Down to Business: Multi-club ownership is growing in women's soccer, but ‘execution is everything'

New York Times

2 days ago

In today's increasingly high-stakes world of sports investment, a handful of women's soccer investors aren't betting on one team, they're building empires.
The same multi-club ownership (MCO) model that dominates men's soccer is not-so-quietly being replicated in women's soccer. However, the profiles of those backing women's teams are vastly different: a mix of experienced operators with deep pockets that have sports acumen and conviction that the women's game is not charity, but good business — something that is still relatively rare in sports ownership circles.
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Michele Kang, one of the National Women's Soccer League's (NWSL) most powerful figures, has led the way in going global. She owns OL Lyonnes, widely considered the most accomplished women's soccer team in Europe, as well as the Washington Spirit in the U.S. and London City Lionesses, which was recently promoted to the English Women's Super League (WSL). In 2024, Kang folded all three teams under her Kynisca Sports International, a multi-team global women's soccer organization.
'We will provide opportunities for girls and women worldwide to access high-level sport, reach their potential under the best conditions, and play football in the clubs of the global elite,' she said in a statement at the time.
Out of her three clubs, only the Spirit have shown profits, but Kang is not stopping anytime soon. She said she is looking into buying more clubs around the world to add to her multi-club portfolio.
'Women's soccer around the world needs investment,' Kang told ESPN right before closing the OL deal in 2023. 'It's not just the U.S. For us to take women's soccer to the next level — Europe, Asia, South America, Latin America — they all need to come up. I wanted to accelerate that trend.'
She is also not the only NWSL operator who is betting big on global MCO.
Earlier this month, Kansas City Current owners Angie and Chris Long announced they are expanding their footprint in women's soccer by acquiring Denmark's HB Køge Women, a top-flight women's soccer club competing in the country's highest division.
'I think the way to view this investment is evolutionary,' Chris Long told me when I asked him if owning multiple clubs was something they thought of from the beginning. 'It's just like in any investment business, you're always looking for great investments.'
Elsewhere, Monarch Collective, led by managing partner Kara Nortman, holds minority stakes across several women's teams, including Angel City FC, the San Diego Wave, and the newly launched Boston Legacy FC in the NWSL. However, Nortman does not consider her model to be MCO.
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Nortman's fund takes a more nuanced approach when it comes to investing in multiple teams. Rather than acquiring full control, Monarch holds minority stakes across several women's teams. It's a strategy that emphasizes influence and alignment over consolidation, allowing for strategic support while preserving each club's unique identity.
'We do not consider ourselves in multi-club ownership in the multi-club model. We invest in multiple clubs, which is different,' Nortman told The Athletic over Zoom. 'Multi-club philosophy is shared services, shared identity, shared sponsorships, etc, whereas what we look at is: how do we add hands-on value, or invest in a way that adds value to each individual club in a unique way.'
According to Nortman, best practices in club operations often overlap between men's and women's sports. Roughly 80 percent of what drives success is universal: foundational strategies that define high performance. The key is knowing what excellence looks like, holding the bar there, and being prepared to adjust when challenges arise.
'But the remaining 20 percent is where the real magic happens — the part that's deeply specific to the club, the sport, and the local market,' Nortman said. 'That's why each club must be treated as its own distinct entity, with its own identity and tailored approach, rather than forced into a one-size-fits-all model.'
While the strategy is emerging as a smart play on the women's side, it remains a controversial and often criticized approach on the men's side, where concerns about competitive integrity, talent hoarding, and diluted club identity continue to stir debate.
Multi-club ownership isn't new. Groups like Abu Dhabi-based City Football Group (CFG), which owns sports clubs on four continents, including Premier League's Manchester City, as well as Red Bull, which owns teams in Germany, Austria, the U.S., France and Brazil have turned the model into a finely tuned machine in the men's game. They've created economies of scale, streamlining player development across continents.
Kang has been open about the negative connotations of multi-club on the men's side but she said she believes on the women's side, MCO is a 'necessity, not a luxury, or greed.' She also said clubs will benefit from sharing resources, but she isn't going to sacrifice one team to make another team successful.
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'Absolutely not. Our goal is to make every team the champion in each of their leagues,' she told Forbes last year.
