EP. 15 | Julie Uhrman, CEO & Co-founder d'Angel City FC : investir dans le sport féminin comme on investit dans une marque mondiale [EN] | Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

Description

⚽Julie Uhrman est cofondatrice d'Angel City FC, le club de football féminin de Los Angeles qu'elle a lancé en 2020 avec Natalie Portman et Kara Nortman. Dès le départ, Angel City a fonctionné différemment : une structure d'investissement ouverte à plus de 100 personnes, 10 % des revenus de sponsoring reversés à la communauté, un investissement en expérience fan cinq fois supérieur à la moyenne du marché. Dans cet épisode de Coalition, Julie Uhrman raconte comment elles ont écrit ce playbook, pourquoi elles ont décidé de valoriser le produit plutôt que de le brader, et ce que ça a changé pour tout le monde après.

Une conversation rare avec quelqu'un qui a prouvé que mission et capital peuvent coexister dans le sport féminin, et qui partage tout ce qu'elle a appris.

[EPISODE EN ANGLAIS]

🏟️ Au programme de cet épisode :

Pourquoi trois fondatrices sans background sportif ont vu ce que personne d'autre ne voyait en 2019 : les meilleures joueuses du monde jouaient dans une ligue que personne ne regardait
Le problème fondamental du sport féminin à l'époque : un produit bradé et dévalué
Comment Angel City a construit un modèle où mission et capital coexistent, avec 10 % des revenus de partenariat reversés à la communauté dès le premier jour
La structure d'investissement syndiquée : plus de 100 investisseurs individuels, dont des athlètes, pour démocratiser l'accès au capital sportif
Pourquoi elles ont investi cinq fois plus que la moyenne dès le départ, dans le staff, les joueuses et l'expérience fan
Le match inaugural : 22 000 fans au BMO Stadium, une victoire, une couverture mondiale. La preuve que ça marche si on fait le travail
Les trois arguments business pour les sponsors du sport féminin : coût d'entrée inférieur, meilleur partage de voix, brand halo incomparable
500 millions de fans aujourd'hui, 800 millions dans cinq ans : pourquoi le sport féminin croît 4,5 fois plus vite que le sport masculin
World7Football, le nouveau projet de Julie Uhrman : une compétition 7v7 avec les meilleurs clubs mondiaux, un format pensé pour les réseaux sociaux et un prize money partagée entre clubs et joueuses
Son moment de sport féminin et sa définition de coalition

💬 Ce qu'elle retient d'Angel City : "We wanted to value the product, we wanted to value the players. Women's sports is now just a good business."

