Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Yi He is a stealthy but influential woman leading Binance, Simone Biles is getting back on the mat, and we share an excerpt from journalist Macaela MacKenzie’s new book Money, Power, Respect: How Women in Sports Are Shaping the Future of Feminism. Happy Thursday!
– Money, power, respect. Jessica Smith came to Angel City FC after a 20-year career in sports. Angel City “seemed idealistic at the time,” she says, but her gut told her she had to be a part of it. The Los Angeles–based team was cofounded by actor Natalie Portman; she leads an ownership group that reads like an Oscars after-party guest list, two-thirds of whom are women. The team joined the National Women’s Soccer League in 2022.
Smith’s first task as head of revenue was to sell jersey sponsorships—the logos you see on the front, back, and sleeve of pro sport jerseys around the world. What these sponsorship spaces sell for sets the tone for brand investment in the team, serving as a microcosm of a team’s valuation; top-tier men’s soccer teams can sell jersey sponsorships for tens of millions. “I’ll never forget the first [league] call I was on,” Smith tells me. After the perfunctory welcome to the NWSL, they asked what she planned to charge for ACFC’s front of jersey. She named a figure more than twice what would have been considered aggressive for the league. “And I’m not exaggerating, multiple people laughed. They laughed out loud in the meeting,” she says.
Smith had been selling jersey sponsorships her entire career. Even when teams are well-established and have sky-high viewership numbers, it’s hard. “There’s only so many qualified companies who can hold a line item for millions of dollars a year,” she points out. Smith didn’t want to sell the team short by bowing to the pressure of precedent. “I remember having this fire. I was like, Oh, you have no f–ing idea what we’re capable of.” If things were going to change for the league, someone had to push. Backed by the majority-woman ownership group, Smith was able to see a different way to value the jersey. “The [traditional] valuation process skews a way that doesn’t understand what women’s sports is today—it doesn’t measure empathy, it just measures impressions on ESPN,” she says. “But that’s not what this is.” This jersey was not just going to be seen by a few thousand fans every week—it was going to be one of the coolest items of clothing you could own. Natalie Portman was going to be wearing this jersey, Christina Aguilera, Becky G—“She has 32 million Instagram followers alone,” Smith says.
She sold that spot—along with the two other jersey sponsorship spaces—within two months. The club now has well over $5 million in total jersey partnerships, which ACFC believes makes it the highest grossing kit “of any women’s team in the U.S.,” according to club cofounder and president Julie Uhrman. “The market proved it was worth that,” Smith tells me, “but someone had to come in and have the confidence to question the valuation, increase the valuation, and go out and get it done.”
When women own, things change. Before the team had even begun playing, ACFC had sold merchandise in all 50 states and 38 countries. Their opening game sold out a stadium of 22,000 fans—more than the average attendance for many NBA teams. And they are already pioneering a best-in-class player experience for women athletes, including breaking ground on a state-of-the-art practice facility designed to support women and their families (think: on-site day care for athlete moms). And most importantly, ACFC granted their players the right to own a piece of the team’s success, coming up with a creative way to boost players’ salaries by cutting them in on a share of ticket revenues and paying them for the use of their image and likeness.
Smith was “a mess” on ACFC’s opening night. “I’m looking around at 22,000 fans that believed in us enough to buy tickets, I’m looking at our ownership group at the after-party that showed up in their jerseys with their friends and family. I’m looking at the 24 corporate partners that people didn’t think were possible, who paid us fair sponsorship dollars and didn’t undercut our value. It was overwhelming,” she says. “We have so much more to do. But I don’t want to lose sight of that moment of success.”
Excerpted from Money, Power, Respect: How Women in Sports are Shaping the Future of Feminism by Macaela MacKenzie. Copyright © 2023. Available from Seal Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- First lady of crypto. Binance cofounder Yi He is one of the most powerful women in crypto. Now, with her firm under regulatory scrutiny, she's speaking out to defend Binance and reject any comparisons between her relationship with Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao (with whom she has children) and the romance of Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison at now-disgraced FTX. Bloomberg
- Closing the gap. Fintech firm Hello Alice and the Global Entrepreneurship Network are launching a $70 million "Equitable Access Fund" to plug the financing gap experienced by women and founders of color. The new fund aims to provide credit enhancements like guarantees, loan loss reserves, and cash collateral deposits. "The biggest gap we saw to growing businesses was lack of credit history," says Hello Alice cofounder Elizabeth Gore. Tech Crunch
- Going public. Israeli beauty and tech company Oddity, founded by brother-sister duo Oran Holtzman and Shiran Holtzman-Erel, has filed to go public in a thawing IPO market. Oddity, the company behind Il Makiage makeup and Spoiled Child skin and hair products, uses data and A.I. to develop brands and has been profitable since at least 2020. CNBC
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Eva Gouwens has stepped down as CEO of "sustainable" smartphone brand Fairphone. Vernā Myers will leave her role as head of inclusion strategy at Netflix in September.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- She's back. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles is returning to competition later this summer. The U.S. Classic in Chicago will mark Biles's return to the sport after she stepped away from several events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics to protect her mental health. Bloomberg
- Not a nepo baby. Some rivals may paint Trinity Rodman's success in soccer—she's the youngest player ever drafted into the National Women's Soccer League—as a byproduct of her father Dennis Rodman's fame in the NBA. Her coaches say that is far from the truth. Even after her early success as Rookie of the Year, Rodman studies game data to identify her weak spots. Her obsessive approach will make her an asset in the Women's World Cup this summer. Wall Street Journal
- All dogs go to heaven. Scientist and CEO of Loyal Celine Halioua is conducting research on aging dogs to find a drug that could expand their lifespan. She chose dogs because—as she puts it—who doesn't want their dog to live longer?! Plus, dogs' aging symptoms mirror those of humans. Discovering a successful drug for dogs could help unlock a similar treatment for humans. Wired
- 'Padam Padam.' Kylie Minogue, the artist behind the viral "Padam Padam" song, has become the first woman over 50 to break onto the U.K.'s Radio 1 playlist. TikTok is partly behind the song's breakout success, and Minogue is far from the first older artist to find popularity on the platform. Execs at TikTok say the app is changing the music industry. The Guardian
ON MY RADAR
Ilhan Omar won't be silenced Harper's Bazaar
Liz Kingsman is getting famous for being not famous Vulture
What opera singers gained, and lost, performing while pregnant New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"I feel so grateful that I’m able to have this role where I get to be a human woman and not just this sweet, sweet girl.”
—The Bear actress Molly Gordon on being more than the girl next door
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