When Jessica Berman was appointed Commissioner of Nwsl In the spring of 2022, the burning question was the league whose substance she inherited?
A few months earlier, a wide range Sexual abuse and harassment scandal had shaken sport. Coaches, managing directors, team owners – even the former league commissioner Lisa Baird – were dismissed or resigned. Two surveys, one conducted by the league and another by American football, were launched as sponsors and remote investors. It seems that the league brand has been irreparably damaged.
Thirty-seven months later, the question changed. Now Berman has people who wondered how the league at 14 teams can go. It was a phenomenal reversal in a short time, but it is a Berman who is far from complete.
“Our board of directors considers that we can have the size of the NFL,” she told us last Friday in Los Angeles. “There is nothing that prevents us from doing this.”
The NWSL is the healthiest professional women's sports league in the world, Sportico putting the average value of each of its teams at $ 104 million, up 57% compared to last year. It is in the second season of a television agreement of $ 240 million over four years; Global attendance has doubled in the past three years; The other on television reached 18.7 million in 2024, an increase of five times compared to 2023; And the expansion fees increased from $ 2 million in 2020 to the 110 million dollars record that Denver paid last winter.
This is part of a movement in female elite sports that Deloitte, the World Professional Services Company, projects will produce nearly $ 2.4 billion in world income in 2025, almost triple the figure of 2023. And although all these figures pale considerably compared to male sports, the increases in the last three years are extraordinary.
Thus, while Berman admitted on Sunday during a telephone call that the line concerning the fact of corresponding the NFL with 32 teams was more ambitious than expected, it can no longer be rejected as absurd. Consider that the expansion franchise in Denver, which does not yet have a team or a stadium, has already sold 10,000 season tickets.
“It is really motivated by the demand that we see for the expansion teams and the quality markets (where) we think that NWSL would have an incredible success,” said Berman of the aspiration of the League. “This has also motivated the growth of the game. From a sporting perspective, knowing that we have the capacity to produce the best talents; And if we are intentional and strategic on how to cultivate and develop this talent, we think it would be easy for us to continue to evolve and grow. ”
Female sports are an unexploited gold mine for sponsors and investors for years, but it is only recently that these sponsors and investors have started to wake up with potential.
Multiple studies have long revealed that women control up to 80% of the purchasing power of a household, so marketing with women seems to be obvious. And even if the programs of diversity, equity and inclusion have attracted the anger of the Trump administration, gender equality remains a popular cause, giving companies an additional blow for their money when they support female sports.
An Angel City fan signals a flag of pride in the match against the Red Stars of Chicago at BMO Stadium in June 2023.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“This is the Do Good model, Do Good, which is in a way at the heart of the next generation of consumers and fans,” said Berman. “They make decisions according to where they want to spend their money according to the question of whether the company is a place that has values that are aligned with their values and which also focus on good and have a positive impact on society and sports in general.”
Judging the health and potential growth of female sports in general and the NWSL in particular can be even more basic: simply follow the money. Not only sponsorship, media rights and dollars of expansion fees, but look at investors. These are not people who have become rich while being stupid with their funding. If they think that women's football is a safe bet, this is probably the case.
“Anyone who has an intelligent spirit invested in female sports because this is where the growth is,” said Emma Hayes, coach of the national women's team of Olympic champion.
Businesswoman Michele KangFor example, has poured tens of millions into women's football as a majority owner of the NWSL Washington spirit, Olympic of the French club Lyonnais and the London Lionesses of the second level female championship in England. Now she doubles, announcing last week that she will give another 25 million dollars to American football to “accelerate the progress of the game of women through science, innovation and high practices”. It is in addition to a gift of $ 30 million that Kang made in November to finance competition opportunities for young people to identify and develop players of the national team.
Last summer, Disney Director of Disney, Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay, have become Controlling the owners of Angel City And before this former director of the Meta-Chef Sheryl Sandberg and Sixth Street, an investment capital company that says that it manages more than $ 100 billion in assets, supported the Bay FC extension team in Northern California.
And they are not passive investors. Angel City recently opened its doors A sprawling training center in Thousand Oaks The club said it had spent millions to renovate. Several other clubs rush to build their own complexes.
So, if Berman inherited a league that could not flow lower, it now manages one whose growth seems unlimited.
“I think the question is how fast it will continue to grow,” she said. “I am very optimistic about the rate of growth that continues in the way.
“There is nothing to fear. There is a market there. Growth occurs. The investment occurs on all sides. “
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