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to Coalition, the podcast of SportpowHER which gives the floor to those who do the business of women's sport. I am Sophie Sauvage and I welcome two times a month champions, companies, clubs, institutions to explore together the economy of women's sport, its development models and the path to build a long-term and ambitious trajectory for all sports and economic actors. Hi, Julie.
Speaker #1
Hi, how are you?
Speaker #0
Very well. I'm so happy to have you on my podcast, Coalition. And it's a pleasure to see you. I just want to recall to everyone that we met like in 2020. And we've been at the board of the NWSL during, what, four years, I think. navigating strange time, but also the beginning of the growth. And I just want to say that you've, to start with the idea that you, with Angel City, you've been writing the playbook for women's pro sports, basically. Can you start with that?
Speaker #1
Yeah, of course. Well. It's a pleasure to be here and it was a pleasure sitting on the board with you. I think we were two of the strongest voices of change or at least acceleration. I think as it relates to Angel City, we approached the club very differently. And I think it starts from the fact that there were three female founders, which is very unusual in sports, even unusual in women's sports, and three female founders that didn't come with a sports background. And whereas many people thought that was a disadvantage, we actually believed and used it to our advantage because we didn't have ingrained beliefs of what is and isn't possible. You have to do it this way. You can't do it that way. We tried it this way at my club. It didn't work. So therefore it won't translate to your club. What we did, we looked at women's sports and women's football as its own standalone opportunity. And what we saw... was the best product in the world. Football is the most followed sport in the world. It's the most played sport in the world. And when you look specifically at the U.S. Women's National Team, they had proved time and again that they were the best players in the world. They won the World Cup in 2015, and then they won the World Cup in 2019. And so we had the best players in the world, arguably, playing in this league, the National Women's Soccer League, but nobody knew about it. We didn't have broadcast coverage. We didn't have teams in major markets, large DMAs like Los Angeles. And we felt that if you have the best players in the world, you're halfway there with the best product in the world. Now people just need to know it exists. But the biggest challenge with women's sports at that time in 2019 was no one talked about it. No one invested in it. No one believed in it and no one really valued the product. It was treated as a charity or it was treated as an afterthought or it was treated as a very inexpensive proposition. Here's a $5 ticket, come and see. And the problem with that is you're actually devaluing the product. You're saying that, you know, if I don't spend a lot of money on the ticket and something else comes up, I don't need to show up. And so in building Angel City, we wanted to value the product. We wanted to value the players. And we also needed to build a community. We were entering a very busy marketplace where there were 11 professional sports teams, including USC and UCLA, which are two collegiate teams that act like professional sports teams. And we also have the beach and the mountains to compete against. And so we knew that we needed the community to believe in Angel City. And to do that, we wanted to build a club that had strong values. And we talked about our mission being using sport and entertainment to drive to equity, that through our club, through our platform, through our voice, we would be able to drive to not only pay equity for the players, but visibility equity for women and women's sports and gender equity, recognizing that that would take time, but build it with our community. And so for us, we built an organization where mission and capital could coexist, where we would build with our community, lead with impact, give back to our community. but also build a product that valued these players and these athletes in this competition. And knowing if we did it right, this is actually an asset that investors would want because the enterprise value would grow over time and eventually we would get to profitability.
Speaker #0
Yes. And I mean, you said mission. And for me, what was really remarkable was mission and capital. Exactly. You didn't. I mean, it's not to be opposed. It's mission and capital. And this purpose driven project that you've led, you've done it as seriously on the mission part as on the capital part. and I would say on the... building the structure. One thing that I was very impressed with is that you've decided, but because also you're the best in business, you've decided to bring on board the best in business, you know, like Jess Smith or other people. At that time, I had in mind that clubs were more recruiting, you know, at low budget. And saying, OK, this is a job at 200K, but we have only 100. So we're going to start with someone at 100. But then, you know, if you want to grow, you need the best in business. And that's something that you've brought from day one, actually. And I think the clarity of the project that you had really helped bring these people on board.
Speaker #1
You can't say that you want to drive to gender equity and pay equity and not mean it. Um, you know, one of the things I heard early on with sports is that you don't have to pay people very much money because they all want to work in it. Everyone wants to be in sports, so you don't have to pay them very much. But again, you're not valuing their experience, their skills. You're not valuing what they bring to the table. And at some point, um, that matters. And so when we went to build our team, it was actually, um, we were, I was pretty intentional about bringing people in from other markets, other sectors. not just sports again, because if you looked at the women's sports landscape at that time, if you looked at the WNBA and NWSL, again, it was in its eighth season. There was no commissioner. It was unclear if it was going to get to a ninth season. Um, the WNBA was in its 25th season. Nobody was even talking about it. This was pre Caitlin Clark. Right. And so, um, Hiring someone from women's sports didn't make any sense. It's like they didn't prove success with where they were. Why would I want to hire them? And so I was really strategic about actually hiring outside sports for marketing, for brand, for PR. I definitely wanted someone that had relationships within the sports ecosystem, but also in pop culture and venture capital and entertainment. because again, we wanted to build. Angel City differently. We thought of Angel City as a global brand. And the reason we did that was because if you're a global brand, you drive the most attention and awareness, which ultimately possibly drives the most revenue that we could then, you know, convert into impact. And so why wouldn't you want to build at the highest level? We never thought of ourselves as a local team or as an LA team. We are a global brand. We're a global team with a global fan base with the strongest most passionate fan base, obviously in our backyard here in Los Angeles. And so we tried to bring people from different sectors. Having said that being new to sports, um, and my, you know, co-founders Natalie Portman, the actress and activist and Karen Nortman, the venture capitalist, there were some roles that we really did need sports experience. And one in particular that you mentioned was sponsorship and ticketing, um, and Jess Smith. that's a funny story. So I heard through the grapevine that Jess Smith was fantastic. I sent her a cold email on LinkedIn, which really started off with, you know, you don't know who I am, but I'm working on this unique project in Los Angeles. I'd love to talk to you. And I'm so grateful that she responded to that and shared and shared vision with her. What was great about Jess and her background was that she didn't come from the NFL or the premier league. She didn't come from the best of the best. She didn't come from the Lakers or the Dodgers or the Yankees, the best teams. She didn't even come from the best leagues, arguably. She came out of minor league baseball. She came out of hockey. And then she spent time at the MLS, but a team that was probably in the lower quadrant. And that was important to me because her success was based on her work, how hard they had to work. If you work at the NFL or, you know, the Dodgers, people are calling you, right? They want to be your sponsor. So I wanted someone who knew how to go out and get it. And Jess was not only an incredible leader, but... an incredible saleswoman and really believed our mission. When she came on board and we talked about how we wanted to lead this organization with impact, we wanted to set higher expectations on and off the pitch. We realized that to be truly authentic. and to live our values, we could not sacrifice one for the other. So the question became, how do we instill impact into everything we do? And the first conversation was around sponsorship. And so early on, we created the Angel City Sponsorship Model, where we give 10% of our sponsorship dollars back into the community. We put a little over $4 million now back into the community, into our social impact platform, verticals, essentials. and education driving towards equity. And when we announced that, the response was really funny. I mean, the business press gave us a lot of attention, but we had club owners and CBOs call us and say, what are you doing? You're giving away money before you've even taken a dollar, and do you know how hard this is? And we said, yes, but we said it's in line and consistent with our values and we think. It's a competitive advantage when we go and talk to brands because it's not just about the radio spots, the TV spots, or the in-stadium activations. It's about how we're going to show up together, living our values, and driving that impact in the community. The net result of that was we have partnered with brands that have never supported women's sports, that have never supported sports, and we have actually driven greater value knowing that 10% of it is going back. Because it means that we don't have to devalue our sponsors and we don't really need to negotiate. Because if you want to negotiate with us, that means that maybe we're not values aligned. And so it became this bar with which we were able to judge partners and partners can judge us.
Speaker #0
I think one of the very smart things you did also was to approach it really like a startup, you know, and with raising funds regularly. But after every success, actually, you know, signing this and then you go for a fundraising, signing that and you go for... And then everything was really structured in a way where you could take the most, make the most of every business success that you were achieving. That was very impressive, actually. Plus the star power around the team. But I think that the star power was the result from the project, actually. You don't bring these people into a project that is not so well written and executed, I think.
Speaker #1
Thank you. I mean, when we had the idea for Angel City, right? We want to build this platform for impact and profit. We want to give back to the community. We want to drive women's football forward. And we want to invest. in the game day experience, in our players, in the product, in the pitch, in the community, we got a hundred no's. People that didn't believe in what we were doing, didn't understand that we could be impact and profit, didn't understand if we were a sports team or a charity, didn't understand the platform we were using. And we were actually getting very concerned that we weren't going to be able to pull this out. We started fundraising in October. Um, we were towards the end of the year and we hadn't gotten to a yes yet. Um, and then Natalie said, why don't you talk to my good friend, Eva Longoria? She's Latina. She loves football. See what she thinks. And I gave the pitch to, to, to Eva. And when I was done, she said, I'm in. And I said, why? And she laughed and she goes, I understand. I understand what it means to be a platform. She goes, I'm a platform. I use my platform to. to promote my latest movie, but I also use my platform to promote my latest social cause or what I care about. And that's what you're planning to be with Angel City. You are a platform. And if you do, you can be more than one thing. You can use your voice for more than one thing, as long as your ultimate goal and purpose is the same. And that was the aha moment for us, which was instead of getting one person to write a very large check who believed in Angel City like we did, Let's get individuals who... believe in what it is we're building and want to leverage their platform and their voice to promote it. And that's when we started building Angel City like a startup. And yes, we have over a hundred people on our cap table, which most people think is a challenge. But for me, it's been the most unbelievable gift. Everybody came into Angel City because they believe in our purpose. They want to participate. They want to use their voice to help us drive towards equity. Um, and they all contributed whatever it is they could afford. And to your point, every time we hit a new milestone, we were able to go out and raise money from new people that wanted to be a part of this. And so instead of having one person talk about angel city, I've got a hundred, I've got 120, I've got 150. And in. 2020, 2021, that was important because nobody was talking about women's sports. We have 13 former U.S. Women's National Team players on our cap table. Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Shannon McMillan, Shannon Box. We have Billie Jean King and Alana Kloss and Lindsey Vonn and Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Gardner. And that was all really important because they believed in Angel City. And I wasn't paying them. to do a social post. They wanted to do it because they wanted to see it grow and succeed. I wasn't giving them free tickets to come to a game. They were buying tickets because they knew that that was how you grow, right? You need to drive revenue. You can't give everything away for free. And it allowed us to build a team of believers, which was really important. It also gave these women and these athletes access to an investment that prior to us never you was never possible, right? You know, typically investment in sports, you're writing a hundred million dollar checks and there's very few of us that can do that. And we wanted to build a diverse investor group in the same way we wanted to build a diverse and inclusive fan base and squad. And this allowed us the opportunity to do that and get people that have never really had a financial stake at growing something they love a seat at the table.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and that's really what is impressive with Angel City. Because you mentioned this idea to build a global brand from day one, but it's much more than that. It's build a new culture and use the football platform for that.
Speaker #1
Yes.
Speaker #0
And, you know, mixing everything around the football game that is the most played across the world. I think what... you did very well. And that was bold too, is, you know, use every event, every big event and be there with your brand. I remember what you did in Australia. I was not there, but I mean, I think it was a huge platform for you. You had this house of equity or something like that, I think.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So look, our mission was bigger than just winning games. Winning games is important. And you you know, we speak a lot about the impact and the values, but it's not, you know, it's not at the sacrifice of football. Like we want to win. We want to win every game. It took us time to get the right combination and to learn. It's hard to be an expansion team, um, and win right out the gate. And, um, we're five years later and we feel like we have the right coach, the right sporting director, the right club. And, you know, right now we sit at the top of the table, which is, it's very early in the season, but I like to say that I can, I like, I can, um, but, you know, Again, being able... you know, being really intentional about using our platform to drive to equity and using this moment in time where people are talking about female empowerment and female equity and pay equity was important. And so during the 2023 World Cup in New Zealand, Australia, we created an event called the Angel City Equity House. And it was a one day event where we brought individuals, women from multiple industries, not just sport. to talk about equity and how they're driving for equity in their practice and in their company. And it was absolutely incredible. We had the secretary general of FIFA, a number of federations and leagues, but also different organizations like we had Netball and we had AFL. And it was just about bringing people together so that we could learn and network. And that was really key, creating an environment where women could actually network together. We followed that up in 2024 at the... Paris Olympics. We did another equity house summit, over 20 different industries, 15 different organizations. That was incredible. And from that, we've seen businesses start and funds start. And again, creating an opportunity for networking and conversation around equity, where we can learn from each other in a safe environment. And you would say that's incredibly unusual. Here's a team in Los Angeles. What are they doing in Australia? What are they doing in Paris? But we're there because our platform and our mission is so much bigger than just women games. And we know that in those rooms, yes, we're speaking to sponsors and we're speaking to brands, future investors. So there is value to us. Um, and there's no reason to just confine ourselves just to, just to Los Angeles.
Speaker #0
Yeah. One thing that was, um, I mean, I would say I would never imagine in 2020 that it would have gone so fast. You know?
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
It's, it's, it's like when I, When I speak about that here in France, I'm saying I think it's much more than $1 billion invested around the NWSL. I mean, if you put everything between the expansion fees, the investment in facilities, in stadium, in people, it's more than $1 billion. And honestly, when we... acquired with Olympic Lyonnais the reign for 3.5, which was already something. Wow. And so there has been something at some point that has triggered the growth. And what is it?
Speaker #1
So I think it's a combination of things. And... um One was, I would say, kind of the social political nature of what was happening around 2019. Again, driven by the U.S. Women's National Team, they sued U.S. Soccer for pay equity. They basically said, enough is enough. Look at our championships. Look at our success on the pitch. Look at the viewership. Look at the merch sales. We are very underpaid for the impact we're having compared to the men. And they stopped talking about it and they took him to court and they won. That was, that was, you know, a trigger point. We'll get women in Hollywood and the Me Too movement. And again, enough is enough and, and, and female empowerment and creating equal access and opportunity for women. Natalie Portman, my co-founder during the Oscars, I believe it was in 2019, she went up with Ron Howard to give the award for the best director. And she goes up there and she says, and here are your nominees for the best male directors. Kind of highlighting the fact that they're these incredible women and that they're not being appreciated and they're not being recognized. Abby Wambach talked about it when she received the Icon Award from ESPN. She received this Icon Award, basically the highest award that any athlete can get from ESPN. And she receives it at the same time as Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant. So she is considered the GOAT, the best of the best with these men. And she looks at them and she's like, God, you know, they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They can do anything they want. You know, as soon as I get my award, I have to figure out how to get insurance and how to pay my mortgage. And we started talking about this disparity. So all of that was happening. But it wasn't just a woe is me. We were also succeeding. So the women are fighting for pay equity and then they go ahead and they win the World Cup in 2019. And then honestly, here comes Angel City, who says, you know what? Women's sports isn't a charity. Women's sports is something of value. And look at all of these incredibly smart people, investors and athletes who invested in this. It wasn't just one, you know, Billie Jean King, right? Kobe Jones. Um, you know, again, Natalie, Eva, Jen, and it, and, and it's like, what's going on. And then we spoke about it every place we could in every circle we could, because we wanted to write that playbook. We wanted other people to follow. And then we invested. And I think that is one of the biggest differences is that we didn't invest a little bit. We said we want to build the best game day experience in sports, not women's sports, sports. We called it the greatest show on earth. How can we create an experience for everyone? Not just women, not just young girls, not just girl dads, but everyone. How can we create an inclusive, you know, diverse experience where everyone feels welcome and safe? And so we invest it. a lot of money in the pregame experience, in the game day experience with pyro and lights and live concerts. And on, you know, our graphics package was done by a firm that does the NFL football teams, right? So we wanted to value the product and the players. And that meant investment, investing in our community, not just with the 10% model, but we built a street team, over a dozen people. We did over 250 events going everywhere, letting people know that we exist. what we stand for and trying to get them to want to become a part of building this club with us. And so, you know, we are, you know, I would say our investment day one was probably, and you could vouch for this, was probably five times more than the average team in our staff, in our players, in the experience. And so when you came to an Angel City match, you were blown away. Like you didn't. you didn't look at it as a women's game. You're like, that was an awesome game. And I'm going to come back. And for those people that don't weren't there, we created that FOMO moment. And so It was about treating the product the way it should be treated. And then the fans follow. You don't want to go to a game and sit in a 20,000 seat stadium with 2,000 people. That says something. You know, whether you, you know, and at that time you have Megan Rapinoe and Carly Lloyd and Alex Morgan and Kristen Press and Tobin Heath. It's like, and there's 2,000 fans, but you build a product where you 22,000 fans. Now I want to be there and I don't want to miss it. And When we did that and we proved that the fans would come, sponsors, we got the highest kit sponsor deal ever. It's $2.5 million from DoorDash. Highest kit. Now it's like, hold on a second. I don't want to miss this. And you started to see clubs starting to invest more and, you know, and leveraging, you know, a lot of what we did. Kansas City came in, paid $5 million, brought in Patrick Mahomes and Brittany Mahomes, right, to draw, you know. their fan base in, you know, and then you get, you know, the founders at Bay, right, with, you know, Ali Wagner and, and, and, and, and, and Brandy Chastain. So it was, there was this value in building this syndicate of investors, but really investing in the product so that you felt that it was equal to not lesser than.
Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. That's, I mean. You have to work on the product if you want to convince people. I think one thing that was very important for me and what convinced me at first of this potential of women's sport was exactly the final of the World Cup in Lyon, actually, in 2019, because it was in Lyon, in France. And so US Women's National Team wins. Suddenly the stadium was like equal pay, And at the beginning, there was like 15,000 American people in the stadium singing. But at the end, I can tell that it was probably 40,000 people. I was like equal pay, equal pay. And it was not my team, but it was so powerful. And I think one of the things that investors have understood... understood from day one was this link, you know, between the people and the players. This very authentic and strong link. And how can it happen since there is no media, nobody talks about it, but still 15,000 people come from America to support the team and support their fights. So I thought it was really something special, much more powerful than anything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. The only other thing I would add to that trigger to why then is the rise in social media. So to your point, when you talked about how these players had a connection with their fans and how could they when there was no TV, it really was social media. They could go and talk one-to-one to their fan base and tell their fan base who they are and where you can walk. come watch their play and what do they stand for? You know, and we had players that were using their voice, Megan Rapinoe, and not afraid to use her voice to talk about what matters to them. And that I think really helped educate us who they were. And again, not just as athletes, but as people, and then you really fall in love with them, right? And you want to support the sport and then you have clubs that come along that treat them in the right way. Um, I think that was really growth and now You know, the stats support everything that we were saying back then, right? You know, last year, Deloitte said, you know, the global revenue for women's sports would be 2.5 million. It was more than that last year. And they're forecasting a growth rate to 3 billion this year, which sounds great, right? Except when you know that the entire sports market is 500 billion, right? We're only 6% of that. So we still have a long way to go. But that one way to go is the opportunity. It's the, I can get in early. you It's not I'm paying tens of thousands. Like, yeah, I might be paying a couple million dollars, but it's going to be worth, you know, that times five, five years from now. And so I want to get in early and I want to support, you know, this is a women's sports and even women's football.
Speaker #0
It's not just supported by women. So it's amazing, right? You get 50% of the population and then some because the men are supporting it as well. And it's growing that way. We talk about women's football as 500 million fans globally growing to 800 million fans. 800 million fans globally in five years. So how do we monetize that? How do we lend into that? How do brands and sponsors get the opportunity to ride that wave? You're not seeing any other sport grow that fast. They already have a large base. And if your brand... There's tons of competition for eyeballs. In women's sports, you know, I always talk about that there are three massive advantages to supporting a women's team. One, financially, it's just less. It's not cheap. It's not inexpensive. My friend of kid is going to be millions of dollars. It's not cheap, but it's less than men. So there's at least some benefit of a financial growth. Two, you have greater share of voice. There are fewer brands supporting women's sports. So I might be one of five or I might be one of 30 versus one of a hundred. So I get more share of voice. I get more attention. I get more brand recognition and awareness. And like, that's, that's playing out in the statistics. Women's sports is outpacing men's sports in sponsorship growth by four and a half times. And then the last thing is probably the most important for the longevity of your brand is the brand halo. like the positive brand equity you get in supporting women's sports today. Like you support men's sports. Nobody cares. You know, like sports business journal, isn't talking about it. You become the head sponsor, the league, you know, a seven year sponsor of, um, the new Atlanta team Affleck. Everybody's talking about it. Right. So like you, you get that benefit as well. And so, um, there's a lot of opportunity in growth still, and you're still getting a, you know, an incredible four and a half times return on that dollar. you know, women's sports is now good business. It's not just right business. It's good business.
Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely. I want to come to two other questions that I have for you, Julie, because you've moved to a new role with Angel City. You've been the president of the club from 2020 till a few months ago, a few weeks ago. That's one thing. So we will speak about what's next. But But just before, because you have tech experience and you've navigated at the forefront of many industries, what is your thought about how AI can support the growth of women's sports? What are the main direction that you see with AI?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I'll talk about it both on the... Yeah. I'll talk about it both. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker #1
It's AI. I think in English it's AI.
Speaker #0
I'll talk about it on the business side and the sporting side. The sporting side is probably more obvious, right? It's a way for us to gather information, statistics, details, um, about players and be able to create, um, analysis of them and suggestions of, you know, regarding that. So it allows, you know, when we started. there was no database of female athletes. Like it didn't exist, right? There was like five or six different databases you had to go to, but not one was comprehensive. Not one spoke the same language. So think about the benefit of AI saying, Hey, um, I'm looking for a number nine that has an average speed of this, that has a, you know, has a, you know, a goal percentage of this that, you know, is left footed. Right. And they you ability to utilize AI to find that talent pool and evaluate them in different situations. It'll allow the teams to utilize data more quickly to make better decisions. It's not going to replace the human making the decision, but it will gather information in a way that we've never been able to do before. On the business side, I see the biggest impact really in marketing, in fan identification and fan growth. One is just in the pure marketing and communicating to fans. Today, you put out an email, you put out a social post. It speaks to a certain segment. And today, in any company, whether it's sports or not, you identify who your customer is and you segment it. We have a soccer fan. We have a girl dad. We have the LGBTQ audience, whatever you think. And so you create content for that group. And by doing so, you're actually alienating. an entire group of fans. But you don't have the bandwidth and you don't have the manpower to create individualized content and to figure out what the right funnel or distribution channel it is. AI changes that, right? I can create a piece of content for every individual fan and get it specifically to them in a much faster, cheaper way. So I think it allows us to communicate to our fans more directly and with benefits that speak more to them. And then secondarily, it helps us identify who our fan base is. And so I think it gives us the information that we still have to create what's the right offer, right? What is the right visual treatment? But instead of saying, okay, we only have the bandwidth and the time to communicate to this group. Now it's like, now we can communicate to more and we don't alienate. And I think that's really important. AI also allows us to develop insights more quickly, right? To throw in a bunch of data and to say, okay, like what is common? What is unique? What surprised you about this data? Right? I think it allows us to just be faster at understanding kind of who our market is so that then we can go proactively and develop programs with them. So I think it's going to, I think it's going to enhance the fan experience. I think it's going to allow us to be more inclusive as a fan, as a team. And on the sporting side, I think it'll help us, you know, uncover talent that we, you know, may not have known existed or, or, you know, or, or, you know, incredible athletes. that just weren't on our radar before.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I see another benefit, but seeing it from France, and we're not at the same stage of development, and many clubs have very small teams. And I think the benefit of AI could be to, if you learn how to use it well, you know, to enhance your capacities of work. Because... And to make the most of the capital that you have or that of the capital that you don't have. You know what I mean? Oh, no. When you operate with small teams. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one thing that I see. And so now, Julie, what's next? I know you're in London at the end of next month. No, this next month. Yes. We're still in April. So can you speak a little bit about that? Yeah.
Speaker #0
No, I'm coming to London. for the World Sevens Football London Edition, competition 7v7 with just WSL clubs. I've been part of World Sevens from the beginning with Jen McAsee. The idea behind World Sevens Football is that the sport is growing and we want to be able to continue to grow the sport. We want to invest in clubs and invest in players and invest in the ecosystem that is growing women's football. you What we find is with women's football is the market is incredibly fragmented. You don't get the best be best every weekend, and you certainly don't get the best players playing against each other every weekend. And that's because some are in the WSL, some are in Barcelona, some are at Lyon, some are at Angel City. And the competitions that we get the most excited about, right, and we talk about and get the highest viewership and the highest attendance or competitions where the best plays the best. And that typically happens in the Champions League. or in the World Cup or the Olympics or the Championship Cup that FIFA just did. And we wanted to create an opportunity where we could get the best playing the best, which is the best experience for fans, but also be able to drive revenue for this sport. Something unique for sponsors and for broadcasters. And 7v7 is exciting. It's fast. It's what the players love playing. We see an average of five and a half goals per game. We create a festival-like experience with a DJ and smoke and fun. And the players are encouraged to celebrate goals and to create moments of pure joy. And what you find is that you have incredible football. It's super fun and exciting. It brings in a younger audience because this content is really made for digital and social. And we're getting the best play the best. So World Sevens football has already had two tournaments. The first one was last May in Estrel, Portugal. And we had. Man City, Man United, Bayern Munich, Rosengard, Ajax, Roma, Benfica. It was incredible. We had a second tournament at the end of last year in the United States and you had Kansas City and San Diego, but you had Flamingo and Chivas and Club America. So you're bringing again, the best clubs in the world, creating incredible competition. And then on top of that, a meaningful prize pool. Again, how do we value these players? So we had a $5 million prize pool where the winnings are split equally between the club and the players. And that's really important. We want to value and pay players. But we also want to invest in the ecosystem and the clubs that are growing the sport. Man, Manchester United came in second place in our first tournament. And I remember talking to their coach, Mark Skinner, and they won a million dollars. And he's like, Julie, this money is transformative. Like you have no idea how this is going to improve our club, facilities, operations, equipment, staff. And that's what we need. We need these clubs to continue to grow and invest. And we need to create these competitions that the fans love to bring in a new, younger fan base. and um The goal is to have, you know, multiple global tournaments a year, but kind of building out that pyramid. And so we're so excited to partner with the WSL. They're so creative and innovative. They saw this as a great opportunity for their clubs and their fans to sort of end the season on a high. If you don't sort of make it to the FA Cup. And, you know, we're excited to be playing at G-Tech Stadium with the support of Brentford. But it's... Again, it's an opportunity for these clubs to build their brands, for the players to get closer to their fan base so that they can continue to monetize. And it's a new format that I think is going to continue to gain in popularity.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's short. It's fun. The players love it. And you have this significant prize money and huge reach, actually. I mean, just for the first one, you had a huge reach. Everybody was talking about it. So, yeah, congrats for that and happy. Happy that you were in this project because I think it's going to be meaningful and fun. So two things that matter.
Speaker #0
Both works. Yeah.
Speaker #1
We need the joy, you know, we need the joy of the sports too, I think. And W7 is exactly that. You have the celebration, the fun and joy. Julie, in our podcast, we have two signature questions. So I'm now going for that. So the first one is... What is your moment of women's sports?
Speaker #0
For me, it was Angel City's home opener in April 22. You know, we had three goals for that home opener. We wanted to sell out, which I don't think ever happened in the NWSL in a meaningful way. But it wasn't for that. It was for us. We wanted to have global attention and recognition about the game and we wanted to win. Two of the three things I could control, and we were so fortunate that all three happened. We beat North Carolina 2-1, which is the most winning team in NWSL history. We sold out BMO Stadium with 22,000 fans. And I remember the Guardian did this photo expose on the home opener. And to me, it really signified that women's sports has arrived. If you do the work, if you make the investment, the fans, the sponsors, the broadcasters, they will show up. And that game really proved it. And, you know, it's funny since then, we've had a lot of sellouts and we've had a lot of big game attendances. And I was laughing to myself earlier this week, Barcelona posted that they'd already sold 51,000 tickets to the second leg of the semi-final champions league game with Bayern Munich. And, you know, it was a post. You didn't have the whole world, you know, repost it because it's not. it's not an anomaly anymore, which is so incredible and amazing. We expect 51,000. We expect Emirates to sell out when, when Arsenal plays Chelsea. Um, we expect Angel City to sell out and that's a fundamental shift. Um, and one that is continuing and it just proves the strength, um, and growth of women's sports.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Great, great memory. And second question is, um, what does coalition mean for you?
Speaker #0
Um, It means all boats need to rise. It means that we have to work together to raise minimum standards. Right. You can't just have Angel City being successful and no one else. So coalition to me is about working in partnership to grow it together and, you know, and holding each other accountable. I think that's I think that's the only thing that is potentially holding this sport back. our women's sports back is that we allow, we allow teams not to. invest at the level that's required to drive the fan interest for it to grow. And so it's supporting us and it's about holding each other accountable.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And I think one chance we have is that we are ready to share a lot of things. You shared your playbook. You wrote it and then you shared it. I mean, you didn't keep it secret like it's going to be just us. And so this opportunity, I think it really matters. But you're right. You have to be accountable. And yeah, that matters. Julie, thank you. It was really a pleasure to have you. I think everyone will learn a lot of things from what you said. And I really hope that people here in France learn from that. And that at some point we are able to move with capital and not only mission.
Speaker #0
Love it. Thank you for having me.
Speaker #1
This was Coalition, the podcast of Sport Power. Thank you for listening to us. And to follow all the business news of women's sport, subscribe to our LinkedIn page and to our newsletter on the sportpower.com site. And above all, join us in the Coalition.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

2 fois par mois, des championnes, dirigeant·es, club, ligues, fédérations et marques engagées partagent leurs visions, leurs leviers d’action et les clés pour accélérer la transformation économique, médiatique et sociétale du sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

🎯 Objectif : unir les forces, créer de la valeur, amplifier l’impact.
💬 Fréquence : 2 fois par mois.
🎙️ Produit par : SPORTPOWHER©, la plateforme qui structure et accélère la croissance du sport féminin.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Description

Une conversation rare avec quelqu'un qui a prouvé que mission et capital peuvent coexister dans le sport féminin, et qui partage tout ce qu'elle a appris.

