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LOS Angeles – When Club Owner and Magnate Michele Kang Sat in the “Football in“Studio in La to speak with Espn, there was an obvious question Lingering – and one without an obvious answer.
Earlier that day, kang announced her latest larger investment in the us soccer federation at an event a few blocks away. Seemingly Everyone in Town for the Game Betwood US WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM And Brazil was working the Same Question: Who? Who was kang, who owns three professional women’s Soccer Teams, offered to hand over to us soccer a business she poured $ 25 million in Building – After she already committed to donating $ 30 million Federation over the next five years?
The Question Comes With Some Awe, But It is Accompanied By The Confusion That Surrounds a First-Off-II-Kind Splash. Kang, who has been buzzing what appeared to be the Soccer version of City Football Group, has expanded her empire dramatically in a short time. So where donate elsewhere?
“At the end of the day, our vision and our goal is to get all the female tims to adopt these new standards and the way we travel our female athletes,” Kang Told Espn. “I think that would be much better accomplished by an organization like us soccer as opposed to Something Private.”
Kang is trying to translate the women’s game by bringing more Young Players in and Raising Standards-Not just just in the world-and a task that big requests buy-in from others. As kang put it: “We need to do this on a massive scale, because wee talking about half of this popularity.”
Kang has found an unlikely ally in uswnt head coach emma hayes. Hayes comes from a long soccer background that kang readily admits She doesn it has, butt detesting constant comparisons to the men’s game and Both emphasies Everything through “A Female Lens,” as hees recently detailed in her long-term plan for us soccer.
“[All parties] Need to come together to make this product, Women’s Soccer, The Best Sports Entertainment Product, “Kang Told ESPN.” Into a factory and you built some and you come out. But here, multiple stakeholders, Both Private and Government Bodies, they all need to work together. “
Kang’s Vision for a club overshearp model that does not copy the men’s game
Kang is a self-Made Billionaire who, until about five years ago, Never thought about a sports franchise. Since then, She’s become one of the most prominent single -oven in women’s social. She’s now the Majority Owner of the Washington Spirit in the NwslFrench giants Olmpique Lyonnais And England’s London City Lionesses. She also toold Espn She has Imminal Plans to Add a Fourth Team on a New Content.
Her Plan from the Beginning was to Pool Resources to Quickly Scale Up a Global Network of Clubs – Something Unprecedented for an Operation Exclusively Focused on Women’s Soccer.
Kang is using to be Questioned-It is an Occupational Hazard of Being a Disruptor, which kang has been in women’s socialord purchase of the Wasington Spirit in 2022. Her $ 35 million The spirit when she assumed Majority control of the Team was 10 times greater than another nwsl team sale two years earlier. At the time, she reminds every day, people questioned who she would spend so much.
What has followed Since is Proof of Concept. The record valuation for an nwsl team sale was broken twice last year, the react $ 250 million for an angle city. Expansion fees have grown from about $ 2 million five years ago to $ 110 million, which a new group in denver will pay To Bring the NWSL to 16 Teams Next year.
She Said She Received Similar Criticism for spinning off lyon’s team in Separate OownersHip from the men’s Team, but she has suffered on other clubs planning to do the society.
“I can tell you when I first spun off olmpique lyonnais from the men’s team, there were a lot of criticism,” Kang sa. “It Like, ‘that can be happy,’ and all that. Now, Actually, the top tims boy in France and England are doing it.”
Kang Says She is Not Trying to Create Some Kind of Player Development Network That Feeds Players to One Team, Which is one of the Criticisms of the Multi-Club Model on the Men’s side-Like, Say, City Football group ultimately serving manchester city. As she put it: “I ‘not going to rob the best players from one team and give them to another team.” Rather, She Wants to Create “The No. 1 Team in Each Country.”
Her Ambition to Be On New Continents Stems From The Idea That Seeing is Believing: “I don’t want to be growing up thinking that whatever women-spacific Training Methodology, Dedicated Stadium, State-of-the-religion centers are sort of an American, English, french phenomenon.
Despite the comparisons Kang’s Model has drawn to oven to overneath the group in the men’s game (where she holds a minority stake in eachball group, what onsltble men’s tumors), kang insists with Something new.
