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Good Thursday Morning. Here’s the rundown of this week’s Sports Business Playbook:

• 📰 This Week’s Topic: Women’s sports is continuing to ascend, and it’s attracting major investment not only within established leagues but now further downstream with even earlier stage opportunities. This week, we are looking at three early stage women’s sports leagues through an investment lens and what is driving the interest.

• 🍸️ Impress Your Friends at Cocktail Party: Want to show off your sports knowledge in a public setting but don’t have time to read the deep dive? Hit the “Impress Your Friends at Cocktail Party” section at the bottom for a CliffsNotes of this week’s topic

• 🤯 “Whoa of the Week”: TMRW Golf is valued at an eye popping 👀 number, and it doesn’t even start until next year

• 💪 Weekly Reminders that Sports are Awesome: Fitting tributes to the “Say Hey Kid,” Snoop is back on the mic for the Olympics, and a first class gesture in honor of one of the best sports speeches ever.

Hey team,

I wrote a piece last June called “PowHer Players,” which focused on the heightened professional investment into women’s sports with established but undervalued leagues like the WNBA and NWSL.

Both are seeing unprecedent levels of growth, which is unlocking larger revenue opportunities and continued investment.

This ascendance was on full display late last year with the release of the NWSL valuations, and it showed up again last week with Sportico’s inaugural WNBA valuations (which I wrote about here).

It’s happening all across the ecosystem, though.

Women’s sports is projected to cross $1 billion in revenue globally this year (up 300% since 2021), and 20+ different teams are playing their first games in the women’s sports landscape in 2024 — showcasing the proliferation of interest and opportunity.

In addition to the continued investments in the more mature leagues (albeit still nascent in the broader sports landscape) like the W and the NWSL, we are also seeing a move further downstream to even earlier stage opportunities in women's sports.

As with all investing, earlier stage means more risk, but also more potential reward. For serious investors to take on this type of risk means that they see a viable path to high upside.

This week, we are looking at three early stage women’s sports leagues — the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), Unrivaled 3-on-3 basketball, and the two women’s volleyball leagues that are launching — through the investment lens and what’s driving the investment decisions.

You’ll learn the following about each:

• Who is on the cap table

• The likely investment thesis

• Initial results

PHWL

Background

Women’s professional hockey has been on a journey the last few decades.

There have been multiple attempts to create a league in North America, but they have never fully come to fruition.

The last attempts in the mid-2010’s included multiple leagues operating at the same time, splintering the talent pool and saturating the market. Fed up with these competing models that netted failed results, the top players banded together to form the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association, with the goal of establishing “a sustainable and viable women’s professional hockey league in North America.”

These players refused to join the next iterations of the various leagues, holding out for a single, viable league while playing a barnstorming-type tour of exhibition matches around North America instead.

This dispute was finally settled in 2023, with the PWHL coming together after investors worked with the PWHPA for over a year.

They decided to launch quickly, putting all elements of the league together in nine months and launching the first season in January 2024.

Investors

The league is wholly owned and operated by Mark Walter and his wife, Kimbra. Mark is the CEO of investment firm Guggenheim Partners, and he has a major footprint in sports already as part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chelsea FC.

There is a board of directors also involved, which includes well-known figures like Billie Jean King, Dodgers president Stan Kasten, and sports executive Ilana Kloss.

Investment Thesis

There has been interest in women’s hockey for years. Because of the fragmentation at the club level, though, the best benchmark is at the national level.

The U.S. women’s hockey team has caught fire with the public in the last few Olympics, particularly in 2018. This was followed up with a huge 2022, including a massive 3.54 million viewers in the the gold medal women's hockey game against Canada, a number on average with most games in this year’s Stanley Cup Finals.

More broadly, though, despite the bigger or more flashy sports taking most of the headlines, hockey is having a moment in the U.S.

The NHL just capped off one of its biggest business years ever — including attendance and viewership records, and youth participation in the States is steadily increasing — ~388k registered youth players in 2022-23; up 12% over roughly the last decade).

Of those registered players, 70,000 are girls.

None of these figures include hockey-crazed Canada, as well, where the PWHL has three teams.

So, you have pent up demand, growing interest at the youth/family level, and no clear competitor foreign or domestic.

You can see the path the Walters see.

Initial Results

For being put together in less than 6 months, the PWHL’s first year was a massive success. The six-team league generated these results:

• Drew nearly 500,000 fans to its 85 games across the regular season and playoffs.

• Two games between Montreal-Toronto were played at NHL venues, drawing 19,285 in Toronto's Scotiabank Arena and a record 21,105 in Montreal's Bell Centre

• More than 40 corporate sponsors signed

• Its YouTube channel — which also shows games live — has more than 100,000 subscribers.

• Revenue numbers were not released, but revenues exceeded Year 1 projections according to Kasten (with the caveat that they also went well over budget to put together a great product).

