When its season wrapped up earlier this month, Angel City FC found itself in 11th place out of 13 teams, a disappointing finish for the Los Angeles soccer team co-founded by venture capitalist Kara Nortman in 2020. But the challenges of this season tell only part of a much larger story that’s changing how investors view women’s sports.
Despite the team’s performance on the field, Angel City has become a key example—studied even at Harvard Business School—of how to effectively build a women’s sports franchise. The team’s celebrity ownership group, which includes Natalie Portman and Serena Williams, has sparked considerable excitement, and Angel City has been strategic about securing sponsorships, achieving record-breaking deals even before the players hit the field.
“We went from zero to $30 million in revenue. We sold out games. We built something people didn’t think was possible,” Nortman said in an interview last month, highlighting Angel City’s commercial success from the very beginning. “That really led to the formation of Monarch.”
This commercial success has become the foundation for Monarch Collective, the $250 million fund Nortman launched in 2023, which focuses exclusively on investing in women’s sports. Although Angel City hasn’t yet won a playoff game, Monarch’s influence and portfolio have already extended far beyond the team’s training facility in Thousand Oaks, California.
The fund now holds stakes in three other National Women’s Soccer League clubs: San Diego Wave, Boston Legacy FC (set to debut next year), and its newest acquisition, announced earlier this month, FC Viktoria Berlin. With a 38% stake in the German club, Monarch has become the first foreign investor in a German women’s soccer team.
This diverse collection reflects Nortman’s belief that women’s sports are at a tipping point, regardless of any single team’s performance. The numbers back her up.
“The overall men’s sports market globally is estimated to be around half a trillion dollars,” Nortman explains. “When we started Monarch in 2023, the women’s sports market was thought to be about half a billion dollars. It’s now closer to $3 billion.”
Nortman points out that tapping into this growth requires a different strategy than men’s sports. “It’s not just a matter of doing what men’s teams have done,” she says. “Like, how many men’s team owners are thinking about dropping Sephora boxes from the rafters? Or having a Fenty cam at a New York Liberty WNBA game for putting on makeup, or Angel City hosting a Hello Kitty night where everyone scrambles for the merch before it sells out?”
Angel City’s creative marketing and partnerships generated so much buzz that last fall, power couple Bob Iger and Willow Bay bought a majority stake for $250 million, making it the most valuable women’s sports franchise globally.
For Nortman, who shifted her focus entirely to women’s sports after leaving Upfront Ventures, Angel City’s commercial success continues to support Monarch’s vision. While there’s noticeable tension between Angel City’s commercial triumphs and its on-field performance, the team has undeniably shown that with the right elements, women’s sports can generate real revenue.
Now, with any successful initiative, the pressing question arises: Can the momentum continue? Nortman knows firsthand that women’s sports have seen promising moments fizzle out before. She often refers to a historical parallel from 1920, when 60,000 fans flocked to Liverpool, England, to watch the Dick, Kerr Ladies play football—a larger crowd than many Premier League games attract today. The following year, the English Football Association banned women from playing, and the sport largely vanished for decades.
“Everyone gets to feel like a pioneer of women’s sports at some point,” Nortman says. “But it requires consistent, hard work to translate that into sustainability.”
That hard work, she argues, goes beyond simply riding the coattails of breakout stars like Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese. It requires systematic investment in infrastructure, governance, and operations—the often overlooked aspects of building sustainable businesses.
Monarch’s approach stands apart from typical venture capital strategies. Instead of making passive investments in a wide range of startups, Monarch takes concentrated positions in a select number of teams and leagues, getting heavily involved in their operations. The fund describes its strategy as combining “venture-like markets” with “growth equity or private equity-like” risk management.
“We show up alongside control owners and contribute significant operational expertise,” Nortman explains. Their goal is to help teams break even or achieve profitability in their core operations, positioning them to benefit as media revenues rise.
Monarch’s investment interests aren’t limited to soccer. The fund is broadly focused on sports that Nortman describes as having “no product-market risk,” meaning established formats with proven audiences.
“Are these sports something people would pay to watch on their devices?” she asks. “Some participatory sports, like pickleball, may not have the same allure for home viewership.”
Currently, while Monarch holds stakes in four soccer teams, it’s also keen on women’s basketball, golf, and tennis—sports that boast significant media revenue potential alongside established infrastructures.
The firm’s current investors include Melinda French Gates and former Netflix executives, and there’s a growing interest in Monarch’s mission. Remarkably, the initial fund raising target of $100 million was surpassed, with Nortman attributing the increased size to the market’s rapid development during the fundraising period.
“When we began, 90% of conversations were like, ‘We don’t see basketball as a serious sector,’” Nortman recalls, reflecting on the initial skepticism. Then came Caitlin Clark’s rise and the WNBA’s record-breaking viewership, flipping basketball into one of the hottest areas in women’s sports.
This heightened interest supports Nortman’s viewpoint that investing in women’s sports is about fostering an ecosystem where multiple franchises can flourish. Some teams will win championships, while others may face competitive challenges but succeed in the commercial space. The key is having ample capital and operational know-how across the market to ride out individual setbacks.
Angel City is already inspiring other ownership groups. “You’ve seen teams like Kansas City, Bay FC, and Washington D.C. Spirit step up with female-led ownership, proving they can build a solid financial foundation,” Nortman notes. Whether intentional or not, Angel City has set a standard.
As women’s sports seem to be entering a sustained growth phase—with the Golden State Valkyries gearing up for their first WNBA season, the NWSL expanding, and media rights deals on the rise—Nortman is cautiously optimistic that this moment might differ from past surges.
The essentials, she says, lie in strong league governance, owner dedication, infrastructure investment, and forging meaningful community connections. Media attention opens doors, but operational excellence ensures longevity.
“Every surge in interest is a chance to create a consistent experience around it,” Nortman advises. “You must evaluate all the foundational factors to understand what will stick.”
