium atmosphere became part of Atlanta United’s budding identity. In spite of a proof of concept that yielded remarkable results, Blank told reporters Tuesday that Atlanta’s NWSL project will not be a carbon copy of the men’s team.
“We’re building this NWSL organization and franchise from the ground floor up,” Blank said. “We’ll be hiring a ton of new people. It won’t be on the backs of Atlanta United. It’ll be done separately with separate resources and a separate commitment to soccer generally, but specifically for women’s soccer.”
Blank’s assurances that the NWSL team will have its own DNA and an ethos separate from Atlanta United is the right thing to say, but several NWSL clubs share an ownership group with their MLS peers. Portland, Orlando, Kansas City, Houston, San Diego and Los Angeles have tightly knit NWSL and MLS clubs.
Still, Blank and Berman believe there’s something different about Atlanta, a city that has seen men’s and women’s professional soccer fail and succeed. The NASL’s Atlanta Chiefs won a league title in 1968 but then folded in 1981. The Atlanta Beat played three combined seasons in the Women’s United Soccer Association and the Women’s Professional Soccer league from 2009 to 2011. Both leagues folded.
Times have certainly changed in Atlanta.
“When we think about expansion, we know it’s an opportunity to raise the bar for all of our clubs,” Berman said. “Atlanta in particular, with this ownership group, we know is going to set records and is going to challenge everyone to be their best, and we’re excited for that. That’s what expansion has done in our league for each of the last four seasons. This market in particular has shown how much they love the sport of soccer and the way they rally around Arthur and his investments in the community.”
There will be no shortage of investment in the NWSL club. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday that Blank will infuse $330 million into the expansion side.
“We’ll do everything we can to make sure we build a world-class training facility for (the women) that will be equal to none,” Blank said. “We’re going to do some conversion work at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to make sure they have world-class facilities that they’re entitled to play on and the fans will enjoy. So, we couldn’t be more excited about it.”
Tuesday, Blank recalled when numerous media outlets hailed Atlanta United as the most successful expansion franchise in U.S. sports history.
“We want to duplicate that in the NWSL and have that kind of success,” he said.
Atlanta United has since been humbled by multiple seasons of mediocre results. In 2025, Atlanta United finished second to last in the Eastern Conference despite fielding one of MLS’s most expensive squads.
Blank fired head coach Ronny Deila in October and wasted little time in hiring Tata Martino, the club’s first-ever manager, who led the team to the 2018 MLS Cup final. Atlanta’s NWSL team might not be a replica of its MLS counterpart, but there are valuable takeaways that Blank and his team will incorporate before women’s professional soccer makes its long-awaited comeback in Atlanta.
“There is no finish line. It’s the best or nothing,” he said. “It’s a matter of resources. It’s a matter of building a culture, bringing in people early so they can study the market, get in touch with the market, understand what women’s soccer looks like in the greater Atlanta metro area, throughout the state and beyond.”
Time will tell. But Atlanta, now the new headquarters of the U.S. Soccer Federation and a 2026 World Cup host city, is primed to embrace another professional soccer project.
“This community has demonstrated that they will show up when it’s built in that way,” Berman said. “And so we’re super excited to be partnering with them and to have the good fortune of having them guide the next generation of this league in 2028 with a new team in Atlanta.”