New investors change the game for women鈥檚 pro sports
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Kendra Nordin Beato Staff writer
| Boston
It feels more like a party than a hockey game.
In Boston鈥檚 sold-out TD Garden, lit like a constellation of stars and pulsing with a DJ鈥檚 beat, the jumbotron camera zooms in on faces in the crowd. A pair of women with trim white hair and oversize jerseys grin and pump their fists. A mother gleefully hoists her baby. A silver-bearded man winks from beneath a captain hat. Girls鈥� youth sports teams dance. Fathers high-five their sons.
This is not an NHL game or a playoff game. It鈥檚 a regular-season game of the Professional Women鈥檚 Hockey League (PWHL), founded in 2023. On this night, the Boston Fleet are taking on their rivals from Canada, the Montreal Victoire, in front of a raucous record-setting hometown crowd.
Why We Wrote This
The business of women鈥檚 professional sports is booming, thanks in part to female venture capitalists investing for the long haul.
Women鈥檚 pro sports have had joyous moments like this before. Attendance peaks and interest often surges after a national team wins a championship or a standout player captures headlines.
鈥淚鈥檝e seen the fluctuations so many times. It鈥檚 exciting, and then it peters out,鈥� says Nancy Lough, a professor specializing in sports marketing and women鈥檚 sport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Usually, media interest fades, fans lose the storylines, and ticket sales drop. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see that happening this time. I just don鈥檛,鈥� she says.
Something feels different now. And it鈥檚 not just hockey.
The Women鈥檚 National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the National Women鈥檚 Soccer League (NWSL) keep breaking attendance records 鈥� by a lot. Eight new professional leagues have launched since 2020, including softball, volleyball, and lacrosse. The optimism around women鈥檚 pro sports is so high鈥� that accounting firm Deloitte predicts the global women鈥檚 sports industry will surpass $3 billion in revenues this year 鈥� an increase of 340% since 2022.
By all accounts, it鈥檚 not a fluke or a fad. And that鈥檚 largely because of one key reason: venture capitalists are pouring money into the burgeoning business of women鈥檚 sports for the long haul. Notably, many of them are women investors with decades of experience and capital to spend. The unique approaches and priorities of these women-led ownership groups 鈥� and the broader emerging opportunities in the women鈥檚 sports ecosystem, from sponsorship deals to merchandise 鈥� are changing the game.
鈥淐ulturally, one of the problems in the past was, yes, men were in control of all of women鈥檚 sports for the most part,鈥� says Professor Lough. Now, women are exercising their power. 鈥淓ven as athletes, they didn鈥檛 have a lot of decision-making authority over how they were branded and marketed, which meant that we saw repetition of what they鈥檇 always done with men鈥檚 sports. And it just didn鈥檛 work. Women鈥檚 sports fans are different.鈥�
Women at the helm
The supporters section is what drew Anna Palmer, a former marching band drum major turned venture capitalist, into becoming a soccer fan.
鈥淚鈥檇 gone to my first professional [men鈥檚] soccer game, and they had a whole drum line and a trumpet section there. I looked at that and said, 鈥業 found my people and my calling.鈥� From there, I fell in love with soccer as a community sport,鈥� says Ms. Palmer, who is still a member of the American Outlaws, a nonprofit fan group that supports the U.S. national soccer teams.
She started thinking about soccer more like an investor, thanks to a tip from Kara Nortman, a venture capitalist behind the launch of Angel City Football Club and Monarch Collective, the first investment platform exclusively dedicated to investing in women鈥檚 sports. Ms. Nortman told her the NWSL was considering expansion. When the Boston franchise became available at $53 million, Ms. Palmer leaped at the opportunity. With her experience as a co-founder of XFactor, a venture fund that supports women-owned businesses, she recruited three other women with investment and real estate experience to be co-owners.
