Diving into North Carolina Courage ownership & funding
On April 21st, Columbus, Ohio was announced as the 18th franchise in the NWSL, set to open play in 2028. As the $205m expansion fee was made public, a common question online was “where are the fees going?”
Let’s dig into the North Carolina Courage’s ownership and investment history and see if we can find out.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial reporter, I just read articles, search filings, and have a calculator.Stephen Malik brings the Courage to North Carolina #
The primary and controlling owner of the North Carolina Courage is Stephen Malik.
Having already purchased North Carolina FC and the NCFC youth system, Malik purchased the Western New York Flash in 2017, moving them to North Carolina and renaming them the Courage. The terms of the deal were not announced, but it’s worth noting that the expansion fee for Racing Louisville less than two years later was under $2m; you can assume that the fee to acquire the Courage was somewhere along the lines of what a college football podcast community can raise for refugees in a week.
(Aside: if you are reading this this week: donate to the Charity Bowl! I suggest supporting PTKU, but anyone will do. Even Duke.)
Ownership part II: The Search for More Money #
In recent years, Malik has regularly sought out more investment for the Courage.
The first offering of equity in the Courage occurred in January 2021. In this round, there was an offering of $5m in equity in the team at an unknown valuation. This equity ended up split among a number of minority investors who provided a minimum investment of $250,000 each, among them:
- tennis pro Naomi Osaka
- Former NC State and NFL player Torry Holt
- Capitol Broadcasting Corporation
- Kane Realty
- Jim and Sue Datin
The second raise of capital for the Courage was in the fall of 2023. Here Malik intended to raise $15m in equity, debt financing, and options, again at an unknown valuation. At this time, existing investors Jim and Sue Datin, as well as Capitol Broadcasting Corporation, upped their investments and were granted seats on the club’s board. By January of 2024, a little over $15m. was actually raised.
In the fall of 2024, another $10m in equity in the team was offered for sale, this time using Whitecap Sports Group as a broker. This was shortly before the initial reports of Marc Lasry’s private equity Avenue Sports Fund buying a 60% stake in the team surfaced. That investment ended up not happening due to the NWSL not approving the deal structure. In April of 2025, Avenue Sports Fund advisor Lauren Holiday and her husband Jrue Holiday were announced as investors and advisors, presumably filling some, if not all, of that $10m equity stake.
Finally in October of 2025, the Courage secured an additional $10m in debt financing from existing investors, including Capitol Broadcasting.
Overall, since 2021 Malik has raised between $32m and $40m in outside funding for the Courage.
Somehow, Marc Lasry returned #
On March 4th of 2026, Sportico reported that Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund had returned with another agreement of investment. Rather than the prior $65m investment for a controlling 60% interest in the club, this would consist of a $40m investment at a $155m valuation, or a little over 25% of the club.
This deal has yet to gain league approval, and has yet to be concretely announced by either side. If approved, we will see whether this is buying a 25% share from Malik, or potentially buying out other minority investors. If it’s buying a straight 25% share, it does represent another $40m in incoming cash flow for Courage ownership.
Expansion: do you like passive income? #
The NWSL has taken on a number of expansion fees since Malik bought the Courage.
The NWSL has agreed to add an 18th team in Columbus, Ohio, owned by Haslam Sports Group
The group has agreed to pay a record $205 million expansion fee, per @sportico.bsky.social
— Lev Akabas (@levakabas.bsky.social) April 21, 2026 at 2:53 PM
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Each expansion fee is (to the best we can determine) split among current NWSL owners.
$2m each for Angel City & San Diego split among ten teams. $2m for Utah and $53m for Bay split among twelve teams. $53m for Boston and $110m for Denver split fourteen ways. And now $165 for Atlanta and $205m for Columbus split among the current sixteen teams.
Add it all up, and it’s another $39.7m of incoming cash for North Carolina’s owners.
What does the money get the Courage? #
When you add up ownership stakes, Marc Lasry’s reported investment, and expansions fees, there has been up to $120m in announced investment in the Courage since 2020.
What we’ve seen is that the Courage have made large, welcome, strides in gameday experience, community engagement, and operations in the past three years. Attendance increases have followed.
What hasn’t happened with this investment is facility initiatives.
