Stacy Johns in command of Bay Football Club

Article posted by Coliseum, February 24^th, 2026

Image: Bay FC

Another year, another leadership change at the National Women’s soccer league team Bay FC (US).

‘The San Francisco Standard’ stated that the club announced recently that it has hired Stacy Johns as the head honcho effective March 2^nd. Johns is the Chief Business Officer at the Major League Soccer (MLS) team Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and is also President of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Super League team – the Grasshopper Club Zurich (Switzerland) – the Swiss team that the LAFC purchased in 2024.

The Bay FC is an American professional soccer team based in the San Francisco Bay Area (US) that competes in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL – the highest level of the United States soccer league system). The team began play in the NWSL as an expansion team in the 2024 season.

The 18,000-capacity PayPal Park (formerly the Earthquakes Stadium and the Avaya Stadium) is a soccer-specific stadium in San Jose, California (US). It serves as the home stadium of the Bay FC.

Before working in soccer Johns spent 16 years in financial roles with the National Football League (NFL) team Indianapolis Colts.

‘The San Francisco Standard’ further stated that the hiring follows two exhilarating and tumultuous years for the Bay FC which debuted in 2024. The highs included making the playoffs in its maiden season and selling out a match at the 41,331-capacity Oracle Park in San Franciso (US).

But the Bay FC has also experienced near constant turnover in its front office. The General Manager (GM) Lucy Rushton, the architect of the first-ever team, abruptly left the organization less than halfway through the first season. And after a disappointing Year 2 the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brady Stewart and the Head Coach Albertin Montoya left by mutual consent.

At the center of these decisions are the majority Owners Sixth Street Partners, a global private equity firm based in San Francisco. Until recently, these sort of investors – who generally have to sell their assets within a fixed timeframe – have been barred from ownership by the professional sports leagues.

Though Johns was in a good place with the LAFC she took on the Bay FC job – “I got a front-row seat to the NWSL team Angel City FC’s growth trajectory and we helped them sign their lease [at the 22,000-capacity BMO Stadium in Los Angeles]. That allowed me to see how the [National Women’s Soccer League] shaped itself in those years and I have since gotten close to some people in that league including Jess Smith, who is now with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) team – the Golden State Valkyries (San Francisco). You know I’ve been in Men’s sports for over 20 years growing the value of the Men’s sports franchises which has been incredible. But as a woman I wanted to really make a difference and have a long-lasting legacy in my career that is dedicated to elevating the Women’s game. I’ve been approached by several women’s teams over the years but this one was incredibly interesting to me because of the founding four’s incredible vision and the backing of Sixth Street’s investment on top of that. The Bay Area’s market for women’s sports is incredible.”

She first heard about the job when the first text came in late September and she made the decision a couple of weeks ago after thinking about it over the holidays. She terms working with the Sixth Street as purely additive – “It’s like a bonus. Some people see it as threatening or changing of the sports culture but it also professionalizes it a bit more than what one might have seen in the past, in my opinion. I had a lot of questions about [private equity] too but I feel very comfortable and clear that this situation is only additive. They have so many experts internally across the industries, whether that be the Government or the real estate, things that we want to do one day, so it’s nice for us to have all of those resources in-house.”

Johns wanted assurances from the ownership that she would have some autonomy to make decisions as she had at the LAFC – “They’ve already done such an incredible job in this crazy startup phase. … They made it clear to me that they’ve had to be more involved than they would have liked to be but moving forward they wanted to bring someone in who has expertise, who can take what’s been built and take it to the next level.”

Her immediate biggest to-do’s is to grow the revenue – “They’ve already done incredible things such as what they did at the Oracle Park and what they’re doing at the Treasure Island (a major hotel and casino in Las Vegas) but we have to grow the revenue. Because if you don’t grow the revenue then you can’t pay the players in the future and build additional resources for them. Driving the revenue isn’t just going to be about saying it. It’s going to come down to creating a fan experience that people want to be at. Like, how do we create that Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)? We also want to take care of the players. Teach them how to be adults. Teach them how to do their banking, investing, or think about their careers post-playing. We want to create this place where everyone who crosses our path leaves in a better place. Because if we’re doing that people will share with others and bring more back. The key will be how to unlock that.”

The lessons she learnt at the LAFC she wants to bring to the new role – “Both the clubs have incredible brands. I haven’t been in it fully but from what I understand there just needs to be a little bit of more professionalism, organization and process to help the [Bay FC] work in the most efficient way. This sounds weird to say but I feel like I actually got to benefit from the pandemic. It allowed the LAFC to hit pause and really dig into what had gone wrong and what went right. That was incredibly beneficial. I won’t quite get the luxury of that this time around but I do have a sense of what I need to do and since I’ve done it before I’ll probably be a little bit faster. I also don’t have to deal with a stadium yet whereas if we did [own our own building] we would have to manage the stadium staff and deal with how to use it when it’s offline. Not that this makes the job easier but it has a little less scale.”

On the direction of women’s soccer she said that “some of these clubs are more than 100 years old. So, that experience made me excited for what we’re building. But it also made me slow down and realize that you can’t build these institutions overnight. The LAFC also bought a fifth-division club in Austria that’s in the third division now, and I will say, of all the things, this will be the thing I’m sad to leave behind. There’s much more multiclub ownership in the Men’s space so the Women’s professional game is a little bit behind that. As you see the transfer market grow I think you’ll see more Women’s sports team owners pursue that also. The youth development in the Women’s game also needs to be more organized. How we develop talent around the world in a salary-cap environment is going to be super difficult.”

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