Women's Sports: Playing the Long Game

Just five years ago, women’s sport maintained a passionate, but niche, fan base on the fringes of mainstream sports media—entering the cultural consciousness in spurts when Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky drove Olympic gold or Serena Williams took the court.

However, with WNBA and NWSL viewership exploding, collegiate women’s sports breaking viewership and attendance records, and sponsorship dollars pouring into the space, women’s sport is not just mainstream—it is one of the most exciting opportunities in entertainment.

Investment in women’s sport has exploded as new market participants recognize unmatched growth opportunities at a great value. According to a study from Wasserman and Royal Bank of Canada, investment in women’s sports can be the best dollar spent in sports today—which the massive influx of capital into the women’s game reflects.

However, as money rushes into the market, athletes, executives and team ownership are under pressure to leverage those dollars wisely. With the proper game plan and some creativity, individuals and organizations can turn this electric moment into a sustainable movement, creating the potential for significant returns and lasting impact.

 

Athletes & Their Advisors: Running Point

As the market expands, it’s not just team ownership and investors that stand to benefit — women athletes are also pulling in record salaries and landing groundbreaking endorsement deals. Thanks to decades of advocacy and athletic accomplishments, a career in women’s sports is not just viable, but potentially lucrative.

Todd Burach, head of City National Bank's Sports & Family Office Banking team, pointed to the WNBA, where the players association is currently renegotiating its collective bargaining agreement to increase players’ share of the league’s overall revenue.

Adding to growth potential is the league’s expansion to new cities and its implementation of longer seasons. For Burach, these trends are indicators that base salaries might lift across the league.

"It’s possible that a max deal for playing a season in the WNBA by the end of the 2020s is above a million dollars," Burach commented. "That's pretty exciting.”

When it comes to woman athletes, players’ salaries are never the end of the story. Given the pay gap between women athletes and their male counterparts, women athletes also creatively and aggressively pursue sponsorship and marketing opportunities.

As Burach put it, “Women athletes do two jobs: They play their sport, and they have to market themselves.” Many women athletes are particularly skilled at nurturing fan relationships via social media — as they drive twice the fan engagement that male peers do, according to Wasserman — making them excellent choices for brand deals and endorsements.

The entrepreneurial and commercially minded nature of succeeding as a women athlete positions them well to capitalize on the economic upside of recent investment. For instance, women athletes can use their newfound financial power, combined with their honed public brands, to become team investors themselves, give back to their communities, start a second career, or launch their own consumer brands.

Having the Right Financial Playbook

Before chasing dreams beyond a playing career, Burach cautioned that women athletes need to protect themselves financially. Professional sports careers are notoriously short and unstable, as even the healthiest and most celebrated players generally retire by their mid-thirties.

While some athletes might receive a windfall of cash, failing to have a plan for it might mean financial troubles are on the horizon — no matter how large their contract is.

That's why Burach encourages athletes to build a team that helps them make smart financial decisions, whether they're league veterans or up and-coming players.

“You have to have this ability to be realistic about your prospects and your ability to make money, but also the fact that at a very young age, you're going to have to reinvent yourself from an identity perspective," Burach said. "There’s a lot of financial and psychological planning that goes into navigating those transitions. But if you make decisions too”

With a carefully thought-out financial plan, women athletes can capture the momentum to build a safety net for injury, retire with confidence and have enough left over to make their second act just as ambitious as their first. 

 

Teams & Organizations: From the Ground Up

At an organizational level, Kinsey Powell Fleming, an assistant vice president with City National Bank's Entertainment & Sports Banking team, stresses how important a comprehensive financial plan is for team owners and investors to build the foundation for long-term success — and the best starting point may be at the literal foundation.

“There’s an influx of activity in the investment arm of women’s sports,” Powell Fleming said, “but to make it the most impactful for long-term success for the club, league, or individual athletes, we see investing in facilities as universally effective.”

She pointed to the ways state-of-the-art physical spaces and equipment can facilitate growth: from attracting and keeping world-class talent, to enriching consumer experiences that convert casual viewers to die-hard fans, to improving the overall sport product via enhanced training for athletes and high-quality broadcasts.

Powell Fleming noted that women’s teams are on the cutting edge of this strategy.

“Take the NWSL’s Kansas City Current with their incredible, purpose-built stadium, which is awesome for that fan experience. You also see the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever and NWSL’s Angel City FC building practice facilities, weight rooms, film rooms — your classic sports performance spaces — but also childcare facilities, hair and nail salons, content creation studios and dedicated spaces for youth athletes. They are not just leading in women’s sport, but sport overall.”

 

The Value of a Good Coach

Every team needs a floor general, and those looking to ride the women’s sports wave are no exception. Savvy investors, with the right guidance and support, can find that best dollar spent in sports today — and expand what’s possible for women athletes along the way.

Whether it’s an investment in a new stadium jumbotron or a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal, navigating the emerging women’s sports market is easier said than done. As Burach said, the paradigm in women’s sports financing is shifting from performance-based to potential-based — and that requires vision and a practiced hand.

“In this massive growth phase, you still do have certain entities that might look like they're losing money on paper. You need someone that's willing to go under the hood, from a financial perspective, and understand where this thing is going," Burach said. "Not everything is going to work, so you need a financial advisor with some foresight and with the ability to check you along the way to make sure that you're building this thing for long-term growth.”

For Powell Fleming, opportunity abounds in women's sports, but only if the right decisions are being made on the business side of the court. She argues that the money pouring into women's sports now needs to be strategically positioned to sustain success in the future.

“For example, we can provide context around the real, usable life of a certain piece of equipment and can structure it so that we’re not needlessly hindering your cash flow every five years when it has to be replaced," Powell Fleming said. "This allows you to be on the cutting edge of sports science and the fan experience. A good strategic advisor can connect different elements of an investment, see the whole ecosystem and give you options.”