The Courage play and train at the same place they have since their arrival in North Carolina. First Horizon Stadium is the smallest stadium in the league. Depending on how you view the Providence Park Of Theseus, it’s arguably the oldest as well, and the Courage do not have a dedicated training facility.
To see why facilities changes haven’t shown up, it’s best to look at how Malik stacks up to other owners in the league.
Malik compared to other NWSL owners #
Since Malik bought the Courage, there has been significant turnover in NWSL ownership. Only Racing Louisville and the KC Current have ownership that dates even to before 2020.
Over the recent decade, NWSL franchise values have skyrocketed, and the net worth and spending capacity of owners on things like players, training facilities, and stadia has skyrocketed as well. A brief survey of current NWSL owners shows the rarefied air of billionaires that ownership operates in.
| Team | Owner | Reported net worth |
|---|---|---|
| Angel City FC | Bob Iger, Willow Bay | $690m in 2019 |
| Washington | Y. Michele Kang | $1.2bn |
| Orlando | the Wilf family | $1.3bn |
| Utah | Gail Miller | $3.2bn |
| Chicago | Laura Ricketts | $4.5bn (family) |
| Columbus | Jimmy & Dee Haslam | $8.7bn |
| Atlanta | Arthur Blank | $10.6bn |
| Seattle | The Carlyle Group | $426bn in holdings |
As for Malik?
Stephen Malik made his money working as a healthcare entrepreneur, founding a company called MedFusion. He sold MedFusion to Intuit for $91 million dollars in 2010, reacquired it in 2013 for an undisclosed amount, and sold it again in 2019 for $43m. As part of the final sale, he spun off Greenlight Health Data Systems, which merged with Pattern Health in 2024 to create a combined company while seeking $15m in funding.
Other than Greenlight and his sports holdings, his only other ventures appear to be some smaller real estate and commercial LLCs.
Malik’s net worth isn’t public. However, given the public details of the sale(s) of his companies and his public other business ventures, I am left to conclude that his non-Courage net worth is significantly lower than most other owners in the league. The closest comparison would be John Neace at Racing Louisville, but Neace at least operates an investment fund and Racing Louisville owns and operates their own stadium.
This would imply that ownership’s ability to spend on the team consists of:
- any personal savings and investments
- revenue from the NCFC/Courage
- revenue from NCFC Youth
So, the potential $120m from owner investments, Marc Lasry, and expansion fees?
It’s being used to operate the team and fortify the team’s finances.
This is borne out by Malik’s behavior with both the Courage and other soccer ventures, where they operate as a small budget team.
In 2021, North Carolina FC self-relegated from the USL Championship to USL League One. While they returned to the USL Championship for the 2024 season, Malik shuttered North Carolina FC after the 2025 season rather than continuing to operate it at a loss.
Public statements by ownership confirm this. In an interview, Malik said moving to developing youth was an intentional strategy:
Malik said the Courage’s finances have played a role in how the club has approached its roster construction, opting for younger players and development. The team has three players born in 2005. Malik said the team is the youngest in the league.We did that on purpose,” he said. “We wanted to be in a position to develop talent and take us to the next level. When you don’t draw as well as Los Angeles or some of the bigger markets and you don’t have all the premium suites that some of those have, you have got to be able to develop players.
In a recent season-ticket member town hall, Chief Soccer Officer Ceri Bowley noted that it is unlikely the Courage would sign a high-impact player contract, citing the effect on potential team morale of having one highly-paid player, per the Lion’s Pitch.
Looking at the overall numbers #
Despite their behavior, it would appear as if ownership does have the money to operate the Courage to league limits.
Breaking it down by year, you have the following in incoming cash:
| Year | Expansion fees | Ownership investments | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $200k | $200k | |
| 2021 | $200k | $5m | $5.2m |
| 2022 | $166k | $166k | |
| 2023 | $8.2m | $15.7m | $23.9m |
| 2024 | $2m-$10m | $2m-$10m | |
| 2025 | $18.2m | $10m | $28.2m |
| 2026 | $12.8m | up to $40m | $12.8m-$52.8m |
While in the earlier years, there likely wasn’t enough incoming cash to cover potential losses, that has changed.
Since 2023, they have gathered enough just in expansion fees ($39.2m) to pay to the salary cap from 2023 through 2030, including the NWSLPA’s requested cap bump, and they’d still have a couple million dollars left over. Add in their external investments, and even if you’re using it to recoup past losses, there’s plenty of operating capital for the rest of the operation, transfer budgets, and more.