[EPISODE EN ANGLAIS]

🏟️ Au programme de cet épisode :

Pourquoi trois fondatrices sans background sportif ont vu ce que personne d'autre ne voyait en 2019 : les meilleures joueuses du monde jouaient dans une ligue que personne ne regardait
Le problème fondamental du sport féminin à l'époque : un produit bradé et dévalué
Comment Angel City a construit un modèle où mission et capital coexistent, avec 10 % des revenus de partenariat reversés à la communauté dès le premier jour
La structure d'investissement syndiquée : plus de 100 investisseurs individuels, dont des athlètes, pour démocratiser l'accès au capital sportif
Pourquoi elles ont investi cinq fois plus que la moyenne dès le départ, dans le staff, les joueuses et l'expérience fan
Le match inaugural : 22 000 fans au BMO Stadium, une victoire, une couverture mondiale. La preuve que ça marche si on fait le travail
Les trois arguments business pour les sponsors du sport féminin : coût d'entrée inférieur, meilleur partage de voix, brand halo incomparable
500 millions de fans aujourd'hui, 800 millions dans cinq ans : pourquoi le sport féminin croît 4,5 fois plus vite que le sport masculin
World7Football, le nouveau projet de Julie Uhrman : une compétition 7v7 avec les meilleurs clubs mondiaux, un format pensé pour les réseaux sociaux et un prize money partagée entre clubs et joueuses
Son moment de sport féminin et sa définition de coalition

💬 Ce qu'elle retient d'Angel City : "We wanted to value the product, we wanted to value the players. Women's sports is now just a good business."

Pour suivre toute l'actualité du business du sport féminin avec SportpowHER, rejoignez nous sur :

🔗Notre site www.sportpowher.com/media pour y lire tous nos articles de fonds

📩Notre newsletter 2x par mois par email, sur www.sportpowher.com/newsletter pour recevoir toutes les news et info de France et à l'international sur les deals, activations et partenariats

📢Notre page LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/sportpowher pour rejoindre tous ceux et toutes celles qui font le sport féminin