鈥淲omen investors are fundamentally reshaping what ownership in sports looks like,鈥� says Ms. Palmer, who points to a shift among investors from viewing women鈥檚 sports as an altruistic investment to expecting their capital to yield high financial returns. 鈥淚 think the big shift is moving from this idea of being more purpose-driven and thinking about it as a long-term investment and [asking], 鈥楬ow can this be a community asset that you鈥檙e building from the ground up?鈥欌��
It isn鈥檛 always easy. The new Boston Legacy, which began play earlier this year, is just the latest attempt at a women鈥檚 pro soccer team in Boston, a city that has never had a dedicated professional soccer stadium. The Legacy have already committed $190 million to rehabilitate a dilapidated public stadium in the city as its home field, but are getting pushback over its price tag 鈥� it will cost taxpayers upward of $135 million 鈥� and concerns from the neighborhood. A lawsuit is working through the Massachusetts courts. The stadium issue is critical to the fledgling franchise鈥檚 success and survival.
鈥淚f you build a home stadium and you give both the athletes and the fans what they need for world-class experiences, then the market is there,鈥� says Ms. Palmer.
That has played out in Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City Current spent $140 million on the world鈥檚 first stadium built specifically for a women鈥檚 professional team, and they are already reaping the benefits. The 11,500-seat soccer stadium has sold out every game since it opened in 2024. The team now has the second-highest valuation in the league at $325 million, an 18% increase over the previous year, and annual revenue of $38 million, according to a Forbes ranking.
鈥淭he market is realizing how valuable these assets are and starting to pour the capital into [women鈥檚 sports] in the way that they probably deserved years ago. And so I鈥檓 excited about that,鈥� says Ms. Palmer. 鈥淵ou need people who are willing to back up the money truck in big ways, and I think you鈥檙e starting to see that happen.鈥�
The Legacy and the Denver Summit Football Club, expansion clubs that began play this year, both set league records for attendance at expansion-team home openers in NFL stadiums. In New England, 30,207 turned out for the Legacy, and two weeks later, 63,004 fans cheered in Denver.
In New England, one of those fans was Lara Slavtcheff, a healthcare worker from Connecticut, who says when she heard the NWSL was launching a new franchise in Boston, she was 鈥渁ll in.鈥�
鈥淚 was over the moon,鈥� says Ms. Slavtcheff, who attended a Legacy game in March wearing a black corduroy fan jacket trimmed in green with the words 鈥淏oston Belongs to Her鈥� stitched in bright-pink blocky letters across the back. The home opener was her first attendance at a professional sporting match of any kind.
鈥淲hen I was growing up, there were no women鈥檚 professional sports,鈥� says the novice season ticket holder. She made the nearly two-hour drive to the match in March alone because none of her friends like soccer. 鈥淚 can handle that, but I hope to meet some like-minded people,鈥� she says.
A disrupted media landscape
Many players in the women鈥檚 sports business point to a confluence of factors driving unprecedented attention and growth. The emergence of new investors is one, and the democratization of the media landscape is another, says Justine Pouravelis, a sports media executive.
鈥淟egacy media across the board through time has had resistance to telling the stories that should be told about women鈥檚 sports,鈥� says Ms. Pouravelis, who pioneered coverage of women鈥檚 sports at the New England Sports Network and is now helping Simmons University in Boston to launch the first-of-its-kind women鈥檚 sports management program. Five to 10 years ago, she says, women鈥檚 sports teams had to find ways around mainstream media to reach their fans.
鈥淏ecause of that, you have all of these leaders in this space that are so tech savvy. They鈥檙e mobile. They鈥檙e quick. They鈥檙e adapting to disruption really well,鈥� she says.
Today, all a women鈥檚 sports fan needs is access to a streaming service or a social media platform to find and follow their favorite teams and players. Podcasts give athletes another avenue to speak directly to their audience. Through name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, many college athletes forge their own sponsorships and then bring along their followers as they move into professional leagues. It no longer matters if a fan can鈥檛 find a game on television to connect with a sports hero; they can simply log on to TikTok and see what they had for lunch, what outfit they wore last week, or highlights from the last game.
In turn, sport marketers have clued in to the appeal of the two-way dialogue on digital platforms, which makes professional athletes seem more authentic to younger audiences, particularly Generation Z, and, as a result, makes fans more likely to buy the products influential athletes promote.
