ATLANTA \u2014 Aflac U.S. president Virgil Miller says his insurance company was a natural fit for a front-of-kit sponsorship deal with Atlanta\u2019s new National Women\u2019s Soccer League team, which will debut in 2028.<\/p>\n
Aflac\u2019s agreement to have its Georgia-based company name on the front of the Atlanta players\u2019 shirts was announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Atlanta expansion team is owned by Arthur Blank, who also owns the NFL\u2019s Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United of Major League Soccer. The Falcons and Atlanta United play at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which also will be the home of the NWSL team.<\/p>\n
Atlanta will become the NWSL\u2019s 17th team, following the additions of Boston and Denver in the league\u2019s most recent expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in supporting women and women in sports and as we have looked at some of the statistics out there, we\u2019ve seen that the National Women\u2019s Soccer League has seen four consecutive years of viewership growth,\u201d Miller told The Associated Press. \u201cThat is very attractive to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller also said because \u201c80% of healthcare decisions are made by women \u2026 you put those things together and it is a great way for us to show our support.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the sponsorship agreement, a portion of the contribution from Aflac will be donated to the Athlete Cancer and Blood Disorder Center at the Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was connecting all the dots for a great relationship that we\u2019re looking forward to being a part of,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
The Atlanta NWSL team said the seven-year sponsorship deal is believed to be the league’s most lucrative front-of-kit agreement. Financial terms were not released.<\/p>\n
AMB Sports and Entertainment president Tim Zulawski said Atlanta United’s attendance success helped make the new NWSL team attractive for a sponsorship deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAtlanta United, when we launched that franchise, people didn\u2019t see coming down the road 70,000 people regularly coming to matches and being top eight in the world,\u201d Zulawski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fully expect that NWSL Atlanta will be a leader in fandom, in attendance, in every aspect of measure that you would look at in measuring a franchise. … Aflac is making an amazing investment, showing how much they care about both this partnership and women\u2019s sports, and we fully expect to deliver tenfold to their investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
There will be modifications to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the NWSL club. Attendance will be capped at approximately 28,000.<\/p>\n
Blank\u2019s investment in women\u2019s professional soccer also includes the development of a training site in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Aflac U.S. president Virgil Miller says his insurance company was a natural fit for a front-of-kit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,11963,224,7,6,3373,2309],"class_list":{"0":"post-775854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlantafalcons","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-falcons","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116132362645271638","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}