On Monday, Spirit head coach Jonatan Giráldez was named the next head coach of OL Lyonnes in France after just one year in Washington, casting doubt on Kang's earlier statements as she shuffled her best coach off one team and on to the next. Sources — speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their positions — told The Athletic last week that this was not planned, but rather something that came about after Lyonnes coach Joe Montemurro made clear his intentions to lead Australia.
'(Multi-club model) is a great idea, but like all great ideas, execution is everything,' said Assia Grazioli-Venier, founding partner at Muse Capital and an early investor in NWSL's Washington Spirit. 'What we're seeing on the women's side is that some of these ownership groups are led by former operators — people who've built businesses, scaled brands, and navigated complex systems before stepping into sports. They're not just financiers; they're builders first.'
She is not wrong. Abu Dhabi-based CFG, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns multiple Saudi soccer clubs and Newcastle United in England, and the failed 777 Partners, which at one point owned Genoa in Italy, Vasco de Gama in Brazil, Standard Liege in Belgium, Red Star F.C. in France, Bundesliga's Hertha BSC and minority stakes in Sevilla in Spain and Melbourne Victory in Australia, all came into the game from a strict investment perspective.
'We have a unique opportunity to learn from men's sports, especially from those investing across multiple teams. It's a chance to examine how best practices are shared, how shared services are thoughtfully implemented, and how emotional intelligence is integrated with operational excellence to maximize impact,' Nortman said.
'There are solid models to reference, but we also have the freedom to build something more intentional — evolving gradually and authentically in a way that truly reflects the values of women's sports.'
The difference to people like Kang and the Longs is that they are heavily ingrained in the operational side of their clubs.
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When Kang paid $35 million for the Spirit in 2022, people thought she was wildly overpaying, an industry insider told me.
The 66-year-old from South Korea entered women's soccer in 2020, first as a minority owner of the Spirit. Following a two-year battle to gain control of the club, she acquired the majority stake of the franchise from co-owners Steve Baldwin and Bill Lynch. NWSL was still selling franchises for well under $10 million and many investors were hesitant to allocate funds to women's sports assets. Without concrete data on the fanbase, viewership, and sponsorship dollars, as an experienced investor, Kang was not oblivious to these facts. But she still bought her first club. Just two years after Kang bought the Spirit, San Diego Wave was sold for $113 million, more than three times what Kang paid.
The Longs carved out their new Danish women's club from the men's operation, similar to what Kang did with OL Lyonnais Féminin (now branded OL Lyonnes) when she separated the women's side from the men's team in 2023, and by Chelsea, which transferred ownership of its women's squad to affiliated company BlueCo earlier this year.
With a passionate fanbase, a strong soccer foundation, and major growth potential on the business side, the Longs said HB Køge Women had the same core ingredients as the Current. With key revenue streams such as ticketing, merchandise, and sponsorship remaining largely untapped due to limited prior investment, they believe they can bring their experience in operating the most financially successful NWSL club, with the highest revenue within the league last year, according to Sportico's latest valuations, to Europe.
And like Kang, they are not going to stop looking for the next club either. 'But only if done the right way.'
'It's important to us that we do it with excellence,' Angie Long explained. 'And to think this offers an opportunity to learn how to first become a multi-club model, and then really build on it.'
One thing is clear: the goal is to run the clubs with a focus on off-pitch revenue and on-pitch wins.
Another group, Mercury/13, launched in August 2023. It set out with the goal of building a global multi-club women's football platform, but has so far acquired just one team, securing a controlling stake in Italy's FC Como Women in March 2024.
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Before landing in Como, Mercury/13 explored other opportunities, including a potential deal for third-tier English side Lewes FC, but those talks fell through before reaching the finish line.
In 2024, the group secured backing from Avenue Sports Fund — the sports investment arm of former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry's Avenue Capital — for an undisclosed amount. Mercury/13 has publicly committed to adding four more clubs to its portfolio by the end of 2026.
Why the rush? Because the women's game is living through its hockey-stick growth moment. Global viewership records are being shattered after each big tournament. Sponsors are flocking to meet those eyeballs. Valuations are going up. But unlike the men's side, where investing is almost limited to sovereign wealth funds, on the women's side, there's still room to buy low and build, not just infrastructure but global brands.
But it is not a philanthropic hustle either. Investors like Kang, the Longs, Monarch Collective and Mercury/13 are betting that women's soccer is the asset class of the future.
'It remains to be seen if it will be successful,' Grazioli-Venier said. 'But my hunch is they'll do well because they know how to execute on a grand plan and have the operational experience of connecting the right dots to take advantage of that portfolio.'