Bay FC made a big splash in its first season in the National Women’s Soccer League, getting to the 2024 playoffs. But the team seemed to lose its way in the second year, notching only four wins and finishing second to last place.
Success has been elusive this year, too, as Bay FC, finishing in 14th out of 16 teams.
Hopes for the NWSL franchise have always been high to give the Bay Area, a hotbed of championship women’s sports, top-level women’s soccer. Bay FC believes it belongs at the top, and to get there, it’s focused on the future — with big investments in new leadership, a young core with some veteran players, and a home of their own.
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Story transcript:
REPORTER: It’s mid-September, and Bay FC is playing its second road game in 5 days. They’re facing the Denver Summit in the Mile-High City. Over the last month, Bay FC had just one win and four losses, most decided by a single goal.
In this game Denver scores first.
PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCERS: The ball is delivered across, across … it’s Heaps! Heaps! Denver keeps heaping on goals. They’ve got the opener shortly before halftime.
REPORTER: Early in the second half, Denver struck again.
PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCERS: Ryan with the cross, slid in! Jenine Sonis, this career year keeps rolling! And Denver in the driver’s seat here at home, two nil.
REPORTER: Bay FC had just lost their last game on the road two-nil, against Seattle. But on this night, Bay FC did not get down. They hit back.
PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCERS: Up field, Huff. Back to Hutton. Hutton continues. Oh, wow, what a goal!. What an individual effort from Claire Hutton. Add that to the highlight reel. Wow! What a play!
REPORTER: Bay FC midfielder Claire Hutton scored in the seventy-third minute to cut the margin to one. And later, in extra time…
PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCERS: Ball beyond toward Huff. Huff brings it down. Huff! Huff! That is a catastrophic goal conceded by Denver. Taylor Huff has pulled Bay level with two minutes to play.
REPORTER: Two minutes later, the referee sounded the whistle, ending the game. Bay FC had come from behind to tie the match, earning them one point in the standings for the NWSL. The team still had a losing record for the season, but for first-year head coach Emma Coates, the tie was about something bigger.
EMMA COATES: We’re so close, and we know who we are. We know what we’re building.
REPORTER: The building metaphor is apt for Bay FC. Last year – the team’s second season – was a struggle with only 4 wins and 8 ties.
But instead of letting the team languish at the bottom, the ownership group doubled down in the offseason, making big, long-term investments they hope will lead the team to the top. At the end of 2025, they hired Coates to take the reins and lead a reset. She had previously led the England U23 women’s national team.
COATES: I think one of the things that certainly when I came in the door in January, one of the things we wanted to try and do was discover who are we and what we’re trying to achieve here and develop some of that foundation, and I think we did a really good job.
REPORTER: The team is also investing in their roster. This year, they’ve brought in a core of young, talented players to lead their rebuilding effort.
One of them is 20-year-old midfielder Claire Hutton, who scored the first goal in the Denver game. Bay FC acquired her in February from the Kansas City Current for $1.1 million. Hutton says the transition has not been easy.
CLAIRE HUTTON: Honestly, this year’s been extremely hard for me in a lot of different ways. I think, for me, there’s a lot to it. I’m from New York, so moving farther away from home was tough. Moving away from what was my first professional experience to a new club was hard. If you talk to anybody who has a transfer, it’s tough. Making new friends — all of it is tough.
REPORTER: Part of the learning curve for Hutton and her teammates is figuring out how to play together better.
HUTTON: So everyday it’s how can we be better? And how can you grow and learn from the person next to you? It’s cool to really have to dive into what everyone’s role is and what my individual role is and how we can get the most out of people on the field, off the field.
REPORTER: Getting the most of every player’s strengths is producing results. The team has almost twice as many wins as last year. Coates said she had a message for the players ahead of the Denver game.
COATES: I asked them for one thing today and that was to play with no fear. And I think we had a big conversation that anytime we do anything great, that’s on the players and they need to lean into that. And anytime that we've been undone by a little bit of risk or a mistake, I’ll absorb that pressure for them. I want to take that pressure off them. That’s my job to take that.
