Denver was named the winner of a new women’s pro soccer franchise last month, in part because it plans to build one of the first stadiums exclusively for the league. WSJ’s Rachel Bachman explains the seismic shift in women’s sports - and the big money that is coming with it. Further Reading: -The Force in Women’s Sports That’s Even More Powerful Than Caitlin Clark -No One Wanted to Finance Their Stadium. Now Every Game Is a Sellout. Further Listening: -Can the WNBA Cash in on the Caitlin Clark Effect? -The Kiss Rocking Women’s Soccer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I have the great honor of officially granting the 16th NWSL team to the city of Denver.
Last month, a group from Denver won a competitive race to get a new team for the National Women's Soccer League. It paid $110 million to start a new team, a record amount for women's soccer and for all of women's sports. But something else about Denver's bid stood out to our sports reporter, Rachel Bachman.
Perhaps most important, they pledged to build a practice facility and a stadium solely for this team. What's notable about that? About a year ago, women's professional stadiums essentially didn't exist really in the world. In the world? In the world. There might have been a playing field somewhere, but there was not a stadium for women really anywhere professionally.
Rachel says building a stadium signals a new level of investment coming for women's sports.
Owners are willing to spend sums of money in ways that they had never been willing before. That's a huge change. It's hard to overstate what a big change that is. In the past, when people invested in professional women's sports, it was typically very short-term.
So the fact that owners are now saying, we think these leagues are going to grow to the point that even though we're investing hundreds of millions of dollars, we are going to get our money back. A new era. It is a new era. I would say it is an unprecedented era of investor confidence in women's professional team sports.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Monday, February 10th. Coming up on the show, how big money is making its way into women's soccer.
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