Plus, this doesn’t include sponsorships, tickets, or media rights; per Forbes, the Courage brought in around $12m in revenue in 2025.
But it’s probably not enough to build new facilities.
Facilities costs: can other investors step in? #
Costs for recent dedicated training facilities across the NWSL have ranged from $19m (Kansas City), $30m-40m (Chicago), to $150m (Portland, shared with a WNBA squad). Recent NWSL stadium costs have ranged from $65m (Louisville), to $117m (Kansas City), to $450m (Washington).
If Courage ownership is using owner investment and expansion fees as operating capital, they may not have enough to invest in training facilities (they do not control WakeMed Soccer Park), and regardless they don’t have enough currently for a self-financed stadium.
Could one of the wealthier minority investors step up? It’s unlikely. Jrue and Lauren Holiday almost certainly don’t want to sink their entire fortune into one NWSL team. Lasry’s investment explicitly does not include a path to control, which would apparently rule him out; you wouldn’t pay for a stadium without a controlling interest.
Then there’s Capitol Broadcasting, which has a large and diverse portfolio, including the Durham Bulls. But did they build and do they own the Durham Bulls Athletic Park?
Nope, and therein lies the team’s likely strategy.
Doing the public funding dance #
The NWSL plays the same games as any other sports league: get all the public money you can.
The Haslams (noted defenders of a serial predator) spoke of this as they took $50m in public funds and ownership of a community park that was promised for redevelopment.
"Public-private partnerships are really important. We are one of 18 teams in the NWSL, and that's a highly competitive process," Haslam Johnson said when asked why the $50 million was necessary as opposed to purely private funding. "And it's really important that the public supports these teams. It really is a key differentiator in being able to win the team and being able to have support from all the various stakeholders."
NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman fully endorses this method of extracting public money.
"The evidence of public support is a really important litmus test and proxy… Our interest is to ensure that there is appropriate consideration from communities and from public sector to set these teams up for success. We do view them as community assets. We do believe it is our responsibility to show up for the community, and that's a bilateral relationship."
Malik and the Courage have already started down this road.
As part of the combined ownership of NCFC and the Courage, Malik joined Kane Realty in 2018 to propose a new development called Downtown South in Raleigh that would include a stadium to entice MLS expansion; this almost certainly is related to his real estate LLCs. Then MLS chose Charlotte instead, a global pandemic happened and the entire development was put on hold. There were planning meetings, lawsuits, and more. As of today the stadium is nowhere to be found on the Downtown South website.
But hark: maybe it’s on again, as a news article claims construction could begin by the end of 2026. There’s just one small matter.
Kane Realty and Malik are working to secure financing and are hoping to team up with the City of Raleigh and Wake County to make it happen.
Malik himself touts it as necessary for the return of North Carolina FC in 2028
Raleigh has strong potential as a future top-tier market if it meets the league’s professional standards that require a minimum 15,000-seat purpose-built soccer stadium.
Cynically, you can see why they would take this track. Boston taxpayers are spending $135m on rebuilding White Stadium. Denver is spending $50m. The Haslams are worth $8bn, and yet got $50m in public funding for their NWSL franchise after getting $146m during their Crew purchase. As one of the poorer league ownerships who seemingly cannot fund a stadium yourself, why wouldn’t they try to get a taxpayer-funded stadium? Then the team could operate the stadium and take full concession, parking, luxury box, and other revenues, all while coincidentally building a profitable income stream through surrounding real-estate investments. This is exactly how Capitol Broadcasting operates the DBAP (owned by the City of Durham), and develops the surrounding American Tobacco campus.
What’s next #
Since the early 2020s, the Courage have gone from little outside investiment, to bringing in tens of millions of dollars in expansion fees and external investment. Yet, fans aren’t seeing that investment show up in new facilities or to-the-cap spending, as the team makes noises about requesting taxpayer funded facilities.
Maybe the Wake County taxpayers will end up footing the bill. I’d be surprised if Malik cedes majority control as long as this remains a possibility.
Maybe a new majority investor will appear, willing to put $100+m where their mouth is (hopefully not inducing a relocation).
Maybe a minority owner will take a larger stake, and begin small incremental investments over time.
Until then, we will wait and see. Hey, anyone got some money under the couch cushions?