Women’s Sports — The Investment Opportunity of our Lifetime
Author’s note: This piece was written as a response to people who have contacted me in the past 6–9 months asking,“Where are places that I can invest in women’s sports?” My goal is to get more women who are accredited investors into the ‘Game of Investing’, and more people investing in women’s sports!
In the 1990’s and 2000’s I was a canary in the coal mine sounding the alarm — “Women’s sports deserve funding! Equal play needs equal funding! Gender equity warrants your investment!” etc. As the lead ‘fun’raiser for the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF), we were intentional in building awareness and support for women who wanted to play and compete at every level of sport. Yet the available, bold dollars to build the infrastructure or opportunities for these athletes was not commensurate with the evident passion.
Ready for the WSF 2006 gala — with my table map and blackberry!
Fast forward to today. Women’s elite sports is poised to generate over $1 billion in global revenue for the first time in 2024, driven by surging interest. An online women’s sports channel is in 100 million homes. The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) signed a historic media rights package worth $200 million a year. The number of sponsorship deals in women’s professional sports has increased more than 22 percent from 2023 to 2024. For bad or for worse, betting numbers are now posted for key women’s sports events.
The Paris Olympics showcased the gender parity of participation and brought dozens of female athlete champions — Simone, Katie, Ilona, Sydney — into the forefront of people’s minds, directly and indirectly influencing consumer decisions. Parity research has shown that women’s sports fans are three times more likely to purchase a product recommended by a woman athlete rather than by another type of influencer.
Team USA also dominated many team sports, with the USWNT clinching soccer gold for the first time in 12 years, USA basketball winning its eighth straight gold, and the women’s rugby sevens landing on the podium for the first time in American history, winning bronze. Even more impressive is the way female Olympians have come forward on mental health, speaking up against their harassers and abusers, uplifting their teammates AND their competitors, and building deep alliances across sport.
This boom is not an accident. The trifecta of the legal requirement for schools and colleges to ‘invest’ in women’s sports access (Title IX), public battles for equal pay and coverage in women’s professional sports, and digital platforms showcasing personalities, brands, and talent, has resulted in the broadest cultural acceptance of women as professional athletes to date.
Specifically, women’s team sports have realized the promise of Title IX. School delivery of equal sports opportunities has overcome race and socio-economic class differences that typically inhibit massive participation. The majority of the 2024 graduating class of college seniors have had the benefit of good coaching that has elevated the technical capacities of players and access to the same facilities and competitive schedules as their brothers throughout their entire youth, high school, and college sport experiences.
The media is finally paying attention, delivering the stories of the female athletes, the communities they are building, the issues they are raising, and the confident leadership narrative they are bringing to sport and to the larger world. One of the attractions of women’s sports is that people get to see women embodying their power and taking their due space, contrary to how they have been socialized or portrayed in the media, often hypersexualized or as a decorative object.
Promo card raising awareness about embodied leadership (2017)
Women are gifted collaborators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and yes, investors. Women must remember that while the finance system was not originally built by or for them, money is a form of generative power. The sooner women get comfortable with using their power for good (like athletes do all game long!), the more funds women can mobilize in a multitude of ways to advance their values. When women invest in the success of other women, they are amplifying the power of women to thrive.
“It’s not a moment, it’s a movement!”
Valuations are changing fast in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) — Angel City FC, an NWSL franchise went from $180M to $250M in seven months, while the Dallas Wings, a WNBA franchise soared from $75M to $208M in just two months. Dallas’ stake sale proves that the WNBA’s media rights agreement has raised the bar to unexpected (and still largely unknown) heights.
WNBA record breaking attendance records are continuing to shatter during the playoffs. Top attendance figures in National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) are more than 20,000 for regular season matches. Volleyball fans filled a football stadium with 55,000 people and has three new professional leagues. In their inaugural season, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) over-achieved on every level including establishing an initial season record of 392,259.
Some of the emerging and current team sports leagues
Remember that the high valuations and ratings numbers posted by most men’s professional leagues and teams are 75 to100+ years in the making. A few new investors in women’s sports are willing to do what people have done with men’s sports — be patient and commit to the growth of the sport. One of these heroes will be honored at this year’s Women’s Sports Foundation annual gala — Mark and Kimbra Walter who have committed to funding the success of the PWHL and its six women’s ice hockey teams. Currently they are the sole owners of all the teams — holding on for what they wisely believe will be high dividends (and I believe low risk!) when and if they choose to sell them.
