The $58 million sale of Seattle Reign FC to a new ownership group that includes MLS' Seattle Sounders FC has finally been completed.
The Reign, along with former French owners OL Groupe, announced the news on Monday.
The Sounders are joined by private equity firm Carlyle Group in the new ownership group. Carlyle Group is investing more than 50% of the joint venture, but the Sounders were “instrumental” in closing the deal, said Alex Popov, Carlyle's head of private credit.
The $58 million price tag represents a dramatic increase in the team's valuation. OL Groupe purchased the Reign for about $3.5 million in late 2019.
“It's about future potential,” Popov told ESPN. “And, frankly, our starting point was wrong. You know, that's what attracted a lot of us, including us here at Carlyle, to think about investing in women's sports. We've seen the potential.”
Team ratings have grown exponentially across the NWSL recently. San Diego Wave FC, which first joined the NWSL as an expansion team in 2022, is in the process of a two-part transaction that values the team between $113 million and $120 million.
NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said last year that she expected the sale of the Reign to close around the new year. OL Groupe previously announced the deal in March, but exact details of the new ownership group were not shared.
The sale of The Reign to a group that includes the Sounders finally gives Seattle's NWSL team a sense of true stability in the Emerald City. The Reign have won three NWSL Shields since the club's inception in 2013, but the team has historically struggled to find its footing off the field.
Seattle previously played at Memorial Stadium downtown, but uncertainty over the venue's future in late 2018 put the Reign's future on the market in doubt.
The team moved to Tacoma in 2019 and dropped “Seattle” from its name.
Less than a year later, OL Groupe, owner of the successful Lyon women's team at the time, bought a majority stake in the Reign and the team was renamed OL Reign. The team made Lumen Field its permanent home in 2022 and averaged attendance of 13,610 fans per game at the more than 68,000-seat stadium last year.
Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, who spent 10 years with the Sounders and will now serve as Reign's chief commercial officer, said Lumen Field is unequivocally the home of Reign.
“It feels a little like we have the plucky mentality of an expansion franchise at this exciting time, but we have the benefit of having a dedicated fan base that has been dedicated to this club, even though it has moved around a lot and has changed.” a ton over the last few years,” he told ESPN. “So, I think the opportunity is just to root this club in place: Lumen is our home. “The club is not moving anywhere.”
Consistently filling the lower bowl at Lumen Field is a realistic goal for the Reign, but both Mendoza-Exstrom and Popov understand that what works for the Sounders might not be the right approach for the Reign. The Sounders averaged more than 32,000 fans per game last year.
“We'll figure out where our gaps are and where our synergies are, and then we'll invest in the resources,” Mendoza-Exstrom said. “And that includes human resources to ensure that the Kingdom has resources commensurate with what we need to do to grow. And that could be any number of human beings, it could be technology, it could be facilities. It's everything on the table.”
The Reign's new ownership structure formally unifies Seattle's MLS and NWSL teams after more than a decade of operating independently. Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer became a minority owner in Reign following the team's move to Tacoma, but exited when OL Groupe purchased the team. Hanauer will now return to the Reign ownership group and serve as a governor on the NWSL board of directors, with Popov serving as his alternate.
“Today is a historic day for soccer in our city and I am honored to be a part of it,” Hanauer said in a statement. “This announcement aims to keep one of the world's greatest women's teams rooted locally in our community for generations of fans to enjoy.”
