The San Francisco Bay Area is close to netting a team in the NWSL. 

The National Women’s Soccer League has bid to expand their team to the Bay Area, which is among two other finalists preparing for the league’s next round of expansion. 

The three finalists are Boston, Utah, and the Bay Area. The NWSL currently has 12 teams, with the additional three teams the league hopes to expand to 15 by 2024. 

One of Riordan’s varsity soccer players, Josie Espinoza-Schleiker ’25,  said she’s “super excited.” She added, “I think it’s really cool seeing the expansion of women’s soccer and just seeing it grow over time.” 

The proposal of adding an NWSL team to the Bay Area was imagined by four former professional soccer players, Danielle Slayton, Leslie Osborne, Aly Wagner, and Brandi Chastain. Three of them grew up in San Jose and all played for Santa Clara University. 

Captain of the varsity soccer team India Bowles ’23 agreed that the Bay Area is an important place to expand. 

She stated, “The quality of competition here is really high and so having those higher levels in the professional leagues would be a good goal for a lot of girls in the Bay Area to reach.” 

The founders have come together with sports innovators, tech, and media around the San Francisco Bay Area to push the reality of the expansion to the Bay by creating websites like “Nwsltothebay.com” and selling merchandise to gain support from the public. 

Soccer coach and history teacher, Nicole Morello, stated she is “definitely pro women’s sports.” 

“I think we’ve been underrepresented definitely in the Bay Area but in women’s soccer especially, because all we ever talk about is the MLS with men.” 

The four professional players’ main goal is to unite the entire Bay Area to represent a recognized brand for women’s sports. They are determined to inspire women not only locally, but worldwide–on and off the field.