👀Notre compte Instagram www.instagram.com/sportpowher

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to Coalition, the podcast of SportpowHER which gives the floor to those who do the business of women's sport. I am Sophie Sauvage and I welcome two times a month champions, companies, clubs, institutions to explore together the economy of women's sport, its development models and the path to build a long-term and ambitious trajectory for all sports and economic actors. Hi, Julie.
Speaker #1
Hi, how are you?
Speaker #0
Very well. I'm so happy to have you on my podcast, Coalition. And it's a pleasure to see you. I just want to recall to everyone that we met like in 2020. And we've been at the board of the NWSL during, what, four years, I think. navigating strange time, but also the beginning of the growth. And I just want to say that you've, to start with the idea that you, with Angel City, you've been writing the playbook for women's pro sports, basically. Can you start with that?
Speaker #1
Yeah, of course. Well. It's a pleasure to be here and it was a pleasure sitting on the board with you. I think we were two of the strongest voices of change or at least acceleration. I think as it relates to Angel City, we approached the club very differently. And I think it starts from the fact that there were three female founders, which is very unusual in sports, even unusual in women's sports, and three female founders that didn't come with a sports background. And whereas many people thought that was a disadvantage, we actually believed and used it to our advantage because we didn't have ingrained beliefs of what is and isn't possible. You have to do it this way. You can't do it that way. We tried it this way at my club. It didn't work. So therefore it won't translate to your club. What we did, we looked at women's sports and women's football as its own standalone opportunity. And what we saw... was the best product in the world. Football is the most followed sport in the world. It's the most played sport in the world. And when you look specifically at the U.S. Women's National Team, they had proved time and again that they were the best players in the world. They won the World Cup in 2015, and then they won the World Cup in 2019. And so we had the best players in the world, arguably, playing in this league, the National Women's Soccer League, but nobody knew about it. We didn't have broadcast coverage. We didn't have teams in major markets, large DMAs like Los Angeles. And we felt that if you have the best players in the world, you're halfway there with the best product in the world. Now people just need to know it exists. But the biggest challenge with women's sports at that time in 2019 was no one talked about it. No one invested in it. No one believed in it and no one really valued the product. It was treated as a charity or it was treated as an afterthought or it was treated as a very inexpensive proposition. Here's a $5 ticket, come and see. And the problem with that is you're actually devaluing the product. You're saying that, you know, if I don't spend a lot of money on the ticket and something else comes up, I don't need to show up. And so in building Angel City, we wanted to value the product. We wanted to value the players. And we also needed to build a community. We were entering a very busy marketplace where there were 11 professional sports teams, including USC and UCLA, which are two collegiate teams that act like professional sports teams. And we also have the beach and the mountains to compete against. And so we knew that we needed the community to believe in Angel City. And to do that, we wanted to build a club that had strong values. And we talked about our mission being using sport and entertainment to drive to equity, that through our club, through our platform, through our voice, we would be able to drive to not only pay equity for the players, but visibility equity for women and women's sports and gender equity, recognizing that that would take time, but build it with our community. And so for us, we built an organization where mission and capital could coexist, where we would build with our community, lead with impact, give back to our community. but also build a product that valued these players and these athletes in this competition. And knowing if we did it right, this is actually an asset that investors would want because the enterprise value would grow over time and eventually we would get to profitability.
Speaker #0
Yes. And I mean, you said mission. And for me, what was really remarkable was mission and capital. Exactly. You didn't. I mean, it's not to be opposed. It's mission and capital. And this purpose driven project that you've led, you've done it as seriously on the mission part as on the capital part. and I would say on the... building the structure. One thing that I was very impressed with is that you've decided, but because also you're the best in business, you've decided to bring on board the best in business, you know, like Jess Smith or other people. At that time, I had in mind that clubs were more recruiting, you know, at low budget. And saying, OK, this is a job at 200K, but we have only 100. So we're going to start with someone at 100. But then, you know, if you want to grow, you need the best in business. And that's something that you've brought from day one, actually. And I think the clarity of the project that you had really helped bring these people on board.
Speaker #1
You can't say that you want to drive to gender equity and pay equity and not mean it. Um, you know, one of the things I heard early on with sports is that you don't have to pay people very much money because they all want to work in it. Everyone wants to be in sports, so you don't have to pay them very much. But again, you're not valuing their experience, their skills. You're not valuing what they bring to the table. And at some point, um, that matters. And so when we went to build our team, it was actually, um, we were, I was pretty intentional about bringing people in from other markets, other sectors. not just sports again, because if you looked at the women's sports landscape at that time, if you looked at the WNBA and NWSL, again, it was in its eighth season. There was no commissioner. It was unclear if it was going to get to a ninth season. Um, the WNBA was in its 25th season. Nobody was even talking about it. This was pre Caitlin Clark. Right. And so, um, Hiring someone from women's sports didn't make any sense. It's like they didn't prove success with where they were. Why would I want to hire them? And so I was really strategic about actually hiring outside sports for marketing, for brand, for PR. I definitely wanted someone that had relationships within the sports ecosystem, but also in pop culture and venture capital and entertainment. because again, we wanted to build. Angel City differently. We thought of Angel City as a global brand. And the reason we did that was because if you're a global brand, you drive the most attention and awareness, which ultimately possibly drives the most revenue that we could then, you know, convert into impact. And so why wouldn't you want to build at the highest level? We never thought of ourselves as a local team or as an LA team. We are a global brand. We're a global team with a global fan base with the strongest most passionate fan base, obviously in our backyard here in Los Angeles. And so we tried to bring people from different sectors. Having said that being new to sports, um, and my, you know, co-founders Natalie Portman, the actress and activist and Karen Nortman, the venture capitalist, there were some roles that we really did need sports experience. And one in particular that you mentioned was sponsorship and ticketing, um, and Jess Smith. that's a funny story. So I heard through the grapevine that Jess Smith was fantastic. I sent her a cold email on LinkedIn, which really started off with, you know, you don't know who I am, but I'm working on this unique project in Los Angeles. I'd love to talk to you. And I'm so grateful that she responded to that and shared and shared vision with her. What was great about Jess and her background was that she didn't come from the NFL or the premier league. She didn't come from the best of the best. She didn't come from the Lakers or the Dodgers or the Yankees, the best teams. She didn't even come from the best leagues, arguably. She came out of minor league baseball. She came out of hockey. And then she spent time at the MLS, but a team that was probably in the lower quadrant. And that was important to me because her success was based on her work, how hard they had to work. If you work at the NFL or, you know, the Dodgers, people are calling you, right? They want to be your sponsor. So I wanted someone who knew how to go out and get it. And Jess was not only an incredible leader, but... an incredible saleswoman and really believed our mission. When she came on board and we talked about how we wanted to lead this organization with impact, we wanted to set higher expectations on and off the pitch. We realized that to be truly authentic. and to live our values, we could not sacrifice one for the other. So the question became, how do we instill impact into everything we do? And the first conversation was around sponsorship. And so early on, we created the Angel City Sponsorship Model, where we give 10% of our sponsorship dollars back into the community. We put a little over $4 million now back into the community, into our social impact platform, verticals, essentials. and education driving towards equity. And when we announced that, the response was really funny. I mean, the business press gave us a lot of attention, but we had club owners and CBOs call us and say, what are you doing? You're giving away money before you've even taken a dollar, and do you know how hard this is? And we said, yes, but we said it's in line and consistent with our values and we think. It's a competitive advantage when we go and talk to brands because it's not just about the radio spots, the TV spots, or the in-stadium activations. It's about how we're going to show up together, living our values, and driving that impact in the community. The net result of that was we have partnered with brands that have never supported women's sports, that have never supported sports, and we have actually driven greater value knowing that 10% of it is going back. Because it means that we don't have to devalue our sponsors and we don't really need to negotiate. Because if you want to negotiate with us, that means that maybe we're not values aligned. And so it became this bar with which we were able to judge partners and partners can judge us.
Speaker #0
I think one of the very smart things you did also was to approach it really like a startup, you know, and with raising funds regularly. But after every success, actually, you know, signing this and then you go for a fundraising, signing that and you go for... And then everything was really structured in a way where you could take the most, make the most of every business success that you were achieving. That was very impressive, actually. Plus the star power around the team. But I think that the star power was the result from the project, actually. You don't bring these people into a project that is not so well written and executed, I think.
Speaker #1
Thank you. I mean, when we had the idea for Angel City, right? We want to build this platform for impact and profit. We want to give back to the community. We want to drive women's football forward. And we want to invest. in the game day experience, in our players, in the product, in the pitch, in the community, we got a hundred no's. People that didn't believe in what we were doing, didn't understand that we could be impact and profit, didn't understand if we were a sports team or a charity, didn't understand the platform we were using. And we were actually getting very concerned that we weren't going to be able to pull this out. We started fundraising in October. Um, we were towards the end of the year and we hadn't gotten to a yes yet. Um, and then Natalie said, why don't you talk to my good friend, Eva Longoria? She's Latina. She loves football. See what she thinks. And I gave the pitch to, to, to Eva. And when I was done, she said, I'm in. And I said, why? And she laughed and she goes, I understand. I understand what it means to be a platform. She goes, I'm a platform. I use my platform to. to promote my latest movie, but I also use my platform to promote my latest social cause or what I care about. And that's what you're planning to be with Angel City. You are a platform. And if you do, you can be more than one thing. You can use your voice for more than one thing, as long as your ultimate goal and purpose is the same. And that was the aha moment for us, which was instead of getting one person to write a very large check who believed in Angel City like we did, Let's get individuals who... believe in what it is we're building and want to leverage their platform and their voice to promote it. And that's when we started building Angel City like a startup. And yes, we have over a hundred people on our cap table, which most people think is a challenge. But for me, it's been the most unbelievable gift. Everybody came into Angel City because they believe in our purpose. They want to participate. They want to use their voice to help us drive towards equity. Um, and they all contributed whatever it is they could afford. And to your point, every time we hit a new milestone, we were able to go out and raise money from new people that wanted to be a part of this. And so instead of having one person talk about angel city, I've got a hundred, I've got 120, I've got 150. And in. 2020, 2021, that was important because nobody was talking about women's sports. We have 13 former U.S. Women's National Team players on our cap table. Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Shannon McMillan, Shannon Box. We have Billie Jean King and Alana Kloss and Lindsey Vonn and Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Gardner. And that was all really important because they believed in Angel City. And I wasn't paying them. to do a social post. They wanted to do it because they wanted to see it grow and succeed. I wasn't giving them free tickets to come to a game. They were buying tickets because they knew that that was how you grow, right? You need to drive revenue. You can't give everything away for free. And it allowed us to build a team of believers, which was really important. It also gave these women and these athletes access to an investment that prior to us never you was never possible, right? You know, typically investment in sports, you're writing a hundred million dollar checks and there's very few of us that can do that. And we wanted to build a diverse investor group in the same way we wanted to build a diverse and inclusive fan base and squad. And this allowed us the opportunity to do that and get people that have never really had a financial stake at growing something they love a seat at the table.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and that's really what is impressive with Angel City. Because you mentioned this idea to build a global brand from day one, but it's much more than that. It's build a new culture and use the football platform for that.
Speaker #1
Yes.
Speaker #0
And, you know, mixing everything around the football game that is the most played across the world. I think what... you did very well. And that was bold too, is, you know, use every event, every big event and be there with your brand. I remember what you did in Australia. I was not there, but I mean, I think it was a huge platform for you. You had this house of equity or something like that, I think.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So look, our mission was bigger than just winning games. Winning games is important. And you you know, we speak a lot about the impact and the values, but it's not, you know, it's not at the sacrifice of football. Like we want to win. We want to win every game. It took us time to get the right combination and to learn. It's hard to be an expansion team, um, and win right out the gate. And, um, we're five years later and we feel like we have the right coach, the right sporting director, the right club. And, you know, right now we sit at the top of the table, which is, it's very early in the season, but I like to say that I can, I like, I can, um, but, you know, Again, being able... you know, being really intentional about using our platform to drive to equity and using this moment in time where people are talking about female empowerment and female equity and pay equity was important. And so during the 2023 World Cup in New Zealand, Australia, we created an event called the Angel City Equity House. And it was a one day event where we brought individuals, women from multiple industries, not just sport. to talk about equity and how they're driving for equity in their practice and in their company. And it was absolutely incredible. We had the secretary general of FIFA, a number of federations and leagues, but also different organizations like we had Netball and we had AFL. And it was just about bringing people together so that we could learn and network. And that was really key, creating an environment where women could actually network together. We followed that up in 2024 at the... Paris Olympics. We did another equity house summit, over 20 different industries, 15 different organizations. That was incredible. And from that, we've seen businesses start and funds start. And again, creating an opportunity for networking and conversation around equity, where we can learn from each other in a safe environment. And you would say that's incredibly unusual. Here's a team in Los Angeles. What are they doing in Australia? What are they doing in Paris? But we're there because our platform and our mission is so much bigger than just women games. And we know that in those rooms, yes, we're speaking to sponsors and we're speaking to brands, future investors. So there is value to us. Um, and there's no reason to just confine ourselves just to, just to Los Angeles.
Speaker #0
Yeah. One thing that was, um, I mean, I would say I would never imagine in 2020 that it would have gone so fast. You know?
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
It's, it's, it's like when I, When I speak about that here in France, I'm saying I think it's much more than $1 billion invested around the NWSL. I mean, if you put everything between the expansion fees, the investment in facilities, in stadium, in people, it's more than $1 billion. And honestly, when we... acquired with Olympic Lyonnais the reign for 3.5, which was already something. Wow. And so there has been something at some point that has triggered the growth. And what is it?
Speaker #1
So I think it's a combination of things. And... um One was, I would say, kind of the social political nature of what was happening around 2019. Again, driven by the U.S. Women's National Team, they sued U.S. Soccer for pay equity. They basically said, enough is enough. Look at our championships. Look at our success on the pitch. Look at the viewership. Look at the merch sales. We are very underpaid for the impact we're having compared to the men. And they stopped talking about it and they took him to court and they won. That was, that was, you know, a trigger point. We'll get women in Hollywood and the Me Too movement. And again, enough is enough and, and, and female empowerment and creating equal access and opportunity for women. Natalie Portman, my co-founder during the Oscars, I believe it was in 2019, she went up with Ron Howard to give the award for the best director. And she goes up there and she says, and here are your nominees for the best male directors. Kind of highlighting the fact that they're these incredible women and that they're not being appreciated and they're not being recognized. Abby Wambach talked about it when she received the Icon Award from ESPN. She received this Icon Award, basically the highest award that any athlete can get from ESPN. And she receives it at the same time as Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant. So she is considered the GOAT, the best of the best with these men. And she looks at them and she's like, God, you know, they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They can do anything they want. You know, as soon as I get my award, I have to figure out how to get insurance and how to pay my mortgage. And we started talking about this disparity. So all of that was happening. But it wasn't just a woe is me. We were also succeeding. So the women are fighting for pay equity and then they go ahead and they win the World Cup in 2019. And then honestly, here comes Angel City, who says, you know what? Women's sports isn't a charity. Women's sports is something of value. And look at all of these incredibly smart people, investors and athletes who invested in this. It wasn't just one, you know, Billie Jean King, right? Kobe Jones. Um, you know, again, Natalie, Eva, Jen, and it, and, and it's like, what's going on. And then we spoke about it every place we could in every circle we could, because we wanted to write that playbook. We wanted other people to follow. And then we invested. And I think that is one of the biggest differences is that we didn't invest a little bit. We said we want to build the best game day experience in sports, not women's sports, sports. We called it the greatest show on earth. How can we create an experience for everyone? Not just women, not just young girls, not just girl dads, but everyone. How can we create an inclusive, you know, diverse experience where everyone feels welcome and safe? And so we invest it. a lot of money in the pregame experience, in the game day experience with pyro and lights and live concerts. And on, you know, our graphics package was done by a firm that does the NFL football teams, right? So we wanted to value the product and the players. And that meant investment, investing in our community, not just with the 10% model, but we built a street team, over a dozen people. We did over 250 events going everywhere, letting people know that we exist. what we stand for and trying to get them to want to become a part of building this club with us. And so, you know, we are, you know, I would say our investment day one was probably, and you could vouch for this, was probably five times more than the average team in our staff, in our players, in the experience. And so when you came to an Angel City match, you were blown away. Like you didn't. you didn't look at it as a women's game. You're like, that was an awesome game. And I'm going to come back. And for those people that don't weren't there, we created that FOMO moment. And so It was about treating the product the way it should be treated. And then the fans follow. You don't want to go to a game and sit in a 20,000 seat stadium with 2,000 people. That says something. You know, whether you, you know, and at that time you have Megan Rapinoe and Carly Lloyd and Alex Morgan and Kristen Press and Tobin Heath. It's like, and there's 2,000 fans, but you build a product where you 22,000 fans. Now I want to be there and I don't want to miss it. And When we did that and we proved that the fans would come, sponsors, we got the highest kit sponsor deal ever. It's $2.5 million from DoorDash. Highest kit. Now it's like, hold on a second. I don't want to miss this. And you started to see clubs starting to invest more and, you know, and leveraging, you know, a lot of what we did. Kansas City came in, paid $5 million, brought in Patrick Mahomes and Brittany Mahomes, right, to draw, you know. their fan base in, you know, and then you get, you know, the founders at Bay, right, with, you know, Ali Wagner and, and, and, and, and, and Brandy Chastain. So it was, there was this value in building this syndicate of investors, but really investing in the product so that you felt that it was equal to not lesser than.
Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. That's, I mean. You have to work on the product if you want to convince people. I think one thing that was very important for me and what convinced me at first of this potential of women's sport was exactly the final of the World Cup in Lyon, actually, in 2019, because it was in Lyon, in France. And so US Women's National Team wins. Suddenly the stadium was like equal pay, And at the beginning, there was like 15,000 American people in the stadium singing. But at the end, I can tell that it was probably 40,000 people. I was like equal pay, equal pay. And it was not my team, but it was so powerful. And I think one of the things that investors have understood... understood from day one was this link, you know, between the people and the players. This very authentic and strong link. And how can it happen since there is no media, nobody talks about it, but still 15,000 people come from America to support the team and support their fights. So I thought it was really something special, much more powerful than anything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. The only other thing I would add to that trigger to why then is the rise in social media. So to your point, when you talked about how these players had a connection with their fans and how could they when there was no TV, it really was social media. They could go and talk one-to-one to their fan base and tell their fan base who they are and where you can walk. come watch their play and what do they stand for? You know, and we had players that were using their voice, Megan Rapinoe, and not afraid to use her voice to talk about what matters to them. And that I think really helped educate us who they were. And again, not just as athletes, but as people, and then you really fall in love with them, right? And you want to support the sport and then you have clubs that come along that treat them in the right way. Um, I think that was really growth and now You know, the stats support everything that we were saying back then, right? You know, last year, Deloitte said, you know, the global revenue for women's sports would be 2.5 million. It was more than that last year. And they're forecasting a growth rate to 3 billion this year, which sounds great, right? Except when you know that the entire sports market is 500 billion, right? We're only 6% of that. So we still have a long way to go. But that one way to go is the opportunity. It's the, I can get in early. you It's not I'm paying tens of thousands. Like, yeah, I might be paying a couple million dollars, but it's going to be worth, you know, that times five, five years from now. And so I want to get in early and I want to support, you know, this is a women's sports and even women's football.
Speaker #0
It's not just supported by women. So it's amazing, right? You get 50% of the population and then some because the men are supporting it as well. And it's growing that way. We talk about women's football as 500 million fans globally growing to 800 million fans. 800 million fans globally in five years. So how do we monetize that? How do we lend into that? How do brands and sponsors get the opportunity to ride that wave? You're not seeing any other sport grow that fast. They already have a large base. And if your brand... There's tons of competition for eyeballs. In women's sports, you know, I always talk about that there are three massive advantages to supporting a women's team. One, financially, it's just less. It's not cheap. It's not inexpensive. My friend of kid is going to be millions of dollars. It's not cheap, but it's less than men. So there's at least some benefit of a financial growth. Two, you have greater share of voice. There are fewer brands supporting women's sports. So I might be one of five or I might be one of 30 versus one of a hundred. So I get more share of voice. I get more attention. I get more brand recognition and awareness. And like, that's, that's playing out in the statistics. Women's sports is outpacing men's sports in sponsorship growth by four and a half times. And then the last thing is probably the most important for the longevity of your brand is the brand halo. like the positive brand equity you get in supporting women's sports today. Like you support men's sports. Nobody cares. You know, like sports business journal, isn't talking about it. You become the head sponsor, the league, you know, a seven year sponsor of, um, the new Atlanta team Affleck. Everybody's talking about it. Right. So like you, you get that benefit as well. And so, um, there's a lot of opportunity in growth still, and you're still getting a, you know, an incredible four and a half times return on that dollar. you know, women's sports is now good business. It's not just right business. It's good business.
Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely. I want to come to two other questions that I have for you, Julie, because you've moved to a new role with Angel City. You've been the president of the club from 2020 till a few months ago, a few weeks ago. That's one thing. So we will speak about what's next. But But just before, because you have tech experience and you've navigated at the forefront of many industries, what is your thought about how AI can support the growth of women's sports? What are the main direction that you see with AI?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I'll talk about it both on the... Yeah. I'll talk about it both. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker #1
It's AI. I think in English it's AI.
Speaker #0
I'll talk about it on the business side and the sporting side. The sporting side is probably more obvious, right? It's a way for us to gather information, statistics, details, um, about players and be able to create, um, analysis of them and suggestions of, you know, regarding that. So it allows, you know, when we started. there was no database of female athletes. Like it didn't exist, right? There was like five or six different databases you had to go to, but not one was comprehensive. Not one spoke the same language. So think about the benefit of AI saying, Hey, um, I'm looking for a number nine that has an average speed of this, that has a, you know, has a, you know, a goal percentage of this that, you know, is left footed. Right. And they you ability to utilize AI to find that talent pool and evaluate them in different situations. It'll allow the teams to utilize data more quickly to make better decisions. It's not going to replace the human making the decision, but it will gather information in a way that we've never been able to do before. On the business side, I see the biggest impact really in marketing, in fan identification and fan growth. One is just in the pure marketing and communicating to fans. Today, you put out an email, you put out a social post. It speaks to a certain segment. And today, in any company, whether it's sports or not, you identify who your customer is and you segment it. We have a soccer fan. We have a girl dad. We have the LGBTQ audience, whatever you think. And so you create content for that group. And by doing so, you're actually alienating. an entire group of fans. But you don't have the bandwidth and you don't have the manpower to create individualized content and to figure out what the right funnel or distribution channel it is. AI changes that, right? I can create a piece of content for every individual fan and get it specifically to them in a much faster, cheaper way. So I think it allows us to communicate to our fans more directly and with benefits that speak more to them. And then secondarily, it helps us identify who our fan base is. And so I think it gives us the information that we still have to create what's the right offer, right? What is the right visual treatment? But instead of saying, okay, we only have the bandwidth and the time to communicate to this group. Now it's like, now we can communicate to more and we don't alienate. And I think that's really important. AI also allows us to develop insights more quickly, right? To throw in a bunch of data and to say, okay, like what is common? What is unique? What surprised you about this data? Right? I think it allows us to just be faster at understanding kind of who our market is so that then we can go proactively and develop programs with them. So I think it's going to, I think it's going to enhance the fan experience. I think it's going to allow us to be more inclusive as a fan, as a team. And on the sporting side, I think it'll help us, you know, uncover talent that we, you know, may not have known existed or, or, you know, or, or, you know, incredible athletes. that just weren't on our radar before.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I see another benefit, but seeing it from France, and we're not at the same stage of development, and many clubs have very small teams. And I think the benefit of AI could be to, if you learn how to use it well, you know, to enhance your capacities of work. Because... And to make the most of the capital that you have or that of the capital that you don't have. You know what I mean? Oh, no. When you operate with small teams. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one thing that I see. And so now, Julie, what's next? I know you're in London at the end of next month. No, this next month. Yes. We're still in April. So can you speak a little bit about that? Yeah.
Speaker #0
No, I'm coming to London. for the World Sevens Football London Edition, competition 7v7 with just WSL clubs. I've been part of World Sevens from the beginning with Jen McAsee. The idea behind World Sevens Football is that the sport is growing and we want to be able to continue to grow the sport. We want to invest in clubs and invest in players and invest in the ecosystem that is growing women's football. you What we find is with women's football is the market is incredibly fragmented. You don't get the best be best every weekend, and you certainly don't get the best players playing against each other every weekend. And that's because some are in the WSL, some are in Barcelona, some are at Lyon, some are at Angel City. And the competitions that we get the most excited about, right, and we talk about and get the highest viewership and the highest attendance or competitions where the best plays the best. And that typically happens in the Champions League. or in the World Cup or the Olympics or the Championship Cup that FIFA just did. And we wanted to create an opportunity where we could get the best playing the best, which is the best experience for fans, but also be able to drive revenue for this sport. Something unique for sponsors and for broadcasters. And 7v7 is exciting. It's fast. It's what the players love playing. We see an average of five and a half goals per game. We create a festival-like experience with a DJ and smoke and fun. And the players are encouraged to celebrate goals and to create moments of pure joy. And what you find is that you have incredible football. It's super fun and exciting. It brings in a younger audience because this content is really made for digital and social. And we're getting the best play the best. So World Sevens football has already had two tournaments. The first one was last May in Estrel, Portugal. And we had. Man City, Man United, Bayern Munich, Rosengard, Ajax, Roma, Benfica. It was incredible. We had a second tournament at the end of last year in the United States and you had Kansas City and San Diego, but you had Flamingo and Chivas and Club America. So you're bringing again, the best clubs in the world, creating incredible competition. And then on top of that, a meaningful prize pool. Again, how do we value these players? So we had a $5 million prize pool where the winnings are split equally between the club and the players. And that's really important. We want to value and pay players. But we also want to invest in the ecosystem and the clubs that are growing the sport. Man, Manchester United came in second place in our first tournament. And I remember talking to their coach, Mark Skinner, and they won a million dollars. And he's like, Julie, this money is transformative. Like you have no idea how this is going to improve our club, facilities, operations, equipment, staff. And that's what we need. We need these clubs to continue to grow and invest. And we need to create these competitions that the fans love to bring in a new, younger fan base. and um The goal is to have, you know, multiple global tournaments a year, but kind of building out that pyramid. And so we're so excited to partner with the WSL. They're so creative and innovative. They saw this as a great opportunity for their clubs and their fans to sort of end the season on a high. If you don't sort of make it to the FA Cup. And, you know, we're excited to be playing at G-Tech Stadium with the support of Brentford. But it's... Again, it's an opportunity for these clubs to build their brands, for the players to get closer to their fan base so that they can continue to monetize. And it's a new format that I think is going to continue to gain in popularity.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's short. It's fun. The players love it. And you have this significant prize money and huge reach, actually. I mean, just for the first one, you had a huge reach. Everybody was talking about it. So, yeah, congrats for that and happy. Happy that you were in this project because I think it's going to be meaningful and fun. So two things that matter.
Speaker #0
Both works. Yeah.
Speaker #1
We need the joy, you know, we need the joy of the sports too, I think. And W7 is exactly that. You have the celebration, the fun and joy. Julie, in our podcast, we have two signature questions. So I'm now going for that. So the first one is... What is your moment of women's sports?
Speaker #0
For me, it was Angel City's home opener in April 22. You know, we had three goals for that home opener. We wanted to sell out, which I don't think ever happened in the NWSL in a meaningful way. But it wasn't for that. It was for us. We wanted to have global attention and recognition about the game and we wanted to win. Two of the three things I could control, and we were so fortunate that all three happened. We beat North Carolina 2-1, which is the most winning team in NWSL history. We sold out BMO Stadium with 22,000 fans. And I remember the Guardian did this photo expose on the home opener. And to me, it really signified that women's sports has arrived. If you do the work, if you make the investment, the fans, the sponsors, the broadcasters, they will show up. And that game really proved it. And, you know, it's funny since then, we've had a lot of sellouts and we've had a lot of big game attendances. And I was laughing to myself earlier this week, Barcelona posted that they'd already sold 51,000 tickets to the second leg of the semi-final champions league game with Bayern Munich. And, you know, it was a post. You didn't have the whole world, you know, repost it because it's not. it's not an anomaly anymore, which is so incredible and amazing. We expect 51,000. We expect Emirates to sell out when, when Arsenal plays Chelsea. Um, we expect Angel City to sell out and that's a fundamental shift. Um, and one that is continuing and it just proves the strength, um, and growth of women's sports.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Great, great memory. And second question is, um, what does coalition mean for you?
Speaker #0
Um, It means all boats need to rise. It means that we have to work together to raise minimum standards. Right. You can't just have Angel City being successful and no one else. So coalition to me is about working in partnership to grow it together and, you know, and holding each other accountable. I think that's I think that's the only thing that is potentially holding this sport back. our women's sports back is that we allow, we allow teams not to. invest at the level that's required to drive the fan interest for it to grow. And so it's supporting us and it's about holding each other accountable.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And I think one chance we have is that we are ready to share a lot of things. You shared your playbook. You wrote it and then you shared it. I mean, you didn't keep it secret like it's going to be just us. And so this opportunity, I think it really matters. But you're right. You have to be accountable. And yeah, that matters. Julie, thank you. It was really a pleasure to have you. I think everyone will learn a lot of things from what you said. And I really hope that people here in France learn from that. And that at some point we are able to move with capital and not only mission.
Speaker #0
Love it. Thank you for having me.
Speaker #1
This was Coalition, the podcast of Sport Power. Thank you for listening to us. And to follow all the business news of women's sport, subscribe to our LinkedIn page and to our newsletter on the sportpower.com site. And above all, join us in the Coalition.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

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Une conversation rare avec quelqu'un qui a prouvé que mission et capital peuvent coexister dans le sport féminin, et qui partage tout ce qu'elle a appris.

