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Kara Nortman predicted at the end of 2024 that women’s sports would see a continued influx of investment after a year of growth, with spikes from things like the Caitlin Clark effect bleeding “into more consistency.”
Today, her pioneering women’s sports investment firm, Monarch Collective, backed that claim with capital.
The fund behind National Women’s Soccer League franchises Angel City Football Club, BOS Nation FC, and the San Diego Wave FC announced that it increased the size of its fund from $150 million to $250 million with help from both legacy and recent investors. Among the Monarch Collective mainstays chipping in more funding are Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden, former Netflix executive Cindy Holland, and Annie Imhoff.
Newcomers include Beth Brooke, the former global vice chairman of public policy at Ernst and Young; and Elizabeth Yee, evp of programs at The Rockefeller Foundation.
“When we started Monarch in early 2023, there was a real vision for the growth and opportunity in women’s sports, and that thesis has just continued to play out on a steady basis since then,” said Jasmine Robinson, managing partner at Monarch Collective. “So seeing the great growth that’s happened around attendance and viewership and revenue, we feel the market is moving in a really positive way and that this is a trend that will continue for decades to come.”
How to build a winning team
While Monarch Collective’s earliest iteration made visible progress in founding and growing sports franchises, Robinson noted that a larger fund meant that it could help bolster other efforts within women’s sports—including buildings where women’s teams are the primary tenant, like CPKC Stadium in Kansas City. It also means funding for dedicated women’s sports training facilities, like those being built by the NWSL’s Portland Thorns, Bay FC, and Utah Royals—as well as WNBA teams in the Bay Area, Indianapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Brooklyn, and Portland.
Robinson added that increased capital could also help leagues and teams pursue strong management candidates and build more robust organizations without being limited by salary constraints. In fact, Nortman predicted last year that an even or near-even financial playing field could be a tiebreaker for sports professionals considering a path through the women’s game.
“Here’s a prediction, that you’re gonna see more and more people move from men’s sports to women’s sports because they want to believe in themselves and understand their capacity to take something from zero to one,” Nortman said at the time. “I think you’re going to see more and more people in women’s sports kind of really get more ambitious about what the next step of their career is and want to get aligned with ownership groups that really value it.”
Joining those who’ve already made the jump from men’s to women’s sports, former Washington Commanders brand and strategy leader Amina Bulman left the NFL to become chief revenue officer of Monarch Collective’s Boston NWSL franchise. Meanwhile, former Detroit Tigers and Red Wings marketing and communications head Emily Neenan just joined Monarch’s San Diego NWSL team in January.
Checking the scoreboard
Monarch Collective pointed out that the NWSL reached 2 million total attendance in 2024, and the WNBA more than tripled its number of sell-outs in the last year. Meanwhile, more than 60 million global viewers tuned into the 2024 UEFA Women’s Champions League Final, while nearly 19 million viewers saw last April’s NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.
Behind all of that growth is fervent fan support and investment. A new report from TV outcomes and data company EDO revealed that women’s sports spiked to a 56% increase in ad impact year over year, fueled by a 131% increase in viewership in 2024. Women’s sports ads also brought 40% more ad impact than the average primetime ad last year—especially for brands including Skims, Fabletics, Bombas, Vuori, and Athleta.
Going into 2025, a report from Wasserman’s women-focused practice, The Collective, and RBC found TV viewership is expected to grow 32% for the WNBA and 24% for the NWSL by 2027. During that time, which includes the start of the new WNBA media rights deal in 2026, team valuations for both leagues are expected to rise from $2.6 billion for 26 teams to $4.3 billion for 32 teams—with increases in live attendance and TV viewership driving the majority of that growth.
That same report from The Collective found that despite women’s sports depending on sponsorship dollars more than men’s sports, 90% of sports sponsorships still go to the men’s game. That’s also in spite of a women’s sports audience that contains more women, is more educated, has more money, engages more with athletes outside the sport, and is more receptive to their brand sponsors.
It’s why Nortman predicted that “the women’s sports market will be bigger than the men’s sports market in my lifetime” and will prove more appealing to both younger fans and fashion and beauty brands typically shut out of sports. Her Monarch Collective investors have agreed with their dollars.
“One of the things that’s been really special about building Monarch is that we have a really incredible limited partner base who believes deeply in the opportunity in women’s sports and also believes deeply in advancing gender equity in sports,” Robinson said, adding, “It’s a big group that already naturally wants to raise their hand, and this is sort of a good way to get them activated.”