This type of ‘values investing’ of an undervalued asset is one form of investing that women’s sports needs. As Sports Innovation Lab shares, “the attributes of women’s sports include a highly loyal, highly engaged, tech savvy community — making for a strong brand partnership. Initial investments from venture capital help start the business — reserves are what comes when the business is operating already and showing promise. Women’s sports needs both, and they need investors who think about long-term growth and how to properly time follow-on investments.”
Donor equity, whether individual investors, corporations, and/or male sport league partners, is critical for success for new leagues. The good news is that people, mostly white men to date, understand values investing and are applying these principles in women’s sports. Now, as boldly as the women athletes on the field competing towards excellence and striving for victory, we need more women to realize and activate the deep investment needed for the success of professional women’s leagues and the sports ecosystem.
Get in early for all the reasons that matter — an underappreciated asset with tremendous growth potential, valuing what women’s sports offers our society, and/or championing women’s success on and off the field.
Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss have been leading with their values AND leveraging the values investing strategy since the beginning of the women’s sports ‘era’ — starting with tennis, soccer, basketball, and now ice hockey among others. As Ilana shared, “Women and women’s sports are good business and good for business. We all have something we can offer and for most of us, valuing women and their success in and out of sports is clearly aligned with where we invest our time, resources and capital.”
So buy a girl in your life a ball, attend a women’s sports event, or buy season tickets for a local college team and donate them to a high school team. Want to go deeper? Read on to see sample opportunities for a full spectrum of capital to be deployed in women’s sports. Happy to make introductions to the leadership of any of the companies listed below. (Note: I have no current formal relationship with any of these groups.)
And finally, this year is also the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Sports Foundation and millions will be raised for the national charity at the annual Salute to Women in Sports Awards. I am going back to attend this spectacular gala that my team and I put on for 15 years — each time finding new fans and funders who wanted to be part of the electricity that emanates in and around any gathering of women athletes. Hope to see you there!
Changemaker Strategies — Amplifying the Women’s Sports Funding Ecosystem
Donate to the work of Base Building and Systems Change
Champion Women — Advocates for a fair and ethical environment that empowers and protects females in sports.
The Drake Group Education Fund — Works to ensure that the promise of college athletics is realized for all stakeholders.
Women Win — GRLS program leverages the power of sports and play to strengthen leadership skills of adolescent girls and young women so they can become better equipped to exercise their rights.
Women’s Sports Foundation — Works to enable all girls and women to reach their potential in sports and life by providing financial fuel to aspiring champion athletes and funding groundbreaking research.
Invest in the Visibility of the Ecosystem
Just Women’s Sports — Creates content that engages current fans, brings new ones to the space, and cements these teams and athletes as household names
The Gist — A fan-first sports media brand that’s shaking up the male-dominated sports industry and reinventing the dialogue around sports.
Parity — Crafts high-impact campaigns and collaborations between brands, women athletes, and their fans to close the gender income and opportunity gap in professional sports.
Women’s Sports Network — Provides a dedicated platform for women’s sports, offering a no subscription fee 24/7 streaming access to live games, news, and original programming.
Invest in Emerging U.S. Based Leagues
AU Softball League (AUSL) — A 2025 launch of a women’s professional league operating in the traditional format.
Global Impact Gymnastics Alliance (GIGA) — A 2025 launch of an alliance connecting athletes, fans, and brands enabling a professional gymnastics league.
LOVB Volleyball (LOVB) — A holistic volleyball ecosystem, from club to pro championing the sport of volleyball and every athlete who plays it.
Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) — A 2025 launch of the first professional women’s rugby union competition.
Be an Investor in a Women Led Sports Venture
125 Ventures — A venture capital firm investing in technologies and companies in sports, media and entertainment
Monarch Collective — A fund investing in women’s sports teams, leagues, and rights.
Sphera — A growth equity firm focused on furthering women’s sport for both impact and commercial return.
Tipt Ventures — A fund seeking to invest in B2B and B2C businesses with a focus on how they can serve women and girls in the sports economy.