[EPISODE EN ANGLAIS]

🏟️ Au programme de cet épisode :

Pourquoi trois fondatrices sans background sportif ont vu ce que personne d'autre ne voyait en 2019 : les meilleures joueuses du monde jouaient dans une ligue que personne ne regardait
Le problème fondamental du sport féminin à l'époque : un produit bradé et dévalué
Comment Angel City a construit un modèle où mission et capital coexistent, avec 10 % des revenus de partenariat reversés à la communauté dès le premier jour
La structure d'investissement syndiquée : plus de 100 investisseurs individuels, dont des athlètes, pour démocratiser l'accès au capital sportif
Pourquoi elles ont investi cinq fois plus que la moyenne dès le départ, dans le staff, les joueuses et l'expérience fan
Le match inaugural : 22 000 fans au BMO Stadium, une victoire, une couverture mondiale. La preuve que ça marche si on fait le travail
Les trois arguments business pour les sponsors du sport féminin : coût d'entrée inférieur, meilleur partage de voix, brand halo incomparable
500 millions de fans aujourd'hui, 800 millions dans cinq ans : pourquoi le sport féminin croît 4,5 fois plus vite que le sport masculin
World7Football, le nouveau projet de Julie Uhrman : une compétition 7v7 avec les meilleurs clubs mondiaux, un format pensé pour les réseaux sociaux et un prize money partagée entre clubs et joueuses
Son moment de sport féminin et sa définition de coalition

💬 Ce qu'elle retient d'Angel City : "We wanted to value the product, we wanted to value the players. Women's sports is now just a good business."

Pour suivre toute l'actualité du business du sport féminin avec SportpowHER, rejoignez nous sur :

🔗Notre site www.sportpowher.com/media pour y lire tous nos articles de fonds

📩Notre newsletter 2x par mois par email, sur www.sportpowher.com/newsletter pour recevoir toutes les news et info de France et à l'international sur les deals, activations et partenariats

📢Notre page LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/sportpowher pour rejoindre tous ceux et toutes celles qui font le sport féminin

👀Notre compte Instagram www.instagram.com/sportpowher

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to Coalition, the podcast of SportpowHER which gives the floor to those who do the business of women's sport. I am Sophie Sauvage and I welcome two times a month champions, companies, clubs, institutions to explore together the economy of women's sport, its development models and the path to build a long-term and ambitious trajectory for all sports and economic actors. Hi, Julie.
Speaker #1
Hi, how are you?
Speaker #0
Very well. I'm so happy to have you on my podcast, Coalition. And it's a pleasure to see you. I just want to recall to everyone that we met like in 2020. And we've been at the board of the NWSL during, what, four years, I think. navigating strange time, but also the beginning of the growth. And I just want to say that you've, to start with the idea that you, with Angel City, you've been writing the playbook for women's pro sports, basically. Can you start with that?
Speaker #1
Yeah, of course. Well. It's a pleasure to be here and it was a pleasure sitting on the board with you. I think we were two of the strongest voices of change or at least acceleration. I think as it relates to Angel City, we approached the club very differently. And I think it starts from the fact that there were three female founders, which is very unusual in sports, even unusual in women's sports, and three female founders that didn't come with a sports background. And whereas many people thought that was a disadvantage, we actually believed and used it to our advantage because we didn't have ingrained beliefs of what is and isn't possible. You have to do it this way. You can't do it that way. We tried it this way at my club. It didn't work. So therefore it won't translate to your club. What we did, we looked at women's sports and women's football as its own standalone opportunity. And what we saw... was the best product in the world. Football is the most followed sport in the world. It's the most played sport in the world. And when you look specifically at the U.S. Women's National Team, they had proved time and again that they were the best players in the world. They won the World Cup in 2015, and then they won the World Cup in 2019. And so we had the best players in the world, arguably, playing in this league, the National Women's Soccer League, but nobody knew about it. We didn't have broadcast coverage. We didn't have teams in major markets, large DMAs like Los Angeles. And we felt that if you have the best players in the world, you're halfway there with the best product in the world. Now people just need to know it exists. But the biggest challenge with women's sports at that time in 2019 was no one talked about it. No one invested in it. No one believed in it and no one really valued the product. It was treated as a charity or it was treated as an afterthought or it was treated as a very inexpensive proposition. Here's a $5 ticket, come and see. And the problem with that is you're actually devaluing the product. You're saying that, you know, if I don't spend a lot of money on the ticket and something else comes up, I don't need to show up. And so in building Angel City, we wanted to value the product. We wanted to value the players. And we also needed to build a community. We were entering a very busy marketplace where there were 11 professional sports teams, including USC and UCLA, which are two collegiate teams that act like professional sports teams. And we also have the beach and the mountains to compete against. And so we knew that we needed the community to believe in Angel City. And to do that, we wanted to build a club that had strong values. And we talked about our mission being using sport and entertainment to drive to equity, that through our club, through our platform, through our voice, we would be able to drive to not only pay equity for the players, but visibility equity for women and women's sports and gender equity, recognizing that that would take time, but build it with our community. And so for us, we built an organization where mission and capital could coexist, where we would build with our community, lead with impact, give back to our community. but also build a product that valued these players and these athletes in this competition. And knowing if we did it right, this is actually an asset that investors would want because the enterprise value would grow over time and eventually we would get to profitability.
Speaker #0
Yes. And I mean, you said mission. And for me, what was really remarkable was mission and capital. Exactly. You didn't. I mean, it's not to be opposed. It's mission and capital. And this purpose driven project that you've led, you've done it as seriously on the mission part as on the capital part. and I would say on the... building the structure. One thing that I was very impressed with is that you've decided, but because also you're the best in business, you've decided to bring on board the best in business, you know, like Jess Smith or other people. At that time, I had in mind that clubs were more recruiting, you know, at low budget. And saying, OK, this is a job at 200K, but we have only 100. So we're going to start with someone at 100. But then, you know, if you want to grow, you need the best in business. And that's something that you've brought from day one, actually. And I think the clarity of the project that you had really helped bring these people on board.
Speaker #1
You can't say that you want to drive to gender equity and pay equity and not mean it. Um, you know, one of the things I heard early on with sports is that you don't have to pay people very much money because they all want to work in it. Everyone wants to be in sports, so you don't have to pay them very much. But again, you're not valuing their experience, their skills. You're not valuing what they bring to the table. And at some point, um, that matters. And so when we went to build our team, it was actually, um, we were, I was pretty intentional about bringing people in from other markets, other sectors. not just sports again, because if you looked at the women's sports landscape at that time, if you looked at the WNBA and NWSL, again, it was in its eighth season. There was no commissioner. It was unclear if it was going to get to a ninth season. Um, the WNBA was in its 25th season. Nobody was even talking about it. This was pre Caitlin Clark. Right. And so, um, Hiring someone from women's sports didn't make any sense. It's like they didn't prove success with where they were. Why would I want to hire them? And so I was really strategic about actually hiring outside sports for marketing, for brand, for PR. I definitely wanted someone that had relationships within the sports ecosystem, but also in pop culture and venture capital and entertainment. because again, we wanted to build. Angel City differently. We thought of Angel City as a global brand. And the reason we did that was because if you're a global brand, you drive the most attention and awareness, which ultimately possibly drives the most revenue that we could then, you know, convert into impact. And so why wouldn't you want to build at the highest level? We never thought of ourselves as a local team or as an LA team. We are a global brand. We're a global team with a global fan base with the strongest most passionate fan base, obviously in our backyard here in Los Angeles. And so we tried to bring people from different sectors. Having said that being new to sports, um, and my, you know, co-founders Natalie Portman, the actress and activist and Karen Nortman, the venture capitalist, there were some roles that we really did need sports experience. And one in particular that you mentioned was sponsorship and ticketing, um, and Jess Smith. that's a funny story. So I heard through the grapevine that Jess Smith was fantastic. I sent her a cold email on LinkedIn, which really started off with, you know, you don't know who I am, but I'm working on this unique project in Los Angeles. I'd love to talk to you. And I'm so grateful that she responded to that and shared and shared vision with her. What was great about Jess and her background was that she didn't come from the NFL or the premier league. She didn't come from the best of the best. She didn't come from the Lakers or the Dodgers or the Yankees, the best teams. She didn't even come from the best leagues, arguably. She came out of minor league baseball. She came out of hockey. And then she spent time at the MLS, but a team that was probably in the lower quadrant. And that was important to me because her success was based on her work, how hard they had to work. If you work at the NFL or, you know, the Dodgers, people are calling you, right? They want to be your sponsor. So I wanted someone who knew how to go out and get it. And Jess was not only an incredible leader, but... an incredible saleswoman and really believed our mission. When she came on board and we talked about how we wanted to lead this organization with impact, we wanted to set higher expectations on and off the pitch. We realized that to be truly authentic. and to live our values, we could not sacrifice one for the other. So the question became, how do we instill impact into everything we do? And the first conversation was around sponsorship. And so early on, we created the Angel City Sponsorship Model, where we give 10% of our sponsorship dollars back into the community. We put a little over $4 million now back into the community, into our social impact platform, verticals, essentials. and education driving towards equity. And when we announced that, the response was really funny. I mean, the business press gave us a lot of attention, but we had club owners and CBOs call us and say, what are you doing? You're giving away money before you've even taken a dollar, and do you know how hard this is? And we said, yes, but we said it's in line and consistent with our values and we think. It's a competitive advantage when we go and talk to brands because it's not just about the radio spots, the TV spots, or the in-stadium activations. It's about how we're going to show up together, living our values, and driving that impact in the community. The net result of that was we have partnered with brands that have never supported women's sports, that have never supported sports, and we have actually driven greater value knowing that 10% of it is going back. Because it means that we don't have to devalue our sponsors and we don't really need to negotiate. Because if you want to negotiate with us, that means that maybe we're not values aligned. And so it became this bar with which we were able to judge partners and partners can judge us.
Speaker #0
I think one of the very smart things you did also was to approach it really like a startup, you know, and with raising funds regularly. But after every success, actually, you know, signing this and then you go for a fundraising, signing that and you go for... And then everything was really structured in a way where you could take the most, make the most of every business success that you were achieving. That was very impressive, actually. Plus the star power around the team. But I think that the star power was the result from the project, actually. You don't bring these people into a project that is not so well written and executed, I think.
Speaker #1
Thank you. I mean, when we had the idea for Angel City, right? We want to build this platform for impact and profit. We want to give back to the community. We want to drive women's football forward. And we want to invest. in the game day experience, in our players, in the product, in the pitch, in the community, we got a hundred no's. People that didn't believe in what we were doing, didn't understand that we could be impact and profit, didn't understand if we were a sports team or a charity, didn't understand the platform we were using. And we were actually getting very concerned that we weren't going to be able to pull this out. We started fundraising in October. Um, we were towards the end of the year and we hadn't gotten to a yes yet. Um, and then Natalie said, why don't you talk to my good friend, Eva Longoria? She's Latina. She loves football. See what she thinks. And I gave the pitch to, to, to Eva. And when I was done, she said, I'm in. And I said, why? And she laughed and she goes, I understand. I understand what it means to be a platform. She goes, I'm a platform. I use my platform to. to promote my latest movie, but I also use my platform to promote my latest social cause or what I care about. And that's what you're planning to be with Angel City. You are a platform. And if you do, you can be more than one thing. You can use your voice for more than one thing, as long as your ultimate goal and purpose is the same. And that was the aha moment for us, which was instead of getting one person to write a very large check who believed in Angel City like we did, Let's get individuals who... believe in what it is we're building and want to leverage their platform and their voice to promote it. And that's when we started building Angel City like a startup. And yes, we have over a hundred people on our cap table, which most people think is a challenge. But for me, it's been the most unbelievable gift. Everybody came into Angel City because they believe in our purpose. They want to participate. They want to use their voice to help us drive towards equity. Um, and they all contributed whatever it is they could afford. And to your point, every time we hit a new milestone, we were able to go out and raise money from new people that wanted to be a part of this. And so instead of having one person talk about angel city, I've got a hundred, I've got 120, I've got 150. And in. 2020, 2021, that was important because nobody was talking about women's sports. We have 13 former U.S. Women's National Team players on our cap table. Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Shannon McMillan, Shannon Box. We have Billie Jean King and Alana Kloss and Lindsey Vonn and Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Gardner. And that was all really important because they believed in Angel City. And I wasn't paying them. to do a social post. They wanted to do it because they wanted to see it grow and succeed. I wasn't giving them free tickets to come to a game. They were buying tickets because they knew that that was how you grow, right? You need to drive revenue. You can't give everything away for free. And it allowed us to build a team of believers, which was really important. It also gave these women and these athletes access to an investment that prior to us never you was never possible, right? You know, typically investment in sports, you're writing a hundred million dollar checks and there's very few of us that can do that. And we wanted to build a diverse investor group in the same way we wanted to build a diverse and inclusive fan base and squad. And this allowed us the opportunity to do that and get people that have never really had a financial stake at growing something they love a seat at the table.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and that's really what is impressive with Angel City. Because you mentioned this idea to build a global brand from day one, but it's much more than that. It's build a new culture and use the football platform for that.
Speaker #1
Yes.
Speaker #0
And, you know, mixing everything around the football game that is the most played across the world. I think what... you did very well. And that was bold too, is, you know, use every event, every big event and be there with your brand. I remember what you did in Australia. I was not there, but I mean, I think it was a huge platform for you. You had this house of equity or something like that, I think.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So look, our mission was bigger than just winning games. Winning games is important. And you you know, we speak a lot about the impact and the values, but it's not, you know, it's not at the sacrifice of football. Like we want to win. We want to win every game. It took us time to get the right combination and to learn. It's hard to be an expansion team, um, and win right out the gate. And, um, we're five years later and we feel like we have the right coach, the right sporting director, the right club. And, you know, right now we sit at the top of the table, which is, it's very early in the season, but I like to say that I can, I like, I can, um, but, you know, Again, being able... you know, being really intentional about using our platform to drive to equity and using this moment in time where people are talking about female empowerment and female equity and pay equity was important. And so during the 2023 World Cup in New Zealand, Australia, we created an event called the Angel City Equity House. And it was a one day event where we brought individuals, women from multiple industries, not just sport. to talk about equity and how they're driving for equity in their practice and in their company. And it was absolutely incredible. We had the secretary general of FIFA, a number of federations and leagues, but also different organizations like we had Netball and we had AFL. And it was just about bringing people together so that we could learn and network. And that was really key, creating an environment where women could actually network together. We followed that up in 2024 at the... Paris Olympics. We did another equity house summit, over 20 different industries, 15 different organizations. That was incredible. And from that, we've seen businesses start and funds start. And again, creating an opportunity for networking and conversation around equity, where we can learn from each other in a safe environment. And you would say that's incredibly unusual. Here's a team in Los Angeles. What are they doing in Australia? What are they doing in Paris? But we're there because our platform and our mission is so much bigger than just women games. And we know that in those rooms, yes, we're speaking to sponsors and we're speaking to brands, future investors. So there is value to us. Um, and there's no reason to just confine ourselves just to, just to Los Angeles.
Speaker #0
Yeah. One thing that was, um, I mean, I would say I would never imagine in 2020 that it would have gone so fast. You know?
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
It's, it's, it's like when I, When I speak about that here in France, I'm saying I think it's much more than $1 billion invested around the NWSL. I mean, if you put everything between the expansion fees, the investment in facilities, in stadium, in people, it's more than $1 billion. And honestly, when we... acquired with Olympic Lyonnais the reign for 3.5, which was already something. Wow. And so there has been something at some point that has triggered the growth. And what is it?
Speaker #1
So I think it's a combination of things. And... um One was, I would say, kind of the social political nature of what was happening around 2019. Again, driven by the U.S. Women's National Team, they sued U.S. Soccer for pay equity. They basically said, enough is enough. Look at our championships. Look at our success on the pitch. Look at the viewership. Look at the merch sales. We are very underpaid for the impact we're having compared to the men. And they stopped talking about it and they took him to court and they won. That was, that was, you know, a trigger point. We'll get women in Hollywood and the Me Too movement. And again, enough is enough and, and, and female empowerment and creating equal access and opportunity for women. Natalie Portman, my co-founder during the Oscars, I believe it was in 2019, she went up with Ron Howard to give the award for the best director. And she goes up there and she says, and here are your nominees for the best male directors. Kind of highlighting the fact that they're these incredible women and that they're not being appreciated and they're not being recognized. Abby Wambach talked about it when she received the Icon Award from ESPN. She received this Icon Award, basically the highest award that any athlete can get from ESPN. And she receives it at the same time as Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant. So she is considered the GOAT, the best of the best with these men. And she looks at them and she's like, God, you know, they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They can do anything they want. You know, as soon as I get my award, I have to figure out how to get insurance and how to pay my mortgage. And we started talking about this disparity. So all of that was happening. But it wasn't just a woe is me. We were also succeeding. So the women are fighting for pay equity and then they go ahead and they win the World Cup in 2019. And then honestly, here comes Angel City, who says, you know what? Women's sports isn't a charity. Women's sports is something of value. And look at all of these incredibly smart people, investors and athletes who invested in this. It wasn't just one, you know, Billie Jean King, right? Kobe Jones. Um, you know, again, Natalie, Eva, Jen, and it, and, and it's like, what's going on. And then we spoke about it every place we could in every circle we could, because we wanted to write that playbook. We wanted other people to follow. And then we invested. And I think that is one of the biggest differences is that we didn't invest a little bit. We said we want to build the best game day experience in sports, not women's sports, sports. We called it the greatest show on earth. How can we create an experience for everyone? Not just women, not just young girls, not just girl dads, but everyone. How can we create an inclusive, you know, diverse experience where everyone feels welcome and safe? And so we invest it. a lot of money in the pregame experience, in the game day experience with pyro and lights and live concerts. And on, you know, our graphics package was done by a firm that does the NFL football teams, right? So we wanted to value the product and the players. And that meant investment, investing in our community, not just with the 10% model, but we built a street team, over a dozen people. We did over 250 events going everywhere, letting people know that we exist. what we stand for and trying to get them to want to become a part of building this club with us. And so, you know, we are, you know, I would say our investment day one was probably, and you could vouch for this, was probably five times more than the average team in our staff, in our players, in the experience. And so when you came to an Angel City match, you were blown away. Like you didn't. you didn't look at it as a women's game. You're like, that was an awesome game. And I'm going to come back. And for those people that don't weren't there, we created that FOMO moment. And so It was about treating the product the way it should be treated. And then the fans follow. You don't want to go to a game and sit in a 20,000 seat stadium with 2,000 people. That says something. You know, whether you, you know, and at that time you have Megan Rapinoe and Carly Lloyd and Alex Morgan and Kristen Press and Tobin Heath. It's like, and there's 2,000 fans, but you build a product where you 22,000 fans. Now I want to be there and I don't want to miss it. And When we did that and we proved that the fans would come, sponsors, we got the highest kit sponsor deal ever. It's $2.5 million from DoorDash. Highest kit. Now it's like, hold on a second. I don't want to miss this. And you started to see clubs starting to invest more and, you know, and leveraging, you know, a lot of what we did. Kansas City came in, paid $5 million, brought in Patrick Mahomes and Brittany Mahomes, right, to draw, you know. their fan base in, you know, and then you get, you know, the founders at Bay, right, with, you know, Ali Wagner and, and, and, and, and, and Brandy Chastain. So it was, there was this value in building this syndicate of investors, but really investing in the product so that you felt that it was equal to not lesser than.
Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. That's, I mean. You have to work on the product if you want to convince people. I think one thing that was very important for me and what convinced me at first of this potential of women's sport was exactly the final of the World Cup in Lyon, actually, in 2019, because it was in Lyon, in France. And so US Women's National Team wins. Suddenly the stadium was like equal pay, And at the beginning, there was like 15,000 American people in the stadium singing. But at the end, I can tell that it was probably 40,000 people. I was like equal pay, equal pay. And it was not my team, but it was so powerful. And I think one of the things that investors have understood... understood from day one was this link, you know, between the people and the players. This very authentic and strong link. And how can it happen since there is no media, nobody talks about it, but still 15,000 people come from America to support the team and support their fights. So I thought it was really something special, much more powerful than anything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. The only other thing I would add to that trigger to why then is the rise in social media. So to your point, when you talked about how these players had a connection with their fans and how could they when there was no TV, it really was social media. They could go and talk one-to-one to their fan base and tell their fan base who they are and where you can walk. come watch their play and what do they stand for? You know, and we had players that were using their voice, Megan Rapinoe, and not afraid to use her voice to talk about what matters to them. And that I think really helped educate us who they were. And again, not just as athletes, but as people, and then you really fall in love with them, right? And you want to support the sport and then you have clubs that come along that treat them in the right way. Um, I think that was really growth and now You know, the stats support everything that we were saying back then, right? You know, last year, Deloitte said, you know, the global revenue for women's sports would be 2.5 million. It was more than that last year. And they're forecasting a growth rate to 3 billion this year, which sounds great, right? Except when you know that the entire sports market is 500 billion, right? We're only 6% of that. So we still have a long way to go. But that one way to go is the opportunity. It's the, I can get in early. you It's not I'm paying tens of thousands. Like, yeah, I might be paying a couple million dollars, but it's going to be worth, you know, that times five, five years from now. And so I want to get in early and I want to support, you know, this is a women's sports and even women's football.
Speaker #0
It's not just supported by women. So it's amazing, right? You get 50% of the population and then some because the men are supporting it as well. And it's growing that way. We talk about women's football as 500 million fans globally growing to 800 million fans. 800 million fans globally in five years. So how do we monetize that? How do we lend into that? How do brands and sponsors get the opportunity to ride that wave? You're not seeing any other sport grow that fast. They already have a large base. And if your brand... There's tons of competition for eyeballs. In women's sports, you know, I always talk about that there are three massive advantages to supporting a women's team. One, financially, it's just less. It's not cheap. It's not inexpensive. My friend of kid is going to be millions of dollars. It's not cheap, but it's less than men. So there's at least some benefit of a financial growth. Two, you have greater share of voice. There are fewer brands supporting women's sports. So I might be one of five or I might be one of 30 versus one of a hundred. So I get more share of voice. I get more attention. I get more brand recognition and awareness. And like, that's, that's playing out in the statistics. Women's sports is outpacing men's sports in sponsorship growth by four and a half times. And then the last thing is probably the most important for the longevity of your brand is the brand halo. like the positive brand equity you get in supporting women's sports today. Like you support men's sports. Nobody cares. You know, like sports business journal, isn't talking about it. You become the head sponsor, the league, you know, a seven year sponsor of, um, the new Atlanta team Affleck. Everybody's talking about it. Right. So like you, you get that benefit as well. And so, um, there's a lot of opportunity in growth still, and you're still getting a, you know, an incredible four and a half times return on that dollar. you know, women's sports is now good business. It's not just right business. It's good business.
Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely. I want to come to two other questions that I have for you, Julie, because you've moved to a new role with Angel City. You've been the president of the club from 2020 till a few months ago, a few weeks ago. That's one thing. So we will speak about what's next. But But just before, because you have tech experience and you've navigated at the forefront of many industries, what is your thought about how AI can support the growth of women's sports? What are the main direction that you see with AI?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I'll talk about it both on the... Yeah. I'll talk about it both. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker #1
It's AI. I think in English it's AI.
Speaker #0
I'll talk about it on the business side and the sporting side. The sporting side is probably more obvious, right? It's a way for us to gather information, statistics, details, um, about players and be able to create, um, analysis of them and suggestions of, you know, regarding that. So it allows, you know, when we started. there was no database of female athletes. Like it didn't exist, right? There was like five or six different databases you had to go to, but not one was comprehensive. Not one spoke the same language. So think about the benefit of AI saying, Hey, um, I'm looking for a number nine that has an average speed of this, that has a, you know, has a, you know, a goal percentage of this that, you know, is left footed. Right. And they you ability to utilize AI to find that talent pool and evaluate them in different situations. It'll allow the teams to utilize data more quickly to make better decisions. It's not going to replace the human making the decision, but it will gather information in a way that we've never been able to do before. On the business side, I see the biggest impact really in marketing, in fan identification and fan growth. One is just in the pure marketing and communicating to fans. Today, you put out an email, you put out a social post. It speaks to a certain segment. And today, in any company, whether it's sports or not, you identify who your customer is and you segment it. We have a soccer fan. We have a girl dad. We have the LGBTQ audience, whatever you think. And so you create content for that group. And by doing so, you're actually alienating. an entire group of fans. But you don't have the bandwidth and you don't have the manpower to create individualized content and to figure out what the right funnel or distribution channel it is. AI changes that, right? I can create a piece of content for every individual fan and get it specifically to them in a much faster, cheaper way. So I think it allows us to communicate to our fans more directly and with benefits that speak more to them. And then secondarily, it helps us identify who our fan base is. And so I think it gives us the information that we still have to create what's the right offer, right? What is the right visual treatment? But instead of saying, okay, we only have the bandwidth and the time to communicate to this group. Now it's like, now we can communicate to more and we don't alienate. And I think that's really important. AI also allows us to develop insights more quickly, right? To throw in a bunch of data and to say, okay, like what is common? What is unique? What surprised you about this data? Right? I think it allows us to just be faster at understanding kind of who our market is so that then we can go proactively and develop programs with them. So I think it's going to, I think it's going to enhance the fan experience. I think it's going to allow us to be more inclusive as a fan, as a team. And on the sporting side, I think it'll help us, you know, uncover talent that we, you know, may not have known existed or, or, you know, or, or, you know, incredible athletes. that just weren't on our radar before.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I see another benefit, but seeing it from France, and we're not at the same stage of development, and many clubs have very small teams. And I think the benefit of AI could be to, if you learn how to use it well, you know, to enhance your capacities of work. Because... And to make the most of the capital that you have or that of the capital that you don't have. You know what I mean? Oh, no. When you operate with small teams. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one thing that I see. And so now, Julie, what's next? I know you're in London at the end of next month. No, this next month. Yes. We're still in April. So can you speak a little bit about that? Yeah.
Speaker #0
No, I'm coming to London. for the World Sevens Football London Edition, competition 7v7 with just WSL clubs. I've been part of World Sevens from the beginning with Jen McAsee. The idea behind World Sevens Football is that the sport is growing and we want to be able to continue to grow the sport. We want to invest in clubs and invest in players and invest in the ecosystem that is growing women's football. you What we find is with women's football is the market is incredibly fragmented. You don't get the best be best every weekend, and you certainly don't get the best players playing against each other every weekend. And that's because some are in the WSL, some are in Barcelona, some are at Lyon, some are at Angel City. And the competitions that we get the most excited about, right, and we talk about and get the highest viewership and the highest attendance or competitions where the best plays the best. And that typically happens in the Champions League. or in the World Cup or the Olympics or the Championship Cup that FIFA just did. And we wanted to create an opportunity where we could get the best playing the best, which is the best experience for fans, but also be able to drive revenue for this sport. Something unique for sponsors and for broadcasters. And 7v7 is exciting. It's fast. It's what the players love playing. We see an average of five and a half goals per game. We create a festival-like experience with a DJ and smoke and fun. And the players are encouraged to celebrate goals and to create moments of pure joy. And what you find is that you have incredible football. It's super fun and exciting. It brings in a younger audience because this content is really made for digital and social. And we're getting the best play the best. So World Sevens football has already had two tournaments. The first one was last May in Estrel, Portugal. And we had. Man City, Man United, Bayern Munich, Rosengard, Ajax, Roma, Benfica. It was incredible. We had a second tournament at the end of last year in the United States and you had Kansas City and San Diego, but you had Flamingo and Chivas and Club America. So you're bringing again, the best clubs in the world, creating incredible competition. And then on top of that, a meaningful prize pool. Again, how do we value these players? So we had a $5 million prize pool where the winnings are split equally between the club and the players. And that's really important. We want to value and pay players. But we also want to invest in the ecosystem and the clubs that are growing the sport. Man, Manchester United came in second place in our first tournament. And I remember talking to their coach, Mark Skinner, and they won a million dollars. And he's like, Julie, this money is transformative. Like you have no idea how this is going to improve our club, facilities, operations, equipment, staff. And that's what we need. We need these clubs to continue to grow and invest. And we need to create these competitions that the fans love to bring in a new, younger fan base. and um The goal is to have, you know, multiple global tournaments a year, but kind of building out that pyramid. And so we're so excited to partner with the WSL. They're so creative and innovative. They saw this as a great opportunity for their clubs and their fans to sort of end the season on a high. If you don't sort of make it to the FA Cup. And, you know, we're excited to be playing at G-Tech Stadium with the support of Brentford. But it's... Again, it's an opportunity for these clubs to build their brands, for the players to get closer to their fan base so that they can continue to monetize. And it's a new format that I think is going to continue to gain in popularity.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's short. It's fun. The players love it. And you have this significant prize money and huge reach, actually. I mean, just for the first one, you had a huge reach. Everybody was talking about it. So, yeah, congrats for that and happy. Happy that you were in this project because I think it's going to be meaningful and fun. So two things that matter.
Speaker #0
Both works. Yeah.
Speaker #1
We need the joy, you know, we need the joy of the sports too, I think. And W7 is exactly that. You have the celebration, the fun and joy. Julie, in our podcast, we have two signature questions. So I'm now going for that. So the first one is... What is your moment of women's sports?
Speaker #0
For me, it was Angel City's home opener in April 22. You know, we had three goals for that home opener. We wanted to sell out, which I don't think ever happened in the NWSL in a meaningful way. But it wasn't for that. It was for us. We wanted to have global attention and recognition about the game and we wanted to win. Two of the three things I could control, and we were so fortunate that all three happened. We beat North Carolina 2-1, which is the most winning team in NWSL history. We sold out BMO Stadium with 22,000 fans. And I remember the Guardian did this photo expose on the home opener. And to me, it really signified that women's sports has arrived. If you do the work, if you make the investment, the fans, the sponsors, the broadcasters, they will show up. And that game really proved it. And, you know, it's funny since then, we've had a lot of sellouts and we've had a lot of big game attendances. And I was laughing to myself earlier this week, Barcelona posted that they'd already sold 51,000 tickets to the second leg of the semi-final champions league game with Bayern Munich. And, you know, it was a post. You didn't have the whole world, you know, repost it because it's not. it's not an anomaly anymore, which is so incredible and amazing. We expect 51,000. We expect Emirates to sell out when, when Arsenal plays Chelsea. Um, we expect Angel City to sell out and that's a fundamental shift. Um, and one that is continuing and it just proves the strength, um, and growth of women's sports.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Great, great memory. And second question is, um, what does coalition mean for you?
Speaker #0
Um, It means all boats need to rise. It means that we have to work together to raise minimum standards. Right. You can't just have Angel City being successful and no one else. So coalition to me is about working in partnership to grow it together and, you know, and holding each other accountable. I think that's I think that's the only thing that is potentially holding this sport back. our women's sports back is that we allow, we allow teams not to. invest at the level that's required to drive the fan interest for it to grow. And so it's supporting us and it's about holding each other accountable.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And I think one chance we have is that we are ready to share a lot of things. You shared your playbook. You wrote it and then you shared it. I mean, you didn't keep it secret like it's going to be just us. And so this opportunity, I think it really matters. But you're right. You have to be accountable. And yeah, that matters. Julie, thank you. It was really a pleasure to have you. I think everyone will learn a lot of things from what you said. And I really hope that people here in France learn from that. And that at some point we are able to move with capital and not only mission.
Speaker #0
Love it. Thank you for having me.
Speaker #1
This was Coalition, the podcast of Sport Power. Thank you for listening to us. And to follow all the business news of women's sport, subscribe to our LinkedIn page and to our newsletter on the sportpower.com site. And above all, join us in the Coalition.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Description

Une conversation rare avec quelqu'un qui a prouvé que mission et capital peuvent coexister dans le sport féminin, et qui partage tout ce qu'elle a appris.

[EPISODE EN ANGLAIS]

🏟️ Au programme de cet épisode :

Pourquoi trois fondatrices sans background sportif ont vu ce que personne d'autre ne voyait en 2019 : les meilleures joueuses du monde jouaient dans une ligue que personne ne regardait
Le problème fondamental du sport féminin à l'époque : un produit bradé et dévalué
Comment Angel City a construit un modèle où mission et capital coexistent, avec 10 % des revenus de partenariat reversés à la communauté dès le premier jour
La structure d'investissement syndiquée : plus de 100 investisseurs individuels, dont des athlètes, pour démocratiser l'accès au capital sportif
Pourquoi elles ont investi cinq fois plus que la moyenne dès le départ, dans le staff, les joueuses et l'expérience fan
Le match inaugural : 22 000 fans au BMO Stadium, une victoire, une couverture mondiale. La preuve que ça marche si on fait le travail
Les trois arguments business pour les sponsors du sport féminin : coût d'entrée inférieur, meilleur partage de voix, brand halo incomparable
500 millions de fans aujourd'hui, 800 millions dans cinq ans : pourquoi le sport féminin croît 4,5 fois plus vite que le sport masculin
World7Football, le nouveau projet de Julie Uhrman : une compétition 7v7 avec les meilleurs clubs mondiaux, un format pensé pour les réseaux sociaux et un prize money partagée entre clubs et joueuses
Son moment de sport féminin et sa définition de coalition

💬 Ce qu'elle retient d'Angel City : "We wanted to value the product, we wanted to value the players. Women's sports is now just a good business."

Pour suivre toute l'actualité du business du sport féminin avec SportpowHER, rejoignez nous sur :

🔗Notre site www.sportpowher.com/media pour y lire tous nos articles de fonds

📩Notre newsletter 2x par mois par email, sur www.sportpowher.com/newsletter pour recevoir toutes les news et info de France et à l'international sur les deals, activations et partenariats

📢Notre page LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/sportpowher pour rejoindre tous ceux et toutes celles qui font le sport féminin

👀Notre compte Instagram www.instagram.com/sportpowher

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to Coalition, the podcast of SportpowHER which gives the floor to those who do the business of women's sport. I am Sophie Sauvage and I welcome two times a month champions, companies, clubs, institutions to explore together the economy of women's sport, its development models and the path to build a long-term and ambitious trajectory for all sports and economic actors. Hi, Julie.
Speaker #1
Hi, how are you?
Speaker #0
Very well. I'm so happy to have you on my podcast, Coalition. And it's a pleasure to see you. I just want to recall to everyone that we met like in 2020. And we've been at the board of the NWSL during, what, four years, I think. navigating strange time, but also the beginning of the growth. And I just want to say that you've, to start with the idea that you, with Angel City, you've been writing the playbook for women's pro sports, basically. Can you start with that?
Speaker #1
Yeah, of course. Well. It's a pleasure to be here and it was a pleasure sitting on the board with you. I think we were two of the strongest voices of change or at least acceleration. I think as it relates to Angel City, we approached the club very differently. And I think it starts from the fact that there were three female founders, which is very unusual in sports, even unusual in women's sports, and three female founders that didn't come with a sports background. And whereas many people thought that was a disadvantage, we actually believed and used it to our advantage because we didn't have ingrained beliefs of what is and isn't possible. You have to do it this way. You can't do it that way. We tried it this way at my club. It didn't work. So therefore it won't translate to your club. What we did, we looked at women's sports and women's football as its own standalone opportunity. And what we saw... was the best product in the world. Football is the most followed sport in the world. It's the most played sport in the world. And when you look specifically at the U.S. Women's National Team, they had proved time and again that they were the best players in the world. They won the World Cup in 2015, and then they won the World Cup in 2019. And so we had the best players in the world, arguably, playing in this league, the National Women's Soccer League, but nobody knew about it. We didn't have broadcast coverage. We didn't have teams in major markets, large DMAs like Los Angeles. And we felt that if you have the best players in the world, you're halfway there with the best product in the world. Now people just need to know it exists. But the biggest challenge with women's sports at that time in 2019 was no one talked about it. No one invested in it. No one believed in it and no one really valued the product. It was treated as a charity or it was treated as an afterthought or it was treated as a very inexpensive proposition. Here's a $5 ticket, come and see. And the problem with that is you're actually devaluing the product. You're saying that, you know, if I don't spend a lot of money on the ticket and something else comes up, I don't need to show up. And so in building Angel City, we wanted to value the product. We wanted to value the players. And we also needed to build a community. We were entering a very busy marketplace where there were 11 professional sports teams, including USC and UCLA, which are two collegiate teams that act like professional sports teams. And we also have the beach and the mountains to compete against. And so we knew that we needed the community to believe in Angel City. And to do that, we wanted to build a club that had strong values. And we talked about our mission being using sport and entertainment to drive to equity, that through our club, through our platform, through our voice, we would be able to drive to not only pay equity for the players, but visibility equity for women and women's sports and gender equity, recognizing that that would take time, but build it with our community. And so for us, we built an organization where mission and capital could coexist, where we would build with our community, lead with impact, give back to our community. but also build a product that valued these players and these athletes in this competition. And knowing if we did it right, this is actually an asset that investors would want because the enterprise value would grow over time and eventually we would get to profitability.
Speaker #0
Yes. And I mean, you said mission. And for me, what was really remarkable was mission and capital. Exactly. You didn't. I mean, it's not to be opposed. It's mission and capital. And this purpose driven project that you've led, you've done it as seriously on the mission part as on the capital part. and I would say on the... building the structure. One thing that I was very impressed with is that you've decided, but because also you're the best in business, you've decided to bring on board the best in business, you know, like Jess Smith or other people. At that time, I had in mind that clubs were more recruiting, you know, at low budget. And saying, OK, this is a job at 200K, but we have only 100. So we're going to start with someone at 100. But then, you know, if you want to grow, you need the best in business. And that's something that you've brought from day one, actually. And I think the clarity of the project that you had really helped bring these people on board.
Speaker #1
You can't say that you want to drive to gender equity and pay equity and not mean it. Um, you know, one of the things I heard early on with sports is that you don't have to pay people very much money because they all want to work in it. Everyone wants to be in sports, so you don't have to pay them very much. But again, you're not valuing their experience, their skills. You're not valuing what they bring to the table. And at some point, um, that matters. And so when we went to build our team, it was actually, um, we were, I was pretty intentional about bringing people in from other markets, other sectors. not just sports again, because if you looked at the women's sports landscape at that time, if you looked at the WNBA and NWSL, again, it was in its eighth season. There was no commissioner. It was unclear if it was going to get to a ninth season. Um, the WNBA was in its 25th season. Nobody was even talking about it. This was pre Caitlin Clark. Right. And so, um, Hiring someone from women's sports didn't make any sense. It's like they didn't prove success with where they were. Why would I want to hire them? And so I was really strategic about actually hiring outside sports for marketing, for brand, for PR. I definitely wanted someone that had relationships within the sports ecosystem, but also in pop culture and venture capital and entertainment. because again, we wanted to build. Angel City differently. We thought of Angel City as a global brand. And the reason we did that was because if you're a global brand, you drive the most attention and awareness, which ultimately possibly drives the most revenue that we could then, you know, convert into impact. And so why wouldn't you want to build at the highest level? We never thought of ourselves as a local team or as an LA team. We are a global brand. We're a global team with a global fan base with the strongest most passionate fan base, obviously in our backyard here in Los Angeles. And so we tried to bring people from different sectors. Having said that being new to sports, um, and my, you know, co-founders Natalie Portman, the actress and activist and Karen Nortman, the venture capitalist, there were some roles that we really did need sports experience. And one in particular that you mentioned was sponsorship and ticketing, um, and Jess Smith. that's a funny story. So I heard through the grapevine that Jess Smith was fantastic. I sent her a cold email on LinkedIn, which really started off with, you know, you don't know who I am, but I'm working on this unique project in Los Angeles. I'd love to talk to you. And I'm so grateful that she responded to that and shared and shared vision with her. What was great about Jess and her background was that she didn't come from the NFL or the premier league. She didn't come from the best of the best. She didn't come from the Lakers or the Dodgers or the Yankees, the best teams. She didn't even come from the best leagues, arguably. She came out of minor league baseball. She came out of hockey. And then she spent time at the MLS, but a team that was probably in the lower quadrant. And that was important to me because her success was based on her work, how hard they had to work. If you work at the NFL or, you know, the Dodgers, people are calling you, right? They want to be your sponsor. So I wanted someone who knew how to go out and get it. And Jess was not only an incredible leader, but... an incredible saleswoman and really believed our mission. When she came on board and we talked about how we wanted to lead this organization with impact, we wanted to set higher expectations on and off the pitch. We realized that to be truly authentic. and to live our values, we could not sacrifice one for the other. So the question became, how do we instill impact into everything we do? And the first conversation was around sponsorship. And so early on, we created the Angel City Sponsorship Model, where we give 10% of our sponsorship dollars back into the community. We put a little over $4 million now back into the community, into our social impact platform, verticals, essentials. and education driving towards equity. And when we announced that, the response was really funny. I mean, the business press gave us a lot of attention, but we had club owners and CBOs call us and say, what are you doing? You're giving away money before you've even taken a dollar, and do you know how hard this is? And we said, yes, but we said it's in line and consistent with our values and we think. It's a competitive advantage when we go and talk to brands because it's not just about the radio spots, the TV spots, or the in-stadium activations. It's about how we're going to show up together, living our values, and driving that impact in the community. The net result of that was we have partnered with brands that have never supported women's sports, that have never supported sports, and we have actually driven greater value knowing that 10% of it is going back. Because it means that we don't have to devalue our sponsors and we don't really need to negotiate. Because if you want to negotiate with us, that means that maybe we're not values aligned. And so it became this bar with which we were able to judge partners and partners can judge us.
Speaker #0
I think one of the very smart things you did also was to approach it really like a startup, you know, and with raising funds regularly. But after every success, actually, you know, signing this and then you go for a fundraising, signing that and you go for... And then everything was really structured in a way where you could take the most, make the most of every business success that you were achieving. That was very impressive, actually. Plus the star power around the team. But I think that the star power was the result from the project, actually. You don't bring these people into a project that is not so well written and executed, I think.
Speaker #1
Thank you. I mean, when we had the idea for Angel City, right? We want to build this platform for impact and profit. We want to give back to the community. We want to drive women's football forward. And we want to invest. in the game day experience, in our players, in the product, in the pitch, in the community, we got a hundred no's. People that didn't believe in what we were doing, didn't understand that we could be impact and profit, didn't understand if we were a sports team or a charity, didn't understand the platform we were using. And we were actually getting very concerned that we weren't going to be able to pull this out. We started fundraising in October. Um, we were towards the end of the year and we hadn't gotten to a yes yet. Um, and then Natalie said, why don't you talk to my good friend, Eva Longoria? She's Latina. She loves football. See what she thinks. And I gave the pitch to, to, to Eva. And when I was done, she said, I'm in. And I said, why? And she laughed and she goes, I understand. I understand what it means to be a platform. She goes, I'm a platform. I use my platform to. to promote my latest movie, but I also use my platform to promote my latest social cause or what I care about. And that's what you're planning to be with Angel City. You are a platform. And if you do, you can be more than one thing. You can use your voice for more than one thing, as long as your ultimate goal and purpose is the same. And that was the aha moment for us, which was instead of getting one person to write a very large check who believed in Angel City like we did, Let's get individuals who... believe in what it is we're building and want to leverage their platform and their voice to promote it. And that's when we started building Angel City like a startup. And yes, we have over a hundred people on our cap table, which most people think is a challenge. But for me, it's been the most unbelievable gift. Everybody came into Angel City because they believe in our purpose. They want to participate. They want to use their voice to help us drive towards equity. Um, and they all contributed whatever it is they could afford. And to your point, every time we hit a new milestone, we were able to go out and raise money from new people that wanted to be a part of this. And so instead of having one person talk about angel city, I've got a hundred, I've got 120, I've got 150. And in. 2020, 2021, that was important because nobody was talking about women's sports. We have 13 former U.S. Women's National Team players on our cap table. Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Shannon McMillan, Shannon Box. We have Billie Jean King and Alana Kloss and Lindsey Vonn and Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Gardner. And that was all really important because they believed in Angel City. And I wasn't paying them. to do a social post. They wanted to do it because they wanted to see it grow and succeed. I wasn't giving them free tickets to come to a game. They were buying tickets because they knew that that was how you grow, right? You need to drive revenue. You can't give everything away for free. And it allowed us to build a team of believers, which was really important. It also gave these women and these athletes access to an investment that prior to us never you was never possible, right? You know, typically investment in sports, you're writing a hundred million dollar checks and there's very few of us that can do that. And we wanted to build a diverse investor group in the same way we wanted to build a diverse and inclusive fan base and squad. And this allowed us the opportunity to do that and get people that have never really had a financial stake at growing something they love a seat at the table.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and that's really what is impressive with Angel City. Because you mentioned this idea to build a global brand from day one, but it's much more than that. It's build a new culture and use the football platform for that.
Speaker #1
Yes.
Speaker #0
And, you know, mixing everything around the football game that is the most played across the world. I think what... you did very well. And that was bold too, is, you know, use every event, every big event and be there with your brand. I remember what you did in Australia. I was not there, but I mean, I think it was a huge platform for you. You had this house of equity or something like that, I think.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So look, our mission was bigger than just winning games. Winning games is important. And you you know, we speak a lot about the impact and the values, but it's not, you know, it's not at the sacrifice of football. Like we want to win. We want to win every game. It took us time to get the right combination and to learn. It's hard to be an expansion team, um, and win right out the gate. And, um, we're five years later and we feel like we have the right coach, the right sporting director, the right club. And, you know, right now we sit at the top of the table, which is, it's very early in the season, but I like to say that I can, I like, I can, um, but, you know, Again, being able... you know, being really intentional about using our platform to drive to equity and using this moment in time where people are talking about female empowerment and female equity and pay equity was important. And so during the 2023 World Cup in New Zealand, Australia, we created an event called the Angel City Equity House. And it was a one day event where we brought individuals, women from multiple industries, not just sport. to talk about equity and how they're driving for equity in their practice and in their company. And it was absolutely incredible. We had the secretary general of FIFA, a number of federations and leagues, but also different organizations like we had Netball and we had AFL. And it was just about bringing people together so that we could learn and network. And that was really key, creating an environment where women could actually network together. We followed that up in 2024 at the... Paris Olympics. We did another equity house summit, over 20 different industries, 15 different organizations. That was incredible. And from that, we've seen businesses start and funds start. And again, creating an opportunity for networking and conversation around equity, where we can learn from each other in a safe environment. And you would say that's incredibly unusual. Here's a team in Los Angeles. What are they doing in Australia? What are they doing in Paris? But we're there because our platform and our mission is so much bigger than just women games. And we know that in those rooms, yes, we're speaking to sponsors and we're speaking to brands, future investors. So there is value to us. Um, and there's no reason to just confine ourselves just to, just to Los Angeles.
Speaker #0
Yeah. One thing that was, um, I mean, I would say I would never imagine in 2020 that it would have gone so fast. You know?
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
It's, it's, it's like when I, When I speak about that here in France, I'm saying I think it's much more than $1 billion invested around the NWSL. I mean, if you put everything between the expansion fees, the investment in facilities, in stadium, in people, it's more than $1 billion. And honestly, when we... acquired with Olympic Lyonnais the reign for 3.5, which was already something. Wow. And so there has been something at some point that has triggered the growth. And what is it?
Speaker #1
So I think it's a combination of things. And... um One was, I would say, kind of the social political nature of what was happening around 2019. Again, driven by the U.S. Women's National Team, they sued U.S. Soccer for pay equity. They basically said, enough is enough. Look at our championships. Look at our success on the pitch. Look at the viewership. Look at the merch sales. We are very underpaid for the impact we're having compared to the men. And they stopped talking about it and they took him to court and they won. That was, that was, you know, a trigger point. We'll get women in Hollywood and the Me Too movement. And again, enough is enough and, and, and female empowerment and creating equal access and opportunity for women. Natalie Portman, my co-founder during the Oscars, I believe it was in 2019, she went up with Ron Howard to give the award for the best director. And she goes up there and she says, and here are your nominees for the best male directors. Kind of highlighting the fact that they're these incredible women and that they're not being appreciated and they're not being recognized. Abby Wambach talked about it when she received the Icon Award from ESPN. She received this Icon Award, basically the highest award that any athlete can get from ESPN. And she receives it at the same time as Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant. So she is considered the GOAT, the best of the best with these men. And she looks at them and she's like, God, you know, they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They can do anything they want. You know, as soon as I get my award, I have to figure out how to get insurance and how to pay my mortgage. And we started talking about this disparity. So all of that was happening. But it wasn't just a woe is me. We were also succeeding. So the women are fighting for pay equity and then they go ahead and they win the World Cup in 2019. And then honestly, here comes Angel City, who says, you know what? Women's sports isn't a charity. Women's sports is something of value. And look at all of these incredibly smart people, investors and athletes who invested in this. It wasn't just one, you know, Billie Jean King, right? Kobe Jones. Um, you know, again, Natalie, Eva, Jen, and it, and, and it's like, what's going on. And then we spoke about it every place we could in every circle we could, because we wanted to write that playbook. We wanted other people to follow. And then we invested. And I think that is one of the biggest differences is that we didn't invest a little bit. We said we want to build the best game day experience in sports, not women's sports, sports. We called it the greatest show on earth. How can we create an experience for everyone? Not just women, not just young girls, not just girl dads, but everyone. How can we create an inclusive, you know, diverse experience where everyone feels welcome and safe? And so we invest it. a lot of money in the pregame experience, in the game day experience with pyro and lights and live concerts. And on, you know, our graphics package was done by a firm that does the NFL football teams, right? So we wanted to value the product and the players. And that meant investment, investing in our community, not just with the 10% model, but we built a street team, over a dozen people. We did over 250 events going everywhere, letting people know that we exist. what we stand for and trying to get them to want to become a part of building this club with us. And so, you know, we are, you know, I would say our investment day one was probably, and you could vouch for this, was probably five times more than the average team in our staff, in our players, in the experience. And so when you came to an Angel City match, you were blown away. Like you didn't. you didn't look at it as a women's game. You're like, that was an awesome game. And I'm going to come back. And for those people that don't weren't there, we created that FOMO moment. And so It was about treating the product the way it should be treated. And then the fans follow. You don't want to go to a game and sit in a 20,000 seat stadium with 2,000 people. That says something. You know, whether you, you know, and at that time you have Megan Rapinoe and Carly Lloyd and Alex Morgan and Kristen Press and Tobin Heath. It's like, and there's 2,000 fans, but you build a product where you 22,000 fans. Now I want to be there and I don't want to miss it. And When we did that and we proved that the fans would come, sponsors, we got the highest kit sponsor deal ever. It's $2.5 million from DoorDash. Highest kit. Now it's like, hold on a second. I don't want to miss this. And you started to see clubs starting to invest more and, you know, and leveraging, you know, a lot of what we did. Kansas City came in, paid $5 million, brought in Patrick Mahomes and Brittany Mahomes, right, to draw, you know. their fan base in, you know, and then you get, you know, the founders at Bay, right, with, you know, Ali Wagner and, and, and, and, and, and Brandy Chastain. So it was, there was this value in building this syndicate of investors, but really investing in the product so that you felt that it was equal to not lesser than.
Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. That's, I mean. You have to work on the product if you want to convince people. I think one thing that was very important for me and what convinced me at first of this potential of women's sport was exactly the final of the World Cup in Lyon, actually, in 2019, because it was in Lyon, in France. And so US Women's National Team wins. Suddenly the stadium was like equal pay, And at the beginning, there was like 15,000 American people in the stadium singing. But at the end, I can tell that it was probably 40,000 people. I was like equal pay, equal pay. And it was not my team, but it was so powerful. And I think one of the things that investors have understood... understood from day one was this link, you know, between the people and the players. This very authentic and strong link. And how can it happen since there is no media, nobody talks about it, but still 15,000 people come from America to support the team and support their fights. So I thought it was really something special, much more powerful than anything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. The only other thing I would add to that trigger to why then is the rise in social media. So to your point, when you talked about how these players had a connection with their fans and how could they when there was no TV, it really was social media. They could go and talk one-to-one to their fan base and tell their fan base who they are and where you can walk. come watch their play and what do they stand for? You know, and we had players that were using their voice, Megan Rapinoe, and not afraid to use her voice to talk about what matters to them. And that I think really helped educate us who they were. And again, not just as athletes, but as people, and then you really fall in love with them, right? And you want to support the sport and then you have clubs that come along that treat them in the right way. Um, I think that was really growth and now You know, the stats support everything that we were saying back then, right? You know, last year, Deloitte said, you know, the global revenue for women's sports would be 2.5 million. It was more than that last year. And they're forecasting a growth rate to 3 billion this year, which sounds great, right? Except when you know that the entire sports market is 500 billion, right? We're only 6% of that. So we still have a long way to go. But that one way to go is the opportunity. It's the, I can get in early. you It's not I'm paying tens of thousands. Like, yeah, I might be paying a couple million dollars, but it's going to be worth, you know, that times five, five years from now. And so I want to get in early and I want to support, you know, this is a women's sports and even women's football.
Speaker #0
It's not just supported by women. So it's amazing, right? You get 50% of the population and then some because the men are supporting it as well. And it's growing that way. We talk about women's football as 500 million fans globally growing to 800 million fans. 800 million fans globally in five years. So how do we monetize that? How do we lend into that? How do brands and sponsors get the opportunity to ride that wave? You're not seeing any other sport grow that fast. They already have a large base. And if your brand... There's tons of competition for eyeballs. In women's sports, you know, I always talk about that there are three massive advantages to supporting a women's team. One, financially, it's just less. It's not cheap. It's not inexpensive. My friend of kid is going to be millions of dollars. It's not cheap, but it's less than men. So there's at least some benefit of a financial growth. Two, you have greater share of voice. There are fewer brands supporting women's sports. So I might be one of five or I might be one of 30 versus one of a hundred. So I get more share of voice. I get more attention. I get more brand recognition and awareness. And like, that's, that's playing out in the statistics. Women's sports is outpacing men's sports in sponsorship growth by four and a half times. And then the last thing is probably the most important for the longevity of your brand is the brand halo. like the positive brand equity you get in supporting women's sports today. Like you support men's sports. Nobody cares. You know, like sports business journal, isn't talking about it. You become the head sponsor, the league, you know, a seven year sponsor of, um, the new Atlanta team Affleck. Everybody's talking about it. Right. So like you, you get that benefit as well. And so, um, there's a lot of opportunity in growth still, and you're still getting a, you know, an incredible four and a half times return on that dollar. you know, women's sports is now good business. It's not just right business. It's good business.
Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely. I want to come to two other questions that I have for you, Julie, because you've moved to a new role with Angel City. You've been the president of the club from 2020 till a few months ago, a few weeks ago. That's one thing. So we will speak about what's next. But But just before, because you have tech experience and you've navigated at the forefront of many industries, what is your thought about how AI can support the growth of women's sports? What are the main direction that you see with AI?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I'll talk about it both on the... Yeah. I'll talk about it both. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker #1
It's AI. I think in English it's AI.
Speaker #0
I'll talk about it on the business side and the sporting side. The sporting side is probably more obvious, right? It's a way for us to gather information, statistics, details, um, about players and be able to create, um, analysis of them and suggestions of, you know, regarding that. So it allows, you know, when we started. there was no database of female athletes. Like it didn't exist, right? There was like five or six different databases you had to go to, but not one was comprehensive. Not one spoke the same language. So think about the benefit of AI saying, Hey, um, I'm looking for a number nine that has an average speed of this, that has a, you know, has a, you know, a goal percentage of this that, you know, is left footed. Right. And they you ability to utilize AI to find that talent pool and evaluate them in different situations. It'll allow the teams to utilize data more quickly to make better decisions. It's not going to replace the human making the decision, but it will gather information in a way that we've never been able to do before. On the business side, I see the biggest impact really in marketing, in fan identification and fan growth. One is just in the pure marketing and communicating to fans. Today, you put out an email, you put out a social post. It speaks to a certain segment. And today, in any company, whether it's sports or not, you identify who your customer is and you segment it. We have a soccer fan. We have a girl dad. We have the LGBTQ audience, whatever you think. And so you create content for that group. And by doing so, you're actually alienating. an entire group of fans. But you don't have the bandwidth and you don't have the manpower to create individualized content and to figure out what the right funnel or distribution channel it is. AI changes that, right? I can create a piece of content for every individual fan and get it specifically to them in a much faster, cheaper way. So I think it allows us to communicate to our fans more directly and with benefits that speak more to them. And then secondarily, it helps us identify who our fan base is. And so I think it gives us the information that we still have to create what's the right offer, right? What is the right visual treatment? But instead of saying, okay, we only have the bandwidth and the time to communicate to this group. Now it's like, now we can communicate to more and we don't alienate. And I think that's really important. AI also allows us to develop insights more quickly, right? To throw in a bunch of data and to say, okay, like what is common? What is unique? What surprised you about this data? Right? I think it allows us to just be faster at understanding kind of who our market is so that then we can go proactively and develop programs with them. So I think it's going to, I think it's going to enhance the fan experience. I think it's going to allow us to be more inclusive as a fan, as a team. And on the sporting side, I think it'll help us, you know, uncover talent that we, you know, may not have known existed or, or, you know, or, or, you know, incredible athletes. that just weren't on our radar before.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I see another benefit, but seeing it from France, and we're not at the same stage of development, and many clubs have very small teams. And I think the benefit of AI could be to, if you learn how to use it well, you know, to enhance your capacities of work. Because... And to make the most of the capital that you have or that of the capital that you don't have. You know what I mean? Oh, no. When you operate with small teams. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one thing that I see. And so now, Julie, what's next? I know you're in London at the end of next month. No, this next month. Yes. We're still in April. So can you speak a little bit about that? Yeah.
Speaker #0
No, I'm coming to London. for the World Sevens Football London Edition, competition 7v7 with just WSL clubs. I've been part of World Sevens from the beginning with Jen McAsee. The idea behind World Sevens Football is that the sport is growing and we want to be able to continue to grow the sport. We want to invest in clubs and invest in players and invest in the ecosystem that is growing women's football. you What we find is with women's football is the market is incredibly fragmented. You don't get the best be best every weekend, and you certainly don't get the best players playing against each other every weekend. And that's because some are in the WSL, some are in Barcelona, some are at Lyon, some are at Angel City. And the competitions that we get the most excited about, right, and we talk about and get the highest viewership and the highest attendance or competitions where the best plays the best. And that typically happens in the Champions League. or in the World Cup or the Olympics or the Championship Cup that FIFA just did. And we wanted to create an opportunity where we could get the best playing the best, which is the best experience for fans, but also be able to drive revenue for this sport. Something unique for sponsors and for broadcasters. And 7v7 is exciting. It's fast. It's what the players love playing. We see an average of five and a half goals per game. We create a festival-like experience with a DJ and smoke and fun. And the players are encouraged to celebrate goals and to create moments of pure joy. And what you find is that you have incredible football. It's super fun and exciting. It brings in a younger audience because this content is really made for digital and social. And we're getting the best play the best. So World Sevens football has already had two tournaments. The first one was last May in Estrel, Portugal. And we had. Man City, Man United, Bayern Munich, Rosengard, Ajax, Roma, Benfica. It was incredible. We had a second tournament at the end of last year in the United States and you had Kansas City and San Diego, but you had Flamingo and Chivas and Club America. So you're bringing again, the best clubs in the world, creating incredible competition. And then on top of that, a meaningful prize pool. Again, how do we value these players? So we had a $5 million prize pool where the winnings are split equally between the club and the players. And that's really important. We want to value and pay players. But we also want to invest in the ecosystem and the clubs that are growing the sport. Man, Manchester United came in second place in our first tournament. And I remember talking to their coach, Mark Skinner, and they won a million dollars. And he's like, Julie, this money is transformative. Like you have no idea how this is going to improve our club, facilities, operations, equipment, staff. And that's what we need. We need these clubs to continue to grow and invest. And we need to create these competitions that the fans love to bring in a new, younger fan base. and um The goal is to have, you know, multiple global tournaments a year, but kind of building out that pyramid. And so we're so excited to partner with the WSL. They're so creative and innovative. They saw this as a great opportunity for their clubs and their fans to sort of end the season on a high. If you don't sort of make it to the FA Cup. And, you know, we're excited to be playing at G-Tech Stadium with the support of Brentford. But it's... Again, it's an opportunity for these clubs to build their brands, for the players to get closer to their fan base so that they can continue to monetize. And it's a new format that I think is going to continue to gain in popularity.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's short. It's fun. The players love it. And you have this significant prize money and huge reach, actually. I mean, just for the first one, you had a huge reach. Everybody was talking about it. So, yeah, congrats for that and happy. Happy that you were in this project because I think it's going to be meaningful and fun. So two things that matter.
Speaker #0
Both works. Yeah.
Speaker #1
We need the joy, you know, we need the joy of the sports too, I think. And W7 is exactly that. You have the celebration, the fun and joy. Julie, in our podcast, we have two signature questions. So I'm now going for that. So the first one is... What is your moment of women's sports?
Speaker #0
For me, it was Angel City's home opener in April 22. You know, we had three goals for that home opener. We wanted to sell out, which I don't think ever happened in the NWSL in a meaningful way. But it wasn't for that. It was for us. We wanted to have global attention and recognition about the game and we wanted to win. Two of the three things I could control, and we were so fortunate that all three happened. We beat North Carolina 2-1, which is the most winning team in NWSL history. We sold out BMO Stadium with 22,000 fans. And I remember the Guardian did this photo expose on the home opener. And to me, it really signified that women's sports has arrived. If you do the work, if you make the investment, the fans, the sponsors, the broadcasters, they will show up. And that game really proved it. And, you know, it's funny since then, we've had a lot of sellouts and we've had a lot of big game attendances. And I was laughing to myself earlier this week, Barcelona posted that they'd already sold 51,000 tickets to the second leg of the semi-final champions league game with Bayern Munich. And, you know, it was a post. You didn't have the whole world, you know, repost it because it's not. it's not an anomaly anymore, which is so incredible and amazing. We expect 51,000. We expect Emirates to sell out when, when Arsenal plays Chelsea. Um, we expect Angel City to sell out and that's a fundamental shift. Um, and one that is continuing and it just proves the strength, um, and growth of women's sports.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Great, great memory. And second question is, um, what does coalition mean for you?
Speaker #0
Um, It means all boats need to rise. It means that we have to work together to raise minimum standards. Right. You can't just have Angel City being successful and no one else. So coalition to me is about working in partnership to grow it together and, you know, and holding each other accountable. I think that's I think that's the only thing that is potentially holding this sport back. our women's sports back is that we allow, we allow teams not to. invest at the level that's required to drive the fan interest for it to grow. And so it's supporting us and it's about holding each other accountable.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And I think one chance we have is that we are ready to share a lot of things. You shared your playbook. You wrote it and then you shared it. I mean, you didn't keep it secret like it's going to be just us. And so this opportunity, I think it really matters. But you're right. You have to be accountable. And yeah, that matters. Julie, thank you. It was really a pleasure to have you. I think everyone will learn a lot of things from what you said. And I really hope that people here in France learn from that. And that at some point we are able to move with capital and not only mission.
Speaker #0
Love it. Thank you for having me.
Speaker #1
This was Coalition, the podcast of Sport Power. Thank you for listening to us. And to follow all the business news of women's sport, subscribe to our LinkedIn page and to our newsletter on the sportpower.com site. And above all, join us in the Coalition.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About Coalition, le podcast de l'économie et du business du sport féminin

🥌Coalition, c’est le podcast qui met en lumière celles et ceux qui font grandir le sport féminin.

Parce que le changement ne se fera pas seul, Coalition explore les stratégies, les partenariats et les modèles qui construisent un écosystème durable et inclusif.

Pendant 30 minutes, nos invité.es partagent au micro de Sophie Sauvage leur vision et leur expérience pour faire grandir l'économie du sport féminin.

Un espace d’inspiration, d’influence et d’impact, où se croisent business, sport et engagement.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

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