‘Take That Momentum’: After Bright Start, NSL Eyes Expansion In Western Canada

It’s fair to say the Northern Super League hit the ground running last year: it became a top five global average attendance for women’s sport, took in thirty million dollars in league-wide revenue, and saw a culture of sports fans buy in from coast-to-coast to make Diana Matheson’s vision come to life and put together a strong first year.

With the stage set for the NSL’s sophomore season, league co-founder Diana Matheson and NSL President Christina Litz spoke to media just days ahead of year two’s kickoff in British Columbia. With league rosters going more specific refinements following last year’s mass roster build, Matheson says the performances on the pitch will be elevated from what fans saw in the league’s inaugural campaign.

“There’s still so much room to grow,” says Matheson. “This year, we’ve got the foundation, and we keep growing from here.”

Growth comes in many factors, and one recurring topic is that of expansion. It’s the biggest sign of health in a young league and something that the Northern Super League is making good progress on after launching with six teams from in 2025.

Matheson points to the fact that Canada’s World Cup Trophy tour has hit all six Northern Super League cities in its seven-city tour as a reflection that the league launched in the right spots. Of course, that math means that one city from the trophy tour is missing an NSL club: Winnipeg.

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One trusted source says that the Northern Super League is ramping up its expansion plans west of Ontario with the aim to make an expansion announcement this year before becoming a seven-team league in 2027. Winnipeg, where the league is heavily lobbying fan interest with Desiree Scott as the face of the team, certainly looks the part of a likely expansion candidate.

“The force of a retired Canadian women’s national team player looking to work from her home country is immeasurable,” joked Matheson, nodding to her own journey that led to the the creation of the NSL itself.

The long-term growth envisioned doesn’t stop with the potential addition of Winnipeg for ‘27, either: Matheson would like to add another single team in ‘28, mentioning Edmonton and Victoria as high potential markets – though we’ve no doubt the league is all ears for investors in the country looking to grow the game through the country’s top flight. In any event, that’s a target of two more teams by 2028, bringing the envisioned total to eight – the number originally pitched by Matheson all the way back in 2022.

Like Winnipeg, Edmonton is a market currently without a professional soccer team at all. Both cities saw their Canadian Premier League clubs fold, though they appear to have a good market base of sporting fans at face value. Victoria doesn’t technically have its own professional team, though Pacific FC is playing a few matches downtown amidst some turmoil with its Langford landlords.

Looking back at her own league and the successes it saw in year one, Matheson puts it simply:

“We learned so many things. You could almost can’t name them all, but also we weren’t surprised: like, we did what we said we were going to do. We thought we could do it. We thought we could build a league from scratch and get one yes at a time from the owners, from the sponsors, from [the media]. And in year one, we set the bar where we wanted it to be.”

NSL President Christina Litz was along for every step of the journey, becoming the league’s first President after leaving Manitoba’s True North Sports and Entertainment Limited. She was new to the soccer world but, evidently, did a lot of on-the-job learning as the league went through an inaugural campaign that finished with the Vancouver Rise victorious.

“You have all the plans on paper. You write the strategies, the business case, but you know, secretly you wonder, is it going to work? The biggest takeaway from last year is that Canadians embraced the NSL,” says Litz. “They showed up, they came to games, they watched broadcasts. And for us, that just means there’s an appetite for women’s pro soccer here in Canada. So we take that momentum now and we build.”

The Northern Super League finished with over a quarter million spectators having turned out to stadiums from coast-to-coast, with over three million spectators tuning in linear television and an undisclosed number joining that through streaming services, something which the league will be offering expanded content on for 2026 and beyond. Everything is set to get a little bigger, a little more organized.

Litz puts it simply: this season is about turning history into legacy.

The NSL President hasn’t stayed put in Canada to research the best possible options and ideas for the league – she’s toured the world to learn what is working in other countries and what isn’t, gathering information with her counterparts in various leagues and building a deep appreciation for what has made Canada such a successful space for the NSL so far.

“We have so much that [others] don’t. Yes, we need stadiums. Yes, we need to build infrastructure. We’re going to do that. We’re going to be a part of that change here in Canada. But we have a culture that supports pro women’s sports, and that is a competitive advantage like no other,” says Litz.

Having solidified a top five position in women’s soccer league attendance for the league’s first season, Litz isn’t satiated: she wants a podium finish, aspiring to turn the league into a top three destination for the women’s game.

With ambitious expansion plans and the promise that things will only improve both on and off the pitch, it’s a promise that carries weight: after all, it wasn’t really that long ago when Diana Matheson surprised the world by announcing grand ambitions to launch a league from scratch while still enrolled in business school.

“It’s time,” she had said back then, and she actioned those words without delay. So when she says it’s time for the NSL to grow, people should take notice – particularly those in Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Victoria.

Header Image Photo Credit: John Jacques