REPORTER: Midfielder Taylor Huff was a rookie during last year’s tough season. She says the team has started to gel as players internalize Coates’ message.
TAYLOR HUFF: I think everyone on this team believes and does everything in their power to do it. And so it’s just putting all those things together and really leaning into what the coaches are saying and backing them because they do know what they’re doing and they've set us up for success. So it’s leaning into that.
REPORTER: A few days after their tie in Denver, Bay FC showed what this success could look like in a decisive two-nil victory against Racing Louisville at home in San Jose.
PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCER: A convincing three points tonight for Bay FC. Two goals and three points staying here in San Jose.
REPORTER: While things on the field are starting to come together, Bay FC’s ownership group has been taking even more risks off the field. The day after their win over Racing Louisville, Kay Cossington, the chief executive of the ownership group behind Bay FC, told a group of reporters about a big front office move.
KAY COSSINGTON: We are super excited to be here today to officially announce Paul Green as our Chief Football Officer at Bay FC.
REPORTER: Like other recent Bay FC hires, Green is from England. He had been the Head of Football for the Chelsea women’s club, one of the most successful teams in England. One of his former coworkers was none other than Emma Hayes, the current USWNT coach.
COSSINGTON: Paul’s credentials speak for itself in terms of the 19 trophies he’s won with Chelsea but most importantly it was the way in which he’s won those… what he’s built to actually achieve that success that was particularly interesting to us.
REPORTER: Cossington broke down exactly what Green did — and will do for Bay FC.
COSSINGTON: He’s a serial winner. He’s built systems and structures that go across player development, recruitment, staff, infrastructure in one of the biggest clubs, women’s clubs in the world. And we are really excited as we’re taking this next phase of Bay FC that Paul’s here and joining us to lead all of our sporting operations.
PAUL GREEN: Really looking forward to working in the NWSL challenging myself in another top league. You know I’ve won championships as Kay alluded to in England and you know the ambition is can I replicate that in America, and that’s what we’ll be setting out to do.
REPORTER: Green is coming in at a pivotal time for Bay FC and the league. Player recruitment and retention is increasingly competitive. This is partly due to the current collective bargaining agreement, instituted before the 2025 season. It did away with the college draft, leaving players free to negotiate individually with teams as free agents, and clubs can’t trade players without their consent.
At the same time, the money players can earn today is growing — not just in the NWSL but abroad. For example, two-time NWSL Defender of the Year Naomi Girma transferred from the San Diego Wave in 2025 to Chelsea for $1.1 million.
All of this puts the onus on individual clubs to offer prospective players an attractive environment to come — and stay. That’s the hope with Claire Hutton, the midfielder who transferred from the Kansas City Current earlier this year. Her $1.1 million transfer fee was the second highest ever in the NWSL. Green believes moves like this are a good start.
GREEN: The foundations are really strong, and I think the team just needs a little bit more experience to complement the talented young group of players that we’ve got.
REPORTER: The day after Green was introduced as part of Bay FC’s front office, head coach Coates gets ready to lead the team in practice. She says Green will help Bay FC develop a lasting, winning culture.
COATES: I think Paul’s a great person and a great addition to the club. You know, everyone knows his career history and his time at Chelsea.
REPORTER: Coates also understands how much progress Bay FC has made over the course of her first season. She says her players have trouble getting this perspective.
COATES: I quite often tell the girls, you know, when they don’t think we played great, I’m like, trust me, go back and watch game one of the season and you see how far that we’ve come. And I think the next step for us now is around being consistent in those performances and being ruthless to turn those into consistent points. We're consistently trying to identify the areas to take us to the next level. And some of that is on the pitch and some of that is off the pitch as well.
REPORTER: On the field behind Coates, Bay FC players warm up to the roar of traffic speeding along South Tenth Street in San Jose outside the practice field. One coach takes out a drone and sends it up above the field to film the practice session.
Another coach instructs the players about a drill. They begin, rotating around a course of stanchions, passing balls to each other while moving up and down a small section of the practice field.
