Club | Bay FC

About Bay Fc

Executive Team Founding Four Board Members Investors Mission

Bay FC is the first NWSL team in the Bay Area.

Co-founded by four U.S. Women’s National Team legends—Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner, Danielle Slaton, and Leslie Osborne—in partnership with global investment firm Sixth Street, Bay FC is changing the face of women’s soccer as we know it.

Bay FC’s inaugural season will begin in March 2024. Bay FC is building a team that is player-led, fan focused and positively impacts the community through promoting diversity, equity and inclusion through the game of soccer. Bay FC will play the beautiful game of soccer with power, passion, artistry, and creativity.

This team is born out of the Bay. It’s time we do it our way.

#BayFC

Executive Team

The Founding Four

Bay Football Club (Bay FC) was born in 2023 with the powerhouse combination of Sixth Street’s largest institutional investment into a professional women’s sports team and with four co-founding USWNT legends who call the Bay Area home — Aly Wagner, Danielle Slaton, Brandi Chastain and Leslie Osborne. Bay FC is built to unite the Bay Area by inspiring community and professional excellence both on and off the pitch. There is unquestioned and active momentum for women’s sports right now, and Bay FC will feed that fire by becoming the next iconic global sports franchise.

Our founding four set the vision for a player-led team with world-class facilities designed by women for women. Bay FC will be a club that inspires player excellence and is bold and authentic while humbly serving what is greater than the self. We will create a game day experience for our fans that is entertaining, engaging and inspiring. We will be a catalyst for change, proving a women’s sports team can be a top global brand while developing future leaders on and off the pitch.

Board Members

Alan Waxman

Alan Waxman serves on the board of Bay FC and is a co-founding partner and CEO of Sixth Street. Founded in 2009, Sixth Street manages approximately $65 billion in assets with over 500 team members, including more than 180 investment professionals around the world. Alan helped spearhead Sixth Street’s investment in Bay FC, a record-breaking institutional investment in women’s professional sports. Previously, Alan was a Partner at Goldman Sachs and Chief Investment Officer of its largest proprietary investing business. At Goldman, Alan founded and led private capital investing franchises in growth capital solutions, direct lending, and alternative energy infrastructure, among others. Alan is Chairman of the board of directors for Legends and serves on the board of overseers for the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences. He is a Board Member Emeritus for Tipping Point Community and serves on the advisory council for the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula.

Aly Wagner

Aly Wagner is a co-founder of Bay FC and serves as co-chair and alternative governor of the board of directors.

A two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup bronze medalist, 2002 MAC Hermann Trophy winner and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Aly is FOX Sports’ lead match analyst for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. In 2022, she became executive producer for Groundwork with Aly Wagner, the first NWSL shoulder content providing fans with behind-the-scenes coverage of NWSL players.

Aly played at Santa Clara University, winning a national championship in 2001 with Bay FC co-founders Leslie Osborne and Danielle Slaton. She played for the USWNT from 1999 to 2008 and was on the U.S. 2003 and 2007 World Cup squads, as well as the 2004 and 2008 Olympic teams. Aly was selected as the number-one pick at the WUSA Draft in 2003 by the San Diego Spirit. She also played for the Boston Breakers, Olympique Lyonnais and Los Angeles Sol. Aly resides in the Bay Area with her husband and their four children.

Brady Stewart

Brady Stewart is the Chief Executive Officer of the elite football franchise, Bay FC. Stewart oversees all front-office operations for the team and is focused on leading the club to become an iconic, mission-driven global sports franchise.

As CEO, Stewart is building Bay FC into an innovative organization that will elevate the team’s performance on and off the field by creating a culture that empowers and celebrates players before, during and after their careers with the club. Under Stewart’s leadership, Bay FC is on a mission to increase community equity by fostering programs that develop future leaders.

Before joining Bay FC, Stewart most recently served as the Chief Commercial Officer at Forma Brands, where she led global wholesale, retail and e-commerce organizations for the company’s portfolio of beauty brands. Prior to that, Stewart spent 14 years at Levi Strauss & Co., where she led the brand’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. Stewart is a graduate of Princeton University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

David Stiepleman

David Stiepleman is a Co-Founding Partner and Co-President of Sixth Street. David helped lead Sixth Street’s investment in Bay FC, a record-breaking institutional investment in women’s professional sports. He has been a cross-border corporate lawyer, senior executive, and business builder for 25+ years, starting and running businesses and representing clients globally. David serves as a Director of Sixth Street Specialty Lending (NYSE: TSLX) and is a Founding LP and strategic advisor to Concrete Rose, an early-stage investment platform deploying financial and social capital to underrepresented founders of color. He is also a Writing Tutor at Mt. Tamalpais College at San Quentin State Prison and serves on the College’s Advisory Council. David is a graduate of Amherst College and earned his law degree from Columbia Law School.

Rick Welts

Rick Welts is a board member of Bay FC. He is the former president and COO of the Golden State Warriors, where during his 10 seasons with the club, the team reached the NBA Finals in five consecutive years and won three NBA Championships. Rick oversaw the development and opening of one of the world’s top arenas, Chase Center. Prior to joining the Warriors, Rick spent nine years as the president of the NBA Phoenix Suns. He supervised all business operations for the Suns, the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and the team’s arena. In addition, he spent 17 years with the NBA League Office in New York, where he helped launch the WNBA and ascended the ranks to become the league’s third-in-command as the executive vice president, chief marketing officer and president of NBA Properties. Rick and his husband reside in the Bay Area.

Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg is a board member and strategic investor in Bay FC, along with her husband, Tom Bernthal. Sheryl and Tom are working with Bay FC to create leadership programs empowering women and girls and providing resources to youth programs in underserved communities in the Bay Area. Sheryl is the former Chief Operating Officer at Facebook. Previously, she was VP of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, chief of staff for the U.S. Treasury Department under President Clinton, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and an economist with the World Bank. Sheryl is the author of the bestsellers Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and Lean In for Graduates. She is the founder of the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, a non-profit organization building a more equal and resilient world. Sheryl serves on the boards of Facebook, Women for Women International, ONE, and SurveyMonkey. Sheryl lives in the Bay Area with her husband and their five children.

Sean Mendy

Sean is a co-founding Partner of Concrete Rose and sits on the board of Bay FC. Sean was born and raised in the Bay Area and spent his career working to close opportunity gaps in Silicon Valley. Prior to Concrete Rose, he was an executive at the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula and an Advisor to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. As a Venture Partner at Next Play Ventures and Entrepreneur in Residence at Sixth Street, Sean has experience building meaningful connections across the venture ecosystem. He is also an advisor to Mt. Tamalpais College, the first accredited college within the U.S. Prison System. Sean earned his BA from Cornell University, where he played soccer, then went on to earn advanced degrees in business and policy from Stanford and USC.

Staci Slaughter

Staci Slaughter is a Bay FC advisor, board member and investor. She’s also a senior executive advisor to the San Francisco Giants. Staci was Executive Vice President of Communications and Senior Advisor to the CEO of the Giants where she served as a member of the Giants’ executive committee and oversaw all marketing communications. During her tenure with the Giants, she managed public events, including the 2007 All-Star Game, the Oracle Park opening and the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series Games. She also led the Giants’ charitable endeavors, including the 100% Player Participation program and the Giants Community Fund. Staci received MLB’s Roberto O. Fishel Award for ethics, professionalism and humanitarianism and was named a Sports Business Journal Game Changer. She was recognized by the SF Business Times with a Most Influential Women in Business award and as a Sports Business Journal Power Player. A UC Berkeley graduate, Staci lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two sons.

Rebecca Van Dyck

Rebecca Van Dyck is the former Chief Operating Officer for Reality Labs at Meta and sits on the board of Bay FC. In her roles at Apple, Facebook and Reality Labs, she has been at the center of some of the most significant technological shifts of the last two decades — the shift to mobile, the impact of social media on our economies and democracies, and the introductions of new technologies such as AR, VR, the metaverse. Becca joined the board of the New York Times in 2015 to help inform its digital transformation. She was previously the Chief Marketing Officer for AR/VR at Facebook and, before that, the VP of Consumer Marketing at Facebook. Before joining Facebook, Becca was the Chief Marketing Officer for Levi’s® and a Senior Director of worldwide Marketing & Communications at Apple, Inc. Becca lives in the Bay Area with her husband and their two daughters and she continues to play competitive soccer every Sunday.

Jenny Walsh

Jenny Walsh is a Managing Director of Sixth Street, a leading global investment firm and the majority investor in Bay FC. Jenny co-leads the Sixth Street Consumer Investing team with a focus on strategic capital investing across the consumer sector. In her time at Sixth Street, Jenny has been integrally involved in sourcing, underwriting, and managing the firm’s investments in Bay FC, Legends Hospitality, Milan Laser, Mindbody ClassPass, and the San Antonio Spurs. Prior to joining Sixth Street, Jenny was a member of the investment banking team at Morgan Stanley. Jenny graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BBA in Finance and Economics. She is based in San Francisco.

Investors

Our investors, led by investment firm Sixth Street, include a diverse group of Bay area women leaders, professional athletes and business executives who share the vision of women’s sports being one of the smartest investments for today and the future. Our investors believe that together with our partners and players, we can promote equity by fundamentally changing the imbalance of support and funding behind women’s sports versus men’s sports. Women’s sports is at a critical inflection point of significant growth, fan engagement and global viewership. We think the future is bright for women’s sports. We are all in.

Sixth Street’s initial investment in Bay FC was the largest investment ever in a global women’s professional sports franchise. We believe that many years from now, we will look back at today as a landmark moment in Bay Area sports history and a turning point for large-scale investments in women’s sports.

Our Mission

To create the most captivating soccer experience that inspires greatness and leaves you wanting more.

Bay FC is a team that defies convention and transcends culture. We are proud to represent the Bay Area with its tapestry of different ethnicities, languages, climates, and ideas. Our team will be a uniting force, building a culture of belonging and shared pride. We will become a beacon of hope and connection, welcoming and embracing all fans. Our stadium will be a home for people of all backgrounds and identities. We will be the bridge that unites the Bay’s diverse communities. Through our actions and our love of the game, we will inspire and improve the lives of others.

While our community is our foundation, our love of football is our reason for being. We have the fire to be the best, and we will show up on the field every day with intensity, competitiveness, passion, and a drive to win.

We are the Bay. We came to play.

#BayFC