Waterloo Group Aims To Launch NSL Club For 2028

While the Northern Super League is already expanding to Winnipeg next season, a group from Waterloo Region is hoping to bring the professional women’s league to the Tri-Cities area for 2028.

As reported by the Waterloo Region Record, the initiative involves youth soccer coaches Bruce Watson and Adrian Konstant, former Canadian international Helen Stoumbos, and former city councillor Melissa Durrell.

The quartet represent a venture named the Waterloo Region Football Club and are actively seeking investment options and a sustainable stadium solution so that the Northern Super League can call Waterloo home.

The project got its start from the very heart of the game itself: after attending an NSL match in Toronto, Watson and Konstant’s daughters simply asked why Waterloo couldn’t have a team – and so, the fathers did what fathers do: try to make the world a better place for their daughters.

It’s a world the two dads know well: co-coaches of the Kitchener TFC U-12 girls team, they’re actively involved at the grassroots level.

“We want our girls to be able, in their own backyard, in their own city, to watch their heroes,” Konstant told the Record.

Big dreams are one thing, but the finances to turn them into reality are another. The group’s pitch deck estimates a $15 million cost for the franchise fee alone, with the expansion side expected to run an operating cost of $10-15 million through its first three to five years.

The Northern Super League has not formally confirmed its current expansion fee, with co-founder Diana Matheson having told us ahead of the current season that Edmonton and Victoria were the next-hottest expansion markets after Winnipeg.

Then comes another hurdle: a suitable stadium in Waterloo Region. The group hopes to build a new, multipurpose venue that meets its needs.

Waterloo Region Football Club estimates that building a multipurpose stadium that can seat at least 7,500 will run about $8-20 million, though it’s not clear what the split would be between club, league, or public taxpayer.

Potential stadium sites have not been disclosed, though the group says transit and highway access have been earmarked as priorities for the future grounds.

Melissa Durrell says she isn’t scared of the numbers. The founder and CEO of Waterloo-based PR firm Durrell Communications and a former Waterloo city councillor herself, she will help lead efforts to attract financial backing.

“I think there’s absolutely that kind of investment potential in the community,” she added, saying initial investor conversations were positive. She’ll be putting her money where her mouth is, as she also plans to invest her own capital into the NSL bid.

She isn’t the only female leader in the group. There’s also Helen Stoumbos, who scored Canada’s first FIFA World Cup goal in 1995. The former national team midfielder grew up a half hour away in Guelph, without the opportunity to play professionally in her own backyard.

“You need to see it to believe it,” said Stoumbos. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have a lot of pro teams to watch, so you didn’t even know it was possible.”

The Northern Super League has publicly stated it wants eight teams by 2028, though its main push is westwards so that the league can be split into east and west conferences.

Should a viable expansion side come to fruition in Waterloo, however, it would give the league an relatively unexpected direction to consider.

The league will test its mettle with expansion through Winnipeg next season, while league brass have also made inroads in Edmonton, having met with Mayor Andrew Knack.

Winnipeg’s modular stadium will cost some $8.5 million, which puts it on the low end of Waterloo’s early estimate of stadium project costs.

Having just gone public with the venture, the Waterloo Region Football Club has a long way to go if they’re to plant a flag in the Waterloo Region and get an NSL club off the ground.

Should the Northern Super League rise to eight teams in 2028, it would achieve the same number of clubs in its fourth season that the Canadian Premier League currently has in its eighth.

That’s some good math – classic Waterloo.

Source: Waterloo Region Record