Bay FC

A $53m entry fee and four founders who had played here

On 4 April 2023 the NWSL awarded one of its two 2024 expansion places to a San Francisco Bay Area group, for a $53 million fee — the biggest the league had charged to that point. The bid was fronted by four former United States internationals: Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton and Aly Wagner. The money came from Sixth Street, the investment firm, which committed a further $72 million and took majority ownership, putting initial investment at roughly $125 million. Alan Waxman and Wagner serve as co-chairs; the board includes Sheryl Sandberg and Rick Welts, and Andre Iguodala holds a minority stake.

The club took the name Bay FC and a crest built around a blackletter B worked into the lines of the Golden Gate Bridge, in Bay blue and Poppy red with Fog Gray and Steel behind them. Home is PayPal Park in San Jose, an 18,000-capacity ground shared with the MLS side San Jose Earthquakes. It made Bay FC the first women's professional team in the region since the San Jose CyberRays and FC Gold Pride, both long gone.

Year one worked

Albertin Montoya was appointed the club's first head coach on 27 September 2023. In February 2024, before a ball had been kicked, Bay FC signed the Zambian forward Racheal Kundananji from Madrid CFF for $860,000 — then a record fee in women's football — on a contract that runs to 2027. It was a statement of how the ownership intended to operate.

The first competitive match, away to Angel City on 17 March 2024, finished 1-0, Asisat Oshoala scoring in the 17th minute. Bay FC closed the regular season seventh with eleven wins, one draw and fourteen defeats for 34 points, 31 scored and 41 conceded, and went into the playoffs as the seventh seed. They lost the quarter-final 2-1 after extra time to Washington Spirit at Audi Field on 10 November 2024. Home crowds averaged 13,617.

That remains the high-water mark. The 2025 season produced four wins, eight draws and fourteen defeats — 20 points, thirteenth of fourteen, no playoffs. Montoya resigned, effective 2 November 2025. Three weeks later, on 22 November, PayPal Park hosted the NWSL Championship, a hosting right the league had awarded the venue on 13 June 2025. Bay FC watched it from the stands.

Emma Coates, and a winter of spending

Bay FC hired Emma Coates, formerly manager of England's women's under-23s, on 4 December 2025, with Gemma Davies as her assistant. The squad she inherited was then substantially rebuilt. On 11 February 2026 the club traded $1.1 million in transfer funds to Kansas City Current for the midfielder Claire Hutton, a 2025 NWSL Best XI first-team selection, on a five-year deal through 2030 — one of the largest trades in league history. Cristiana Girelli, captain of Italy, arrived on loan from Juventus; Aldana Cometti, captain of Argentina, came from the French club FC Fleury. Jenna Nighswonger, the 2024 NWSL Rookie of the Year, was signed from Arsenal, and the forward Kennedy Fuller was bought for $520,000 in June.

The roster was finalised on 11 March 2026: twenty players retained from the previous season, eight new. The defence then fell apart before the season properly started. Alyssa Malonson missed the entire campaign with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, and three defenders were on maternity leave early in the year, with Abby Dahlkemper and Tierna Davidson's fellow centre-back Kayla Sharples' colleague Emily Menges among those returning only mid-season.

2026: a club record for Karlie Lema, and nothing for the table

The 2026 NWSL ran to 30 matches a side for the first time, with Denver Summit and Boston Legacy joining as the fifteenth and sixteenth clubs. Bay FC opened at home on 14 March and beat Denver 2-1 in front of 13,110. The best afternoons since were a 3-0 win over North Carolina Courage on 18 July and a 2-0 win over Racing Louisville on 20 September. The worst were a 0-3 defeat to Gotham on 25 April and a 5-1 collapse at Kansas City on 3 October, where Debinha scored three.

Elimination came on 27 September at PayPal Park, 3-1 to Orlando Pride in front of 11,393. Haley McCutcheon scored in the second minute and again on 47; Kundananji equalised on 11; Rocío Ovalle finished it in the sixth minute of stoppage time. Bay FC had 54 per cent of the ball and 28 shots to Orlando's nine, and lost anyway — a fair summary of the season.

That Kansas City defeat did carry one marker. Karlie Lema's fourth-minute goal was her eighth of the regular season, a Bay FC club record. Coates was blunt afterwards: she thought the side did well to go a goal up, was "really disappointed in the manner of the goals we conceded", and said the international break gave them a chance to reflect and maximise the last three games.

As of mid-October the record stands at seven wins, five draws and fifteen defeats from 27 matches — 26 points, fourteenth of sixteen, 28 scored and 42 conceded. Three fixtures remain: Portland Thorns at home on 18 October, Angel City away on 24 October, and San Diego Wave at PayPal Park on 1 November, the date every club in the league plays and the club's Fan Appreciation match.

The part that is actually changing

The more consequential move of 2026 happened off the pitch. Bay FC hired Paul Green as chief football officer, the executive who spent thirteen years building Chelsea's women's side into one of the strongest organisations in the sport. His stated priority is roster construction inside the salary cap, using his network to recruit, and his arrival is the clearest signal yet that the club has accepted the first three seasons as a false start rather than bad luck.

Coates, for her part, argues the ground has shifted even while the results have not, saying that people now talk about the club very differently to how they talked about it before. That is a hard claim to audit, and she knows it. What is measurable is that Bay FC have missed the playoffs twice running with one of the most expensive squads the league has assembled, and that the 2027 season is the first one Green and Coates will have built together from scratch.