{"id":150137,"date":"2025-09-17T10:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/150137\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T10:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:06:07","slug":"nwsl-wnba-see-growing-pains-in-investment-labor-as-values-soar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/150137\/","title":{"rendered":"NWSL, WNBA See Growing Pains in Investment, Labor as Values Soar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOver the past few years, I\u2019ve asked NWSL<\/a> owners at least a dozen times about what I perceived as a growing threat from Europe amid increased spending from teams like Barcelona and Arsenal. Nobody bit. Each time I got some version of the classic trope that rising tides lift all boats.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, that finally changed. When asked what worries her about the league\u2019s future, San Diego Wave owner Lauren Leichtman replied bluntly.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCompetition from Europe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tLeichtman and her husband bought the Wave last year in a $113 million deal, at the time the highest price ever paid for control of a women\u2019s soccer team. She\u2019s part of a new crop of NWSL owners, ones who paid big money for their teams and have deep resources to push the league forward. They also have a bigger financial imperative to recoup their investments, and they\u2019re confronting growing pains that have simmered quietly below the surface as the NWSL\u2019s business has rapidly transformed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLeichtman was speaking at Sportico\u2019s fourth annual RISE: Women\u2019s Sports event in Manhattan. It\u2019s a gathering of industry power brokers, and each year the tenor has been different. In 2022, it felt like the industry was on the verge of something big. In the last few years, that big thing has been obvious\u2014franchise values are soaring, new owners are rushing in, fans are watching more and media companies are reacting in kind.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe excitement remains, but there\u2019s also now a hefty dose of reality. Business growth presents new labor challenges. Expansion, underway in both the NWSL and WNBA<\/a>, can be particularly difficult. And as U.S. leagues prove the economic viability of professional women\u2019s sports, deep-pocketed franchises and investors in Europe are taking note.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is all very healthy. Sports can\u2019t live forever on vibes, and when valuations jump from about $2 million to more than $100 million in a few years, as they have in the NWSL, it stands to reason that the requisite challenges would take a beat to catch up. Same goes for the WNBA, where the arrival of a batch of new stars like Caitlin Clark and a bunch of new revenue coincided with talks for a critical new labor deal.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tFor the NWSL, attendees at RISE were particularly interested in the growth of the U.K.\u2019s Women\u2019s Super League (WSL), which has some of England\u2019s richest soccer teams suddenly investing in their women\u2019s sides. Alyssa Thompson, the top pick in the NWSL\u2019s 2023 draft, recently joined<\/a> Chelsea<\/a> from Angel City. Washington Spirit coach Jonatan Gir\u00e1ldez, who was lured to the NWSL from Barcelona last year, abruptly left<\/a> the Washington Spirit in to take the same role with French powerhouse OL Lyonnes.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking those shifts more worrisome for some around the NWSL are the owners involved. The Chelsea women\u2019s team is backed by Alexis Ohanian, who was once Angel City\u2019s lead investor and remains on the team\u2019s cap table. Ohanian\u2019s European club poached Thompson from his U.S. club. The Washington Spirit and OL Lyonnes are both owned by Michele Kang. Her French team hired Gir\u00e1ldez from her U.S. team.<\/p>\n

Kang\u2019s portfolio also includes the London City Lionesses, which have also recently signed talent from the NWSL. She defended<\/a> her multi-team model to the BBC earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know it has bad connotations on the men\u2019s side with greed and all those things,\u201d she said, \u201cbut in women\u2019s football it\u2019s a necessity until we have decent commercial resources available.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMulti-team ownership is a perfect example of the kind of challenge that the NWSL had to grow into\u2014it\u2019s a product not only of the league\u2019s own ambitions, but also of its proof of concept.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore established men\u2019s leagues vary in how they handle similar conflicts. MLS<\/a> isn\u2019t strict\u2014take, for example, Man City\u2019s ownership of NYCFC\u2014but it also doesn\u2019t have a claim to being the world\u2019s top league. MLS does not view selling its top players to Europe as a problem; in some cases, it welcomes these transfers as proof its clubs are successfully scouting and developing elite talent.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the other end of the spectrum, the NBA<\/a> is definitive\u2014NBA owners are not allowed to own any other pro basketball teams besides G-League affiliates. <\/p>\n

\n\tAt this point, supremacy in women\u2019s soccer is still up for grabs, and every star player transfer between elite leagues feels existentially important. For the NWSL and the WSL, the title of \u201cworld\u2019s best league\u201d is critical to maximizing long-term success.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NWSL was not the only U.S. women\u2019s sports venture thinking about the big picture at RISE. There were also discussions about the growing pains of a different league. The WNBA\u2019s current labor accord expires on Oct. 31, roughly six weeks from now, and the league and union remain far apart on a number of the most basic issues. Like the NWSL, the WNBA has seen dramatic commercial growth in the last few years. Unlike the NWSL, which quietly agreed to a new player-friendly labor accord<\/a> last year, the WNBA is on the cusp of a work stoppage.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo league wants to miss games, but the timing is particularly high stakes for the WNBA. Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers have brought their huge college followings to the pro game. League owners who have lost millions annually to support the league are finally now seeing requisite revenue. Speaking at RISE, Los Angeles Sparks president Christine Monjer said team revenue this year was up 70% year over year.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier in the event, which was held at the WNBPA<\/a> offices, union executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson<\/a> talked about how critical this specific moment is for both the league and its players as their enterprise grows.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe model that we are proposing is one that is not foreign to professional sports,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cIt is foreign to women\u2019s sports. But it is time for women\u2019s sports to take that leap. That\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about in a transformational CBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are some similarities in the NWSL and WNBA\u2019s biggest challenges. Both leagues have seen valuations jump 50x in the past few years, and both are reckoning with their own labor upheaval, one internal and the other forced by a foreign challenger. In both leagues, owners and players are trying to simultaneously reconcile three realities\u2014the economics of the past, the economics of the present and the economics of the future. And for both that\u2019s a little messy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s not to say there isn\u2019t optimism, and for good reason. These sports were under-monetized for years, and fans were underserved. Progress, if not directly linear, is fairly obvious.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn a recent episode of Sportico Sports Business Presented by Genius Sports, our monthly TV show with YES Network, I asked Gotham FC owner Carolyn Tisch Blodgett when she thought this rapid rise in valuations might start to level off. Shortly after she downplayed the threat from Europe, she spoke about her excitement for the future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s still so much room to grow,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you think about the way that teams are valued today and then look at national revenue, local revenue like sponsorships, ticketing, and merchandise we are just scratching the surface\u2026 Yes, there\u2019s been a significant rise, but I think there\u2019s still a very long runway.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few years, I\u2019ve asked NWSL owners at least a dozen times about what I perceived…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[79666,49,48,562,573,459,8081,82,79667,630,56438],"class_list":["post-150137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-angel-city-fc","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chelsea","tag-mls","tag-nba","tag-nwsl","tag-sports","tag-terri-carmichael-jackson","tag-wnba","tag-wnbpa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}