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The NWSL’s top talent came to the Bay Area on Saturday to square off at PayPal Park with the 2025 league championship on the line. It was Bay FC’s house, but it was not their moment. 

With the second-year franchise’s stadium as a stage and the city of San Jose as a backdrop, eighth-seeded Gotham FC defeated the second-ranked Washington Spirit 1-0 to capture its second NWSL Championship in three years. 

For Bay FC’s founding four board members and local soccer legends — Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner, Danielle Slaton, and Leslie Osborne — hosting the league’s most important game of the season was the “icing on the cake” of the past years spent building the expansion franchise from the ground up to fill the Bay Area’s professional women’s soccer void. 

“We are super proud that this feels like one of those pivotal moments in our league’s maturation process, that it’s happening on our home soil,” said Wagner, who grew up in San Jose and played in college at Santa Clara. “The league is standing to benefit and our city is standing to benefit. It makes us proud knowing that by bringing Bay FC to life, this was one of the outputs of that vision.”

When the founding four put in a bid for an expansion team to the Bay Area, their vision for what could be was inspired by what they had seen themselves: women’s soccer thriving in the region. As the league celebrated the end of the season in the South Bay, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman admitted “it was actually a travesty that professional women’s soccer wasn’t here in the Bay Area” long before. 

There was no doubt that local fans would show out for the title game, just as they have supported Bay FC since its debut. And they did. 

But for Bay FC as a club, acting as the hosts after a sophomore year of lowlights and leadership turnover, the 18,000-fan sellout crowd was a reminder of the reality the organization hopes to make its own someday. 

“Ugh. Anyone will tell you this: it’s not the season you want,” Slaton said of the club’s 4-8-14 campaign that left Bay FC second-to-last in the NWSL standings after securing a playoff berth in its inaugural season. “The good news is, starting on Sunday, everyone is 0-0 and we have the chance to rebuild … I remind myself that we only have two years under our belts and that every year we’re learning, we’re progressing.” 

It’s now just one day into the league’s official offseason, but Bay FC’s rebuild has been in motion for months as the club looks ahead to a Year 3 it hopes will feel entirely different. Shortly after Albertín Montoya announced his intent to step down from his head coaching role back in September, and just before the departure of CEO Brady Stewart, the team’s first employee, Bay FC’s co-founding global investment firm Sixth Street brought on Kay Cossington to lead to lead the club’s sporting side. 

Last week, the former women’s technical director of England’s Football Association said that her primary task on the job — the search for a head coach — is “tracking really well” and is “late on in the process.” Cossington’s criteria and vision for the position is clear: “We want somebody that’s been there and done it in the women’s game.” 

That standard suggests the club is aiming high, targeting a candidate with proven experience and success at the top levels of women’s soccer. She emphasizes a “track record” as the organization seeks leadership that can immediately influence performance, development, and team culture. 

While salary cap discussions are once again permeating the league — the NWSL currently operates under a structured salary cap outlined in its 2024 CBA, set at $3.5 million per team in 2026 — the financial restrictions do not extend to other areas critical to rebuilding a competitive club. In other words, Bay FC, backed by Sixth Street, is free to invest heavily in its coaching staff, training facilities, and make other off-the-pitch expenditures that could give the franchise an edge.

At the NWSL press conference Thursday, Berman sang the praises of the investments Bay FC has already made thus far in its two-year life span. 

“We’re really proud of what they’ve done in their first two seasons, and we know and believe that they are not stopping,” said Berman, who also praised the city of San Jose for its hospitality. “We know that they announced their new training facility on Treasure Island, and that they are in the process of reevaluating their organization to make sure that it is resourced to be able to compete at the highest level.

Even as the league’s commissioner highlighted San Jose’s support, in the same breath, she acknowledged that recent moves point toward Bay FC’s long-term sights being set on San Francisco. The state-of-the-art grounds on Treasure Island to open in 2027, plus a match that broke a league attendance record at Oracle Park this summer signal how the organization is not-so-subtly positioning itself to eventually shift its home base up north. 

Andi Sullivan, a Washington Spirit midfielder out of Stanford, could speak to both what she’s seen in the Bay Area and with the Spirit in DC.

“I know that Bay is interested in creeping their way to the city, and that (Oracle Park) game shows why that’s a great option,” she said ahead of her homecoming of sorts. “We’ve experienced that kind of growth in our team as well,” referring to the Washington Spirit’s relocation from suburbs to the city.

“We hope that other teams can also do that because we love playing when it’s loud, intense, competitive, and full.” 

In just two seasons of Bay FC’s existence, Bay Area sports fans have proven they will pack the stadium in support of women’s soccer. But after a disappointing season on the pitch, a new coach and a franchise experiencing significant leadership turnover must prove it can build a more competitive team if it hopes to capitalize on local support and ultimately play in the type of meaningful matches that Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit just enjoyed.

Hosting a title game was an honor for Bay FC. Playing in one, and winning it, remains the far more important goal.