For its efforts, the Sports Business Journal named the PWHL the “Sports Breakthrough of the Year” at its 17th annual Sports Business Awards in May.

The SBJ stated that the league “was a true definition of a breakthrough, creating six teams from the ground up and setting attendance records for women’s hockey, all within months of launching.”

Next up, the league will make plans for the release of the teams’ nicknames and logos in August (all teams went by “PWHL [city]” this year), and it will look to capitalize on the expected merchandise and branding bumps that stem from those announcements.

Following additional refinements to the business, the puck drops on season two in November.

Unrivaled Basketball League

Background

While the WNBA is where many of the best in the world play, the pay is often not enough for these pros, so they go overseas in the offseason where they can make significantly more money — sometimes into the high six figures/low seven figures.

Going abroad comes it with its own challenges, though. Not getting enough rest in the offseason, being away from family, and, as seen with Brittney Griner, exposure to unfamiliar laws and geopolitics.

Unrivaled, founded last year by the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier, aims to give players an opportunity to stay at home and make it worth their while.

The 3-on-3 league will be based in Miami and play in the months before the WNBA season, and it hopes to change the narrative around women’s basketball compensation.

All 30 players selected will have equity in the league (vesting over a four-year period), and the league minimum salary will be more than $100,000, a record for women’s pro sports.

Investors

The list of investors includes a who’s who of prominent athletes and sport business executives. Just a few of the people involved:

• Athletes: Carmelo Anthony, Alex Morgan, Steve Nash, Michelle Wie West, and Megan Rapinoe

• Sports business executives: Former ESPN president John Skipper, ex-Turner president David Levy, and former Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff

• Other prominent investors: Ashton Kutcher and Gary Vaynerchuk

Investment Thesis

As noted in a report by sports consulting firm Two Circles last year, one area women’s sports are finding success is by deploying a “Big Game” strategy. In short, this involves putting the best and brightest on the field/court for a high stakes match, which, in turn, leads to significant results at the box office.

Here’s why this matters.

It’s obvious that the WNBA is the belle of the ball (pun intended) right now and is stepping into growth mode.

In addition to giving WNBA players a viable stateside solution during the off-season, Unrivaled hypothesizes it can carve out its place in a crowded sports ecosystem by combining the momentum that the W has developed with a “big game”-esque strategy that takes 30 of the best players and puts them in a fun new competition format.

The big revenue drivers for the league are going to be media rights and sponsorships. What’s working in their favor:

1. Who better to have leading the media negotiations than the former heads of ESPN and Turner Sports

2. There is an influx of sponsorship investment into women’s sports (up 22% YoY) due to the deep fan engagement and ROI (estimated to be 7x, per Deloitte). Unrivaled’s star power is sure to draw attention and interest from sponsors (particularly if a certain #22 from the Indiana Fever catches an invite)

Initial Results

The league is expected to launch in Q1 2025. We will see!

Volleyball (PVF and LOVB)

Background

Volleyball is one of the most popular sports at the youth level in the United States, and there is a vibrant collegiate game.

Similar to the WNBA, there is a large international market for women’s volleyball, and the best players often go overseas after finishing their college careers. This is primarily due to the fact that there has not been a viable professional league in the States.

Until now.

Two leagues — Pro Volleyball Federation and LOVB — are launching within a year of each other and are attempting to bring professional volleyball to the U.S (note that a third organization, Athletes Unlimited, has been running short pro volleyball leagues since 2021).

The PVF launched this year with teams in Atlanta, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Omaha, Orlando, San Diego and Vegas.

LOVB will launch in 2025 and feature teams based in Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Madison, Wisconsin, Omaha, and Salt Lake City.

Investors

Both leagues’ cap tables are filled with prominent athletes and celebrities in addition to traditional investors.

• PVF: Jason Derulo, Joe Burrow, former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer, and 5-time Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings. The league has raised more than $150 million in total.

• LOVB: Initial funding came from Kevin Durant, Billie Jean King, Chelsea Handler, and David Blitzer. A recent $35 million Series B included Lindsey Vonn, Jayson Tatum, Amy Schumer and Candace Parker.

Investment Thesis

If you heard our 2024 predictions podcast from the beginning of the year, you know my thoughts on how great volleyball is.

The sport is fast-paced and action-packed, and it has strong tailwinds across the various levels.

• The game is continuing to grow rapidly at the youth level. From 2002 to 2022, the number of girls playing in high school increased 15% and the sport now has over 470,000 players.

• The collegiate game has continued to put up massive numbers. In the last year alone, 92,000 attended a match at Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium last year, the championship drew 2 million viewers, and all of the matches for the finals weekend drew over 19,000 fans in each match.

• Lastly, there is not a dominant incumbent professional men’s league in the U.S. that casts a long shadow over the sport, which gives the women’s leagues more greenfield to grab and grow into.

