Angie and Chris Long ushered in a new era in the National Women’s Football League last year, when, as the main owners of Kansas City Electric, they opened the league’s first dedicated stadium. Now, desire is expanding their empire.

They purchased Danish club HBKøge through their family investment company Ballard Capital, which they disclosed only to ESPN. Chris Long called HBKøge a "precedent deal" to create a global club network.

"We're not stopping here," Chris Long told ESPN. "When we think about multi-clubs, we feel like we have a blueprint with Kansas City Current. We feel like we can take the same blueprint and use it here - although I think there are certainly some different aspects, and the community is community - and then we have some other conversations that can extend it further."

Longs is the latest owner of the trend to join the global multi-club network. NWSL owner Michele Kang has three teams and counts, while NWSL's Bay FC majority owner Sixth Street recently announced plans to acquire more clubs and build a global network.

After separating the business from the men's side, Longs will own 100% of the women's team at HBKøge. They said they will maintain the current identity of the team. They refused to share the purchase price of HBKøge, which won three consecutive Danish league titles from 2021-23, resulting in three consecutive European Champions League berths.

In HBKøge, about 30 south of Copenhagen, they saw a strong channel for talent development, and they fell in love with Chris Long's community compared to Kansas City's "Midwest Values." Mayor Marie Stærke and Danish bank Spar-Nord accepted them from their first visit to Denmark.

"We've been looking at it for a while, traversing many different countries and regions, and we're very excited about this opportunity in Denmark," Angie Long told ESPN. "If we think of the pillars as a club, then there's so much opportunity. This is where we think we can really attract and develop talent on the players side, and also on the staff side."

Aspiring to make HBKøge a perennial champion in Denmark and a consistent champion in the UEFA Champions League. Chris Long said that despite his point of the strength of the Danish league and its ability to attract top players, communication between players and employees is possible.

What makes HBKøge stand out is business potential. Chris Long said they saw a significant opportunity to better commercialize clubs that didn’t pull revenue leverage, just like the ones they saw when they joined the NWSL in late 2020.

Chris Long said they will immediately double their investment in HBKøge’s academy with the goal of making it “the best college in Scandinavia,” a region with a long history of talent. They also brought back Walid Khoury, co-founder of Slammers FC, a Southern California youth powerhouse club, to become CEO of HBKøge's women's team. Khoury is the team's general manager in the latest qualifications in the UEFA Champions League.

Aspiration aims to increase the club's sponsorship. Through travel and research, they observed how many women’s teams are often seen as advertising for major sales sponsored deals for male teams, a practice that inherently devalues ​​women’s products and artificially limits their business potential.

Some business fixes are simple: Chris Long said HBKøge's women's team is not selling merchandise at the moment, which is a huge revenue opportunity.

HBKøge's men's team will continue to be owned by George Altis and his American sportswear brand Capelli Sport. Chris Long said separating the business of men’s and women’s teams has always been a “learning curve”, but it was a necessary step to be taken by a desire to take in the future with the clubs in the future.

Desire has shown their long-term vision with current appearance. They are under construction of a $1 billion Kansas City Riverside revitalization, anchored near the CPKC Stadium. They expect their influence to expand to the Danish community as well.

The place where Lang expands to the next will depend on some factors.

Chris Long said there are plenty of opportunities around the world to take over clubs and improve their businesses, but there are fewer opportunities among those with the right community support and football business. HBKøge checked all three boxes of desire.

They are still looking to add more clubs – but they are still looking for another right community and team.

"Business-wise, it's open," said Chris Long. "From a business perspective, we know there's very little attention on the women's side that we're going to be there. These are the first two (pillars) we really work on."