The win over Racing Louisville was two days earlier, and the team is upbeat as they get ready to play the Orlando Pride on the coming Sunday. Still, they are in 13th place out of 16 teams and there’s not enough time left in the season to make the playoffs.
But that doesn’t make their work today less meaningful. Their focus is turning to next season. They have a new coach, a young core sprinkled with veteran talent, and they have a leader of football operations. The missing piece for the team is a home to call their own.
While they currently have a practice facility on the south part of the San Jose State Campus, it is a shared facility with the school’s men’s and women’s soccer teams. Spartans are logos everywhere. But the only markers showing Bay FC’s existence are two blue shipping containers w/ the team’s logo. Coates says this arrangement is okay.
COATES: I think we have a home here now at San Jose State and it’s functional. We have what we need.
REPORTER: Of the 16 NWSL clubs, six so far have their own dedicated training facilities. Four of those teams made the playoffs. Two other clubs have announced plans to build their own training centers. One of them is Bay FC.
The team broke ground on the Bay FC performance center on Treasure Island a year ago and is looking forward to moving training there next season.
On a sunny, slightly breezy early October afternoon, Bay FC officials lead midfielder Kennedy Fuller, the team’s media crew, and a few reporters across an expanse of packed sand to a field of green grass on Treasure Island.
KENNEDY FULLER: This is pitch 3, that’s pitch 2? This is so cool!
REPORTER: Fuller, dressed in red Nike kicks, jeans, and a grey Bay FC cropped t-shirt, looks out at rows of newly laid sod on the first practice pitch. Workers who had finished laying this grass a few hours earlier, turn off some of the sprinklers, allowing Fuller to step onto the field. She has an important job to do — be the eyes for her teammates, who are not on this tour.
FULLER: Talking to a bunch of the girls today, like, they want pictures and videos, and this is such a cool experience for the girls because some of like, this is one of the first practice fields to be built for a women’s team.
REPORTER: There’s another tour group member for Fuller’s visit. The Bay FC media team ask the 19-year-old to share who she was talking to.
BAY FC MEDIA: Who’d she Facetime?
FULLER: My mom.
BAY FC MEDIA: Oh, your mom.
FULLER: Yeah, my mom.
BAY FC MEDIA: That’s adorable!
FULLER [To her mother]: Everyone says, ‘Hi.’
REPORTER: Team officials then lead the group to the heart of the training center that’s still a work-in-progress. We stop before a narrow path as a staff member cautions us.
BAY FC OFFICIAL: I’m going to take you through this little goat path, so just watch your step.
REPORTER: The goat path is a tire track from a construction digger. Officials open a door and usher us inside.
The building is the future performance center. Today, though, it’s some bare drywall, connected beams and metal frames, baskets of air duct segments, and power tools. Our tour guide tells us what is to be here soon.
BAY FC OFFICIAL: This will be your classroom.
FULLER: This is huge!
REPORTER: Fuller snaps more photos of where she and her teammates will watch film. The 22,000 square-foot building will include a full gym, recovery rooms, coaches offices, and a kitchen and dining area. Fuller says it will be everything a professional women’s soccer team needs.
FULLER: I think it really shows a credit to Bay what they’re building as a place to attract players to stay.
REPORTER: Coates anticipates the move north to practice will be a great reset for the team.
COATES: To be able to move to Treasure Island and actually have a world class facility, I think that’s going to take us to the next level in terms of having not just freedom within the use of the facilities, but to be able to be really specific around what it is that we need as a club? What do world class female athletes need? And build it around our female players and our staff and our workflow and all that stuff. That’s going to attract world class players as well as local talent.
REPORTER: After the tour of their new Treasure Island facility, Bay FC didn’t get any wins the rest of the season. But they did get a big tie against the sixth-place Portland Thorns, and their keeper Jordan Silkowitz was named as a finalist for the best goalie in the NWSL, after she made over 100 saves this season. Some positives to carry with them in the offseason.
Now, Bay FC has just three months before the 2027 season begins in February, when the team can put these new investments to the test
