U.S. pro football league expands into Canada; Mississauga firm on board

The National Football League might not expand into Canada anytime soon, but another professional league south of the border that also deals in first downs and touchdowns is looking northward.

And a Mississauga firm is on board to help secure new ownership groups and get Canadian-based teams on the field by 2026.

The U.S.-based Women’s Football Alliance, described as “the largest, longest-running and most competitive women’s tackle football league in the world,” has partnered with Mississauga marketing firm Cosmos Sports & Entertainment to search for Canadian ownership groups “interested in bringing professional women’s football teams to cities across the country.”

Cary Kaplan, president of Cosmos Sports & Entertainment, told INsauga.com in a phone interview on Friday they’ve already received calls from several interested parties since going public with their ownership search on Thursday.

He didn’t reveal any specifics about the calls, but added discussions with those groups will continue on Monday and he’s looking forward to generating even more interest in the days and weeks ahead.

“The timing is right,” Kaplan, who founded Cosmos in 2003 with his wife, Amelia, said of the WFA’s intended move into the Canadian market.

Growth of women’s sports “meteoric”

“The growth of women’s sports has been meteoric the past two or three years, post-COVID,” he added, pointing to entities such as the WNBA and its recent emergence in Toronto (expansion team begins play in 2026), national women’s hockey and soccer leagues and the Northern Super League, a top-division professional women’s soccer league in Canada. “They’ve all been rapid indicators of the power of women’s sports.”

The Mississauga businessman, also a longtime resident of the city, said the idea of WFA expansion into Canada came about only recently — a month or so ago — and things have moved quickly since.

Cosmos also works with the more local Intercounty Baseball League, a nine-team organization formed more than a century ago (1919) that plays its games throughout southern Ontario, and Kaplan said he was speaking recently with one of the baseball club’s owners who also runs a WFA franchise.

One thing led to another, and the idea of bringing the WFA to Canada was hatched.

Kaplan said while he’d “love to have a team in Mississauga,” his firm and WFA officials aren’t looking at specific Canadian markets right away, but instead seeking out solid ownership groups first and foremost.

Goal is to set up a Canadian division

Right now, he explained, strength of potential owners is the priority and wherever across Canada that takes them, they’ll make it work.

Ideally, Kaplan said, they’d attract substantial enough interest to add four or six teams to the U.S.-based league and set up a Canadian division in time for the 2026 season, which runs next spring and summer.

But even if they pull in one or two Canadian franchises, they’ll make that work, too.

Founded in 2009, the WFA includes more than 60 teams across the United States and operates using a tiered structure — headlined by its elite 12-team Pro Division, which is where any new Canadian franchises would be placed (ideally, officials say, in a standalone elite division).

League has national television deal in U.S.

“Backed by national television deals, corporate sponsorships and a growing fan base, the WFA Pro Division represents the highest level of competition in women’s football and a unique opportunity for new franchise owners to join a league on the rise,” WFA and Cosmos said in a joint news release on Thursday.

“The WFA has spent over 15 years building the strongest foundation in women’s tackle football and our franchise model is designed to support long-term success for owners and communities alike,” WFA commissioner Lisa King said in the release.

Kaplan added “nothing in North American sports is as big as football and the NFL, and clearly it is time for the Women’s Football Alliance, which has been operating for over 15 years, to explode into Canada in a big way.”