Kansas City Currents new president targets global scale for the NWSL

June 14, 2024

“Julie (Uhrman) and I are friendly rivals now.”

New Kansas City Current president Allison Howard said this with a big, daring grin. It was day two on the job for her.

It’s a somewhat overdue move for Kansas City, who have demonstrated massive ambition through their financial investment in their team: a purpose-built $70 million riverfront stadium and a $15 million training facility (the cost for the stadium has, however, risen to $117 million, perhaps related to myriad COVID-related construction supply chain and labor issues — once entirely privately funded, the project is now seeking $6 million in state tax credits). And with Howard onboard as president, they can continue trying to build on that ambition.

Howard comes to the Current from the Los Angeles Lakers, where she spent the past 10 years, including five as the vice president of corporate partnerships. “That is a hard bar to match,” she said, pointing out that, whether the Lakers are doing well or not, they are an incredibly well-developed global brand with a loyal fan base.

But Howard said when the Current job came up, multiple contacts in the sports world told her to meet with the club’s ownership. The meeting apparently went quite well.

“I was at home and had just finished the Zoom with Angie and Chris (Long),” she remembers. “And … (my husband) said, ‘How did it go?’ And I said, ‘How do you feel about Kansas City?’”

According to Howard, the crux of it was aligning with the ownership group of the Longs and Brittany Mahomes on their investment — not the money, but their interest levels.

“The first thing I explore is what’s the ownership group like?” she said. “Not the president, not some of the stakeholders, but what is the ownership group like? Who are they? How involved are they? What do they know about the actual sport or is this just a fun hobby for them?”

Howard said she didn’t walk into the situation as a total outsider to women’s soccer, and she was certainly already aware of the trope of the women’s sports team owner who is buying in because women’s sports are a “cause.”

“We can have conversations all day long about, ‘Oh, I need to do this because this is the right thing to do.’ Great. I will have those conversations with you. But the reality is, this is a smart investment for you,” she said.

She also talked to friends who had worked at American soccer clubs to get a feel for the landscape, where the NWSL is at after 10 years of existence and how women’s club soccer in the US hasn’t had the time or investment yet to build a huge brand like the Lakers.

“I had had very honest conversations with (my friends) about the trials and the tribulations and what do you see, and there is work to be done. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done,” she said. “I think bringing in our new commissioner is amazing. I think that she’s really going to lead us through (with) vision. But it’s gonna take a while. Long-term growth is going to take a lot of planning and a lot of strategic hires, as well.”

Mahomes and the Longs shared a vision with Howard for building out not just Kansas City, but having an effect on the NWSL and women’s sports in the US overall. That matches with Howard’s initial assessment of what she wants to do at KC, even if it was just day two on the job.

“I look at it from a couple of different perspectives,” she said. “From a corporate partnership standpoint, that is going to come — it could come from Kansas City, but most likely it’s going to come from somewhere outside of here. I don’t just mean in the United States, I mean globally, because that’s where I think the NWSL is going.”

Can NWSL clubs pivot into becoming global brands? Can the league grow out of the caution that tended to frame most decisions in the earlier years and start taking bolder and bolder risks?

“I’ve seen it in every league,” Howard said of that push-and-pull between owners who might be more risk-averse, particularly given previous women’s soccer leagues that shut down, and owners who are more willing to take big swings over incremental growth. “There are owners that are there just to say that they’re an owner of this sports team, right? So this is nothing new. It was a question that I frankly asked, because it was a bit of a concern.”

KC seems to have alleviated those concerns for Howard. “What I can see, even through the blood, sweat and tears, is the passion, and that is all I needed,” she said. “I felt like it was going to be a very safe bet for me.”

Calling the NWSL a “safe bet” is very interesting from a relative outsider like Howard, who has extensive sports and business experience and therefore can make a qualified assessment. Women’s soccer circles, just like any niche, can get insular, skewing perspectives on just how much or how little space the NWSL truly occupies in the larger sports and cultural landscape. And that aforementioned push and pull between caution and ambition among the league’s owners — which is also currently playing out in the WNBA — is something KC is poised to pull toward the ambition end of the spectrum.

“The unknown questions are, how much are they (the NWSL) going to raise, and how are they going to grow the brand, and how are they going to fill these stadiums and do what Angel City does, which is pack the house of 15,000-plus people.”

Angel City’s last home game — against the Current, naturally — had an attendance of 18,514. Not a bad step down at all from their 22,000-tickets-sold home opener. Howard compared ACFC and the Current as two brands in very crowded sports markets. In LA, there’s the Lakers of course, as well as the Sparks, Dodgers, Angels, Rams, Chargers, Galaxy, LAFC, Kings, Ducks, and Clippers. “So for (Angel City) to be able to go in and do what they have been able to do is really encouraging for everybody else,” said Howard.

The Kansas City area might not be quite as crowded with pro sports teams, but they have their share between the Chiefs, Royals and Sporting KC. And as much as Howard has her eye on the global potential of NWSL, she also wants to focus on the local, too.

“What I know of Kansas Citians is that they show up,” she said. “This is a very hot sports market. I have 100% faith in this community that they’re going to want to show up and show out.”

If the Current finds that long-term national, perhaps even global, success, that would be quite the growth for a club that was formed and made operational within months, beginning play in 2021 with the generic placeholder name of “Kansas City NWSL.” But the very speed of that formation suggests an organization that, A) is not interested in doing things in small increments, and B) is willing to accept the proportionally larger risk and cost that comes with bigger swings. And that’s an attitude that seems to be growing among the league’s teams, particularly those in the latest rounds of expansion.

There are also strategies available to KC that simply aren’t feasible for teams in cities like LA. Though the cost of the Current’s stadium project is more expensive than originally anticipated, an Angel City or San Diego Wave isn’t going to be able to find the same amount of land for the same price.

KC’s success as an NWSL expansion team would help expand the playbook for overall league expansion, allowing them to better analyze which markets to target and how. NWSL needs that variety of knowledge and experience if they’re going to try to capture more market share across the country, although moving into Southern California is already a strong addition.

There was a gleam in Howard’s eye as she joked about creating a rivalry with Uhrman over their respective teams’ performances, perhaps even starting a Twitter war. Angel City set one bar with their debut, and now Howard seemingly intends to climb over it to set the next one.

“I think brands have finally caught on and are finally listening to the fact that their ROI on women’s sports is extremely high,” she said. Like any business, KC may or may not succeed. But if Howard is right about the primary question of NWSL no longer being “will it survive” but “how much money can it raise,” then her vision of long-term growth is a vital step in a healthy and stable league.

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