Welcome to Year 3 of ESPN’s NWSL ambition rankings, the semi-scientific way to determine which franchises are pushing boundaries, and which are just trying to keep up.
NWSL franchise valuations continue to rise to record highs, and the balance of ownership groups across the league keeps shifting in favor of those with more money and bigger ambitions. But some teams continue to step up more than others.
Two new teams, Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC, will play their first games in a few days, and their debuts on the ranking adds some shake-ups. Atlanta, which will begin playing in 2028, is sure to challenge for the top spot before even playing a game.
For this ranking to be useful in an ever-growing league (16 teams and counting), we have simplified our process. Criteria remain the same, with key factors being the willingness of franchise owners to invest in their teams on and off the field.
We’re asking: Is the team pushing the limits of the salary cap (and the new, fluid High Impact Player rule) to build a contender? Has team ownership spent money on a training facility or stadium improvements? Quite simply, are their stated goals ambitious (win a championship, be the best team in the world) or do they have a low ceiling?
One important reminder: Ambition is not the same as execution. There are teams that have lofty aspirations, but have failed to successfully realize them. There are teams with more modest ambitions who overperform. We have absolutely deducted points for poor execution, but the willingness to aim high — even if it means falling short — outweighs not trying at all.
The idea is inspired by the late Grant Wahl, who annually did a similar ranking for MLS. Measuring ambition, especially for a league as young as the 14-year-old NWSL, is a worthwhile endeavor. Let’s get to it!
• Watch Gotham vs. Boston: Saturday, 12:30 p.m. ET, live on ABC
• Stream NWSL matches live on ESPN+ all season (U.S.)
• NWSL kit rankings: See every new jersey from all 16 teams
16. Chicago Stars FC (Last year: 13)
While the Stars’ ranking dipped this year, there is finally progress in Chicagoland.
The team’s move to Martin Stadium is a temporary, but necessary, step to move on from the abyss of Bridgeview. The Stars had to do something, and they did. They also recently announced plans to build a dedicated training facility, which will be relatively small but, again, was one of many pain points for this team.
Where do they play beyond 2026? That still needs to be resolved, which is hardly ideal.
On the field, they finished last for the second time in three years. And yet, their biggest offseason move was selling forward Ludmila to San Diego. Mallory Swanson’s return from maternity leave can’t come soon enough.
15. Houston Dash (Last year: 14)
The Dash remains for sale after one of the most bizarre stories in a decently long list of them failed to produce a new owner. Until there is a new, motivated owner with a clearly stated direction for the team, it’s impossible to fully understand the ambitions of the Dash.
The good news: There is progress on the soccer front. Houston was inconsistent last year as another rebuild got underway, but the Dash have talent and more direction than before. Houston has also built out a robust technical staff — including the recent addition of Twila Kilgore as technical director — that is larger than most of its peers in this section of the rankings, which requires investment.
14. Racing Louisville FC (Last year: T-10)
Louisville’s facilities are great and plenty of teams would love to have them. Of course, those facilities are more expensive to build in bigger markets, and the rub on having a nice stadium is that there need to be butts in the seats. Louisville finished last in average attendance in 2025 and recorded its worst attendance in its five-year history. That is ominous.
Those struggles stand in stark contrast to what happened on the field. Bev Yanez won NWSL Coach of the Year for galvanizing a gritty team and earning Racing’s first playoff berth. Louisville was a difficult opponent for every team last season and could build upon that success this year — even while being outspent by other teams.
13. North Carolina Courage (Last year: T-10)
A reported $40 million investment from team owner and billionaire Marc Lasry, per Sportico, could be a sign of this team moving forward and making long-term, much needed investments.
Attendance improved to over 7,600 fans per game in 2025, the team’s best since it arrived in the market in 2017. First Horizon Stadium still needs major modernization, but improved attendance is a good sign for a team that struggled to gain a local foothold even during its successful years. Long-term, the Courage still need to either gut the stadium or finally build one inside Raleigh limits.
On the field, the team regressed and missed the playoffs in a chaotic season that included the confusingly messaged firing of head coach Sean Nahas and the abrupt re-sale of USWNT star Jaedyn Shaw (who ended the year by winning a title with Gotham FC) eight months after acquiring her.
12. Utah Royals (Last year: 12)
We’ve been begging Utah to splash some more cash on the field to compete, so the $800,000 transfer fee to get Kiana Palacios from Club América is a welcomed sign. Now, what does this team want to be? For two straight years, the Royals have endured miserable starts to the campaign before salvaging results and playing the role of spoiler late in the season.
The Royals have their own training ground, and they play at the (too empty, too often) America First Field, which is from a previous wave of MLS stadium projects. The facilities are there, and there are new owners since we last did our ambition rankings. This year will be telling of their ambitions.
11. Seattle Reign FC (Last year: 9)
This is the point in the rankings where there’s nothing inherently wrong with what a team is doing; our task is to compare them to the rest of the NWSL.
The Reign’s joint ownership with the Sounders allows for bigger thinking and better staffing, including more support staff than ever around head coach Laura Harvey. On the field, the Reign made major improvements in 2025, finishing fifth and conceding the third-fewest goals (an Achilles heel in 2024).
But nobody has yet solved the riddle in Seattle: Why do the Reign still struggle to crack the local market the way the Sounders have? Reign attendance dropped last year, and 8,000 fans is always an aesthetic struggle in a cavernous NFL stadium. It’s time to take bigger swings.
10. Orlando Pride (Last year: 5)
Average attendance in Orlando improved for the third straight year following the team’s 2024 NWSL Shield and Championship double, although the Pride are still fighting for better crowds and local relevance in a tough media market.
Orlando already has the soccer-specific stadium that it shares with its men’s team, and they will soon upgrade their training facility. What’s next? Their encore on the field in 2025 was respectable — a whisker away from making it back to the final. Haley Carter has moved on from her VP/sporting director role, and Caitlin Carducci is tasked with pushing the team forward.
Elimination in the group stage of Concacaf play was a failure, though a healthy Barbra Banda should help them return to championship contention again. And to the Pride’s credit, the $1.5 million transfer fee to acquire Jacquie Ovalle last summer was a world record at the time.
9. Boston Legacy FC (Last year: N/A)
Here we have a perfect example of the dichotomy between ambition and execution. It would be a disservice to sugarcoat the early years (!) of Boston’s launch. The club wasted that historic lead time on a name, BosNation, that was almost immediately ridiculed and scrapped, anchored by a disastrous