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When the final whistle cut the air in Louisville on Sunday, Bay FC’s season came to a close in the same way so many of its matches have this year. A 1-0 loss to Racing Louisville FC extended the club’s winless run to 17 matches in a season marked by turbulence and growing pains.
A year after making a playoff appearance in its inaugural season, Bay FC’s rise stalled. The club’s last win came on June 7, it finished tied for last-place in the NWSL standings, and its 26 goals marked the fewest in the league — a number that tells the story of a team that spent both summer and fall searching for answers.
“Yes, things didn’t go our way, but they never gave up,” head coach Albertin Montoya said Sunday. “Regardless of the score, regardless of what was going on in the league, the organization, through all the challenges we’ve had.”
The struggles on the pitch stand in stark contrast to Bay FC’s rapid rise off of it. In just two years, the franchise has established itself as a cultural and commercial force in women’s soccer. This summer, Forbes ranked the team as the third-most valuable club in the league, estimating its worth at $170 million and annual revenue at $21 million. The organization set a record for the most-attended women’s professional sporting event in the United States at Oracle Park in August, and broke ground on a state-of-the-art training complex on Treasure Island in September.
“Everyone at Bay FC has a ton to be proud of,” said Brady Stewart, who was Bay FC’s CEO and first employee. “It’s been an absolutely historic first two years.”
More than 40,000 fans attended a Bay FC match hosted at Oracle Park in August. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
Yet, even amid these achievements, Year 3 promises a major overhaul for a franchise still in search of its footing. Much of the leadership that guided Bay FC from concept to competition won’t be around to co-author the next chapter, including Stewart.
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Two weeks ago, she stepped down, ending a tenure of just under three years leading the club through an ambitious start-up phase.
The former Levi Strauss & Co. executive said she always viewed the position as a short-term opportunity to help launch the franchise. Having overseen the club’s formation, branding, and early growth, Stewart says she will return to her roots in direct-to-consumer business.
“I was brought in to build this business from scratch,” Stewart said. “I was brought in to build the zero-to-one startup [phase] and I am so proud of what we did in that moment, but that moment is over and now it’s time for me to move on.”
Montoya, a fixture in Bay Area soccer circles for decades, joins Stewart in departing after Bay FC’s second season. The coach announced midway through the campaign that he would step down at the year’s end — like Stewart, framing his tenure as a short-term commitment to bridge the club’s launch with its long-term vision.
In addition to Stewart and Montoya, Bay FC’s leadership has seen significant turnover in its first two seasons. The first general manager, Lucy Rushton, resigned midway through the inaugural season, just after building the team’s debut roster months prior. Jen Millet, Bay FC’s first chief operating officer and the former chief marketing officer with the Golden State Warriors, departed for her hometown to become president of the NWSL’s newest expansion team in Denver.
Bay FC has a robust fan base, but must find ways to be more successful on the field to continue capturing attention. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
On the wave of departures, including her own, Stewart views the changes as a natural part of the club’s evolution. “I don’t think it’s unusual. This is a business that is evolving and changing and now moving to a new phase.”
Significant turnover in professional sports organizations is often a sign of trouble, or internal strife. Stewart brushed that idea aside, emphasizing that Bay FC needs different leaders to conquer a new set of challenges.
Amid the front-office changes, Bay FC has added Kay Cossington to lead the club’s sporting operations alongside sporting director Matt Potter. Cossington, the first women’s technical director in the English Football Association, brings deep experience in player development and hiring coaching and training staffs. At the club’s Treasure Island groundbreaking in September, Cossington emphasized that her primary responsibility is to “build the systems and structures” that will guide Bay FC’s operations on the field.
Bay FC, owned by private equity firm Sixth Street and CEO Alan Waxman, will prepare for its third season with an acute need to improve its roster. Despite the departure of key leaders, the club’s foundation appears strong.
Stewart framed the path ahead succinctly: “When you look at the arc of women’s sports, everything is moving up and to the right. The interesting challenge for the team will be, how do you capture all of that momentum.”
The club’s former CEO helped generate much of that momentum away from the pitch. Now, Bay FC must figure out how to convert all of its potential into performance on it.