Whether in the stands, on social media, or on broadcast, more eyes are on women’s sports, boosting valuations of professional women’s teams to new highs while attracting a growing wave of wealthy investors.
Team valuations for the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) jumped by 57% in the past year (alongside some eye-popping purchases and investments), and the first valuation report of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) found its teams worth a collective $1.16 billion, per industry platform Sportico. Investors are paying record sums for new teams in the two leagues, although announced expansion has been deliberate and is slowing down, which may push entry fees even higher.
The heightened attention to young talented female athletes like Caitlin Clark and Sophia Smith, and increased investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, is the culmination of decades of hard work meeting—and taking advantage of—opportunities.
“Women’s sports are seeing a marked increase in investment today due to a confluence of factors, including the increased availability of game viewing through new platforms, leagues and teams creating more opportunities to engage with their sports, and women athletes’ ability to create platforms that directly connect with and influence fans and consumers,” says Thayer Lavielle, managing director of Wasserman’s The Collective, a women’s advocacy and advisory group within the company.
A new study released today by The Collective and RBC asserts there are still growth opportunities with teams in these leagues “poised to unlock billions [of dollars] in new value for investors.” In The New Economy of Sports Part II: New Investment and Growing Valuations in Professional Women’s Sports, researchers evaluated WNBA and NWSL teams’ market value and growth potential by analyzing 40 different variables and speaking with investors and stakeholders in the industry.
“We needed a new blueprint for how to value women’s sports,” Lavielle tells Fortune. “We can’t hold them to the same methodology men’s sports have been held to because they’ve had less resources, infrastructure, and investment.”
The bullish forecast predicts healthy gains for franchise valuations in both leagues (all current teams plus six total announced expansion clubs), with the combined value growing from $2.6 billion to $4.3 billion in three years’ time. That growth is mostly based on home viewing and live audience increases, and doesn’t include new media deals or new or improved stadiums. Owners starting new teams pay expansion fees to join the leagues, and those are soaring north of $50 million in the NWSL and reaching $125 million in the WNBA, which may continue elevating valuations.
Women’s sports are at an inflection point
While those predicted gains may be enticing figures for prospective buyers, the findings are also reassuring for current owners and new investors, like Willow Bay, Dean of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and husband Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger.
In September, they became the controlling owners of the world’s most valuable women’s sports team: The Los Angeles-based NWSL’s Angel City Football Club. The deal valued the soccer team at $250 million, plus Bay and Iger agreed to kick in an additional $50 million to support future growth.
“I feel pretty great about this investment, but it’s certainly good to see data come in that really supports the investment thesis,” Bay tells Fortune in an exclusive interview. A stakeholder consulted for The Collective’s study, she will be the team’s lead owner with board control and represent Angel City FC on the NWSL’s Board of Governors. “This is an inflection point in our culture around its embrace of women’s sports. What I see in the data is the business case very carefully laid out for why this is an investment that makes sense.”
Bay holds an MBA and was a pioneering female business broadcast journalist who also covered sports as co-host of the popular pro basketball TV show “NBA Inside Stuff” for most of the 1990s. “I covered the launch of the WNBA in 1997, and that was really exciting,” she recalls. “What’s going on now feels different, more powerful, and more fan-driven. Audiences are clamoring for more, they want to be a part of this moment and this movement around women’s sports.”
The report fills a need for valuation data and guidelines for agents, players, and teams as well as potential new ownership groups, says Luana Harris, a managing director for RBC Sports Advisory at RBC Wealth Management: “We want to focus on creating a better understanding of what is impacting valuations, key revenue drivers, and motivations for investors across different ownership structures.”
If revenue rises at The Collective’s expected rate or higher, that should lift franchise revenue multipliers—a key metric for valuing teams that includes past team sale prices, market size, and other economic factors. More mature leagues, such as the NBA or MLS, have higher revenue multipliers than their female counterparts. Lavielle predicts that gap will narrow: “We project that women’s team valuations will reflect revenue multipliers that are more closely aligned with those of men’s teams as revenues increase and teams achieve greater financial stability.”
A changing media landscape has put female athletes in the limelight
The Collective’s past research has highlighted the growing financial power of female consumers—who influence as much as 85% of U.S. spending—and that female fans are more likely to engage with teams on social media and with franchise and league sponsors. Female athletes drive twice as much fan engagement as their male counterparts, and fans of female teams are younger and more affluent than the typical fan of male teams.
A previous Collective and ESPN Research study found that coverage of women’s sports jumped from the long-held assumption of 4% to 16% of all sports coverage in 2022, expected to be closer to 20% by next year. That’s partly due to the growth in new digital media outlets, broadcasts, streamers, and social media.
“The acceleration [in growth] we are seeing right now is unique, and it’s tied to the changes in the media landscape, digital media, [and] the erosion of gatekeepers,” Bay says. “You’re able to engage with players and hear their personal stories in a way you were not able to in the 1990s when the WNBA launched.”
As a result, WNBA attendance and viewership are at or near record highs while the NWSL welcomed more than two million fans who attended matches for the first time. The women’s soccer league hasn’t released full season viewership data, although midseason numbers were surging.
Broadcast viewership over the next three years is forecast to jump +32% for the WNBA and +24% for the NWSL, per The Collective’s report. Lavielle said all of these numbers may be even higher, as her team was “pretty conservative” in valuing growth.
Media rights for women’s leagues are also negotiated more frequently than men’s, so they may cash in on rising demand and higher ratings in the next round of media deals coming up for renewal in the next few seasons.
“Prices and valuations are only going to rise as media deals go up and there’s more awareness of the athletes,” Lavielle predicts. “There wouldn’t be the interest and investment from a lot of these massive investors and organizations if it were a moment in time. You wouldn’t have people putting money into women’s sports who expect to get returns, it’s not a community project.”
Despite potential challenges, investors are looking to score big gains
Of course, leagues may be vulnerable to economic slowdowns hurting consumer and advertising spending, or a shift in fan sentiment to other sports or entertainment options. The Collective also noted that poorly deploying capital, alienating core fans by raising ticket and concession prices too much or too quickly, and not being hands-on enough as an ownership group are potential roadblocks.
The WNBA also has a complicated ownership structure, with the NBA and investors from its capital raising round two years ago owning a large chunk of the league. Plus, there’s the potential for labor issues as the league’s players ask for more equity—including higher pay and better benefits. They voted to abandon their collective bargaining agreement with the league.
The NWSL has a simpler, single-entity ownership structure where team owners have a share in the league. On the labor front, its athletes agreed to a player-friendly agreement that runs through 2030, including higher salaries, extended leave, and no draft.
The Collective isn’t the only group with a bullish stance. A number of men’s team sports investors have been buying women’s franchises, including David Blitzer, the Merage family, and Joe Lacob. Marc Lasry sold his stake in the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks for a tidy 500% profit and is reportedly nearing a $108 million deal for a majority share in the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage (the only league team that has not changed owners in the past four years).
Deloitte revised its own forecasts for women’s sports, predicting annual global revenue this year will exceed $1 billion for the first time with about half coming from the U.S. That’s at least 300% higher than Deloitte’s previous valuation three years ago. The research noted that greater investment can lead to a virtuous cycle by leading to better teams and a better product, which may make the franchise more valuable.
“We have underinvested in these resources and the audiences have been underserved. Both of those add up to an incredible return on investment and incredible impact,” Bay says. “It really is about leaning into this moment and leveraging resources to accelerate growth and to create long-term enterprise value. And frankly, long-term impact in your city, on and off the pitch.”