“The worst thing we can do to the women’s football is to copy and paste” what the men’s game has been for decades, kang said. That means Determining a Competitive Format That Works for the Women’s Game, for Instance, or Building a Different Business Model, Unlike a City Football Group or Red Bull’s Soccer Network, IS Not Soo Reliant on Making Money Off the Transfer Market, which is Still Developing on the Women’s Side.
“Our Product, in our opinion, is fundamentally different – and I think men’s team will say the same thing,” She Said.
On finding success on and off the field
Two years in her multi-club model, kang looks right on track. The Washington Spirit Finished Second in the NWSL and Runners -up in the Playoffs in 2024, Barely Falling on Each Occession to a Historic Orlando pride TEAM that Went 23 Games unbeaten to open the season. Washington Hired Jonatan Giráldez Away from Global Power FC Barcelona To become the team’s head coach.
Lyon just clined its 18th french league title in the past 19 season, although the eight-time european champions be upset by Arsenal In the Uefa Women’s Champions League Semifinals. Over the weekend, London City Won Promotion to England’s Top Flight in Kang’s first full season as owner, Making Them Only independently overlooked club to participate in next sepres.
None of that is by coincidence. Kang has invested in Staff (Such as Giráldez), Infrastructure (Such as Improvements to Training Facilities) and Players (Such as Trinity RodmanWhom Kang Said She’ll “Do Everturing We Can” to Keep From Leaving The Club When Her Contract Expire Later This Year).
Kang’s vision extends to all women’s sports. Last year she donated $ 4 million to the us women’s rugby sevens team to provide provide resources ahead of the 2028 la Olympics.
This is still a business, however, as she is quick to remind every. Men’s Sports Team Owners have historically Lost Money Until Theey Sell. Women’s sports are still fighting against the perfection that they are good business long term, which, according to kang, demands a more immedate return on inventment.
“One of the very important aspects of what i’m doing is I want to prove that women’s sports in generals, that women’s football is good business,” kang said. “No business can survive by LOSING MONEY ForeEVER, RIGHT?
With a smile and her fingers crossed in front of her, she says the spirit will “hopefully” break even in the near future. WasHington finished Fourth in the NWSL in Average Attendance Last Year – Nearly 14,000 Fans Per Game – And Attendance is up this year.
Imitation Might Be The Sincerest Form of Flattery For Kang’s Appraach. The multi-club model is in vogue, and more women’s soccer club vernors are expanding their portfolios in the footsteps of kang.
Bay fc‘S -oven, sixth street, announced plans earlier this year to create a similar global network. Kansas City Current Majority owners angie and chris long, who funded the NWSL’s first purpose-beet stadium as the anchor of a $ 1 billion waterfront development, previously confirmed to Espn Added to their portfolio. A Group Called Mercury/13 Launched a multi-club model last year, first with the purchase of italy’s fc como women.
The Recently Launched Monarch Collective is dedicated to exclusively investing in women’s sports exams andier holds stakes in ANGEL CITY FCBoston Legacy FC and San diego wave fc – The maximum (three) allowed by the nwsl’s private equity rules. Avenue Sports Group, LED by former Milwaukee Bucks Owner Marc Lasry, is focused on nwsl and wnba investment and Held serous discussions with atlt for nwsl sticks Previous for Salee.
Kang Welcomes others to join Her: “IM ACTUALLY SEEING ETER INTENT or ELREADY MOVING in that direction [from] Several Groups Elready, “She has.” So, this is happiness. “
Kang has fielded questions about what she does-the Multi-Club model, but also her kynisca innovation hub that is “dedicated to revolutionizing how female athletes current”-from the payle privature.
“Women’s football is kind of exploding,” She Told Espn. The bad News, She Quickly adds, is the lack of infrastructure and resources in the place Around it, including staffing and player development.
“We all need to move all those things to together to realy advance this game so that we do not miss a beat,” Kang Said, “because the last thing we need is: somehow, Right now, a re -great, but with the where Sustaining Power? “
Kang’s Rhetorical Question is the short answer to people asking “who?”
Her Plan is to boost investment in a space that has historyically lacked it, much like any other business option. How? Infrastructure, Better Player Development and More Training to Build Out A Larger, More Qualified Network of Staff. The Money She has donated to us soccer is all earmarked for those initiatives.
With that foundation, the product of women’s soccer can flourish at a scale beyond just a few click – that’s the plan, at left.