Newcomers in the WNBA are topping the lists for numbers of Instagram followers. Angel Reese has 5.2 million followers, Caitlin Clark has 3.6 million, and Paige Bueckers has 3 million. These kinds of followings award serious financial benefits. Through sponsorship deals, Ms. Clark鈥檚 total earnings reached an estimated $16.1 million in 2025. Ms. Reese, who built a large following off her rivalry with Ms. Clark, has 20 sponsorship deals. Before turning pro, Ms. Bueckers was the first college athlete to design and sell her own shoe through her NIL sponsorship deal with Nike.
The reach and influence through social platforms has given athletes leverage within the leagues themselves. This year, a new collective bargaining agreement in the WNBA has pushed player salaries higher. Ms. Clark signed with the Indiana Fever in 2024 for a starting salary of $76,535. Under the new agreement, her 2026 salary is about $530,000. In comparison, Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 overall pick this year in the WNBA, signed with the Dallas Wings for a record-breaking rookie base salary of $500,000. The minimum rookie salary is now set at $270,000.
鈥淭he speed at which this is happening is like this engine that鈥檚 revving,鈥� says Ms. Pouravelis. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a thousand factors converging, and I think social media is a big piece of it.鈥�
Sports leagues designed for their fans
The Boston Fleet are only in their third season, but the record 17,850 fans dressed in the team鈥檚 teal and forest-green hockey jerseys, sweatshirts, and chunky chains filled TD Garden for their sold-out game in April. Even though the Fleet failed to score, eventually losing 0-1 to the Victoire, waves of fans headed to the pro shops looking for something to buy to mark the historic moment. Many left empty-handed after flipping through the few pop-up racks set aside for Fleet merchandise amid the sea of Celtics and Bruins products.
Filling that gap 鈥� creating merchandise that fans want to buy 鈥� is one area of growth that investors are focusing on. A 2024 report from Klarna and Sports Innovation Lab estimated that there was $4 billion of untapped market potential around women鈥檚 sports merchandise.
鈥淲e talk to fans all the time, female fans, and they don鈥檛 love the silhouettes, they don鈥檛 love the fabrics, they鈥檙e not finding their sizes,鈥� says Ami Galani, co-founder and managing partner of Tipt Ventures, an early-stage investment platform that invests in businesses adjacent to sports targeting female consumers. Offering merchandise that appeals to women is a lesson she learned as the head of business operations for the PWHL during the league鈥檚 2024 rebrand. The six teams in the league are currently under a single ownership, an advantage for streamlining branding and merchandising.
鈥淭he reality is that to the biggest fan merchandise brands, like Fanatics, we鈥檙e not big enough to move the needle. ... If you are one of 500 contracts that Fanatics has, and you鈥檙e the smallest of those 500 contracts, they鈥檙e not going to customize for your audience,鈥� says Ms. Galani. So the league decided to do its own thing. That meant working with a range of vendors and developing products such as holiday-sweater jerseys, soft scarves, fleece jackets, cropped sweatshirts, and even sparkle-ball earrings in team colors.
鈥淭he point is that you鈥檙e collapsing the relationship between the sports and the audience. You鈥檙e putting your audience at the center and [saying], 鈥楬ow can I serve this person well?鈥欌�� says Ms. Galani.
That level of intentionality 鈥� putting the fan experience at the center 鈥� can also apply to ticket sales. Affordability and accessibility, for now, contribute to the family-friendly, communal, and inclusive atmosphere found at many women鈥檚 pro sporting events. (Fifty-dollar seats were relatively easy to secure in advance for the Fleet game at TD Garden, a bargain when compared with cheap seats for the Bruins, which hover around $170.)
鈥淵ou now have women in leadership roles who can say, 鈥業 can play my game.鈥� And so they can build the relationship with the audience, the game experience, the ticketing prices, all of it, the way that makes sense for what they want,鈥� says Ms. Galani.
The abundance of affordable tickets could change as women鈥檚 pro sports continue to see rapid growth and demand, but Ms. Galani says at this point, the business ecosystem around women鈥檚 sports is still very much in its startup phase.
鈥淚 do think there鈥檚 going to have to be a maturation, as there is with all things,鈥� says Ms. Galani. 鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 think we鈥檙e there yet. I don鈥檛 even think we are close to being there.鈥�
