Disney’s Bob Iger, and his wife Willow Bay, agreed to purchase a controlling interest in the US National Women’s Soccer League team Angel City FC for $250mn. This is a record-breaking deal in the league, making it the most valuable female sports team in the entire world.
The agreement, subject to league approval, demonstrates the growing appreciation for sports clubs, and in particular women’s sport. This is the first time the Iger family has ventured into sports ownership.
Angel City FC, a Los Angeles-based club founded in 2020 by Alexis Ohanian and Natalie Portman (co-founder of Reddit), was one of the first investors. Serena Williams was one of the early investors. Ohanian’s wife and tennis star Serena Williams were also among them. Portman, Ohanian, Julie Uhrman, and Gillian Berry will all continue to be on the board.
Through the pandemic, the growth of women’s football and the NWSL in particular has been accelerated. Angel City, the ninth franchise in the league when it was founded in 2020, has since grown to fourteen clubs.
Sixth Street, an investment firm, became the first institution to own a US sports franchise when it invested $125mn in a new franchise called Bay FC. This figure includes a $53mn fee paid by new club owners to the rest to avoid diluting the value of existing clubs.
Bay, dean of University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism will control and serve on Angel City’s Board of Directors and represent the club in the NWSL Board of Governors. According to the team, she and Iger are also investing an additional $50mn in “supporting the club’s growth”.
Bay and Iger are “committed to the club’s goal of driving equity both on and off-field”.
Iger will return to Disney as CEO in 2022 after previously serving in that role between 2005 and 2020. Disney is the owner of the sports-focused cable channel ESPN and the free-to air ABC. According to MoffettNathanson, Disney was the US’s largest linear provider of sports content last year. NWSL has agreements for media rights with ESPN, Paramount’s CBS, Amazon Prime Video and Scripps Sports.
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