As for league-specific tactics, LOVB is leaning hard into the grassroots strategy, attempting to create a “true youth-to-pro ecosystem.” In practice this looks like operating 1,200 youth teams underneath 47 youth volleyball clubs spread out across 22 U.S. states.

In addition, the upstart league is attempting to create a lifestyle and experience brand around LOVB, drawing upon CEO Katlyn Gao’s time as GM and SVP of Global Ecommerce at the athleisure giant.

PVF is leaning more into player empowerment and ownership, with a focus on each player earning viable salaries and receiving equity in the league.

Plus, it has also positioned its teams in smaller media markets that are also volleyball hotbeds — i.e., Omaha, Orlando, San Diego — to capture local fans’ attention and drive ticket sales.

I don’t think any investor believes that two volleyball leagues can coexist in the long run, and the duplicative efforts could create similar problems to what plagued women’s hockey the past few decades — particularly given the competitor volleyball leagues overlap with two teams in two of the cities.

Because of this, it’s highly likely there will eventually be a merger or a financial winner emerges between the two.

The bigger bet for investors is that the interest and engagement in the game will carry the day, and they hope that they picked the right horse that survives or has the leverage in a potential merger.

Initial Results

The PVF just completed its first season, and its seven teams delivered solid initial results, with ~400,000 fans attending matches in person and nearly 4 million watching on YouTube.

The league will be adding three more teams in 2025 — Dallas, Indianapolis, and Kansas City — and is increasing its maximum salary to $175,000.

LOVB kicks off next year, and it has already made a splash with the announcement of a multi-year media rights deal with ESPN. As a part of the package, ESPN will air 10 LOVB Pro matches across its linear networks and 18 matches on ESPN+.

This is likely not an overly lucrative contract for LOVB, but it is a great way to amplify its reach and stand apart.

🍸️ Impress Your Friends at a Cocktail Party

Want to show off your sports knowledge in a public setting but don’t have time to read the deep dive? This section is the CliffsNotes of this week’s topic

• Opener: In addition to the continued investments in the more mature leagues (albeit still nascent in the broader sports landscape) like the WNBA and the NWSL, we are also seeing a move further downstream to even earlier stage opportunities in women's sports.

• PWHL: The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) just capped off its inaugural season. Backed by a single prominent investor who unified disparate leagues, the league hopes to capitalize on the rising popularity/youth participation of hockey in the U.S. and tap into the rabid Canadian market. The league’s first season delivered solid results, including drawing nearly 500,000 fans, breaking several women’s hockey attendance records, and signing over 40 corporate sponsors.

• Unrivaled: Unrivaled is a new 3-on-3 women’s basketball league created by two WNBA stars that will launch in 2025 and run during the W offseason. The goal is to give players a viable domestic league to play in instead of having to go abroad, and the expectation is that Unrivaled can carve out its place in a crowded sports ecosystem by combining the momentum that the W has developed with a “big game” strategy that takes 30 of the best players and puts them in a fun new competition format. With high profile athletes (Alex Morgan, Carmelo Anthony) and major sports business executives (former ESPN president John Skipper) as investors, the league hopes to quickly drive revenue through media rights and sponsorships.

• Two pro volleyball leagues: Two volleyball leagues — the Professional Volleyball Federation (PVF) and LOVB — are launching within a year of each other to attempt to give the U.S. a true professional league. Both see the growth at the youth level (up 15% in the last two decades), the huge interest in college matches, and the lack of a male competitor league as huge investment positives. Each has raised significant capital into the nine figures. As for what differentiates them, PVF is leaning hard into player empowerment and offering the players a stake in the league, while LOVB is creating a youth club network and positioning the league as a lifestyle/experience-based brand. It’s unlikely that the two leagues can coexist for long, but either one or a merged version of the two should find success in my opinion.

🤯 “Whoa” of the Week

Insane, mind-blowing things constantly happen in the sports business world. Here was my favorite of the past week.

1. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Golf raised their official Series A funding round, and the startup league is reportedly valued at $500 million before play even begins next year

💪 Weekly Reminder that Sports are Awesome

This newsletter is, of course, mostly centered on the business side of sports and the things that happen off the field. That being said, it’s important to remember why we fell in love with sports in the first place, though.

This section is meant to highlight the amazing things that happened in sports this week that serve as that reminder.

1. A fitting series of tributes to arguably the greatest baseball player ever. San Francisco Giants legend Willie Mays passed away last week right before the MLB’s Negro Leagues tribute game at historic Rickwood Field in Mays’ hometown of Birmingham, AL. The game took on even more meaning as they honored the “Say Hey Kid,” and the Giants honored him again earlier this week

2. Snoop Dogg returns to coverage of the Olympics, and he is better than ever

3. A first-class gesture on the 10th anniversary of one of the best sports speeches ever given.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what feedback you have.

Also, if you enjoyed this breakdown, please consider sharing it with your friends and network by clicking the social media icons at the top of the newsletter.

Until next time, sports fans!

-Alex