Angel City FC founder and investor is going all-in on women’s sports: ‘The biggest value creation opportunity I see in my career’

– A good sport. It certainly seems like we’re living through a watershed moment for women’s sports. This year’s NCAA women’s basketball championship drew a record 9.9 million viewers, smashing the previous record of 5.7 million. The WNBA’s audience has grown nearly 70% from last year. And FIFA sold the broadcast rights to this year’s Women’s World Cup separately from the men’s for the first time. 

Veteran investor Kara Nortman agrees. “We’ve been there for five-plus years, but now the data is showing up in more conventional ways on broadcast media and in stadiums and things of that nature,” Nortman told Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast. “So I do think the world is paying attention with each incremental data point that comes out, which is wonderful,” she says.

Nortman has witnessed much of the revolution firsthand. Her journey from tech investor—she’s the former managing partner at Upfront Ventures—to the world of women’s sports started at the Women’s World Cup Finals in 2015. “Sitting in those stands, I truly felt 12,” she said. Afterwards, she wanted more but was unable to find outlets for her fandom. “I couldn’t buy a jersey, watch content, meet up with these people again,” she said. 

Courtesy of Monarch Collective

Fast forward eight years and Nortman has helped establish spaces where fans of female sports can show their support. She cofounded Angel City FC, the Los Angeles-based women’s soccer team, and in March launched the Monarch Collective, a $100 million fund to invest in women’s sports, with Jasmine Robinson, a former partner at VC firm Causeway and ex-executive at the San Francisco 49ers.

Nortman says her business pitch for women’s sports focuses on a “virtuous cycle.” Once people are “showing up and caring about something,” she says, “they become these very active consumers of content, of merchandise.” 

Plus, there’s the tremendous upside. “On the women’s side, we have less than a billion dollars in total global revenue, whereas on the men’s side, it’s half a trillion,” she says. “I actually think it is going to be the biggest value creation opportunity I see in my career and many see in their career.”

Another women’s sports milestone is currently underway: the USWNT is currently playing in their first Women’s World Cup since succeeding in their fight for equal pay. (The USWNT’s historic contract remains an outlier globally.) That victory has changed the tournament experience, Nortman says. “The last World Cup felt almost existential. It was the feeling of ‘Wow, we need to go all the way to really win this pay equity battle.’” 

With the equal pay victory clinched, the U.S. soccer squad now can focus on what’s at stake this year: a potential three-peat, a feat no team—men’s or women’s—team has ever achieved.

You can listen to Nortman’s full interview on Apple and Spotify.

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

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PARTING WORDS

"If you’re a woman at the forefront of something...people are going to downplay your success and say that you’re not doing it right...the best way to get that to stop is to keep being successful at what you’re doing"

—LSU gymnast and TikTok star Livvy Dunne on haters and success