The WNBA on Thursday introduced it finished its first-ever capital elevate, bringing in a number of big-name buyers together with Nike and previous U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, because the league appears to boost up expansion.
The Girls’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation raised $75 million from buyers, which additionally come with Dell Applied sciences CEO Michael Dell and Laurene Powell Jobs, philanthropist and the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Following the investment, the valuation of the WNBA and its groups is $1 billion, in step with a supply with wisdom of the deal.
“We now have all observed the stories that lower than 5% of all sports activities media protection and not more than 1% of all sponsorship bucks move to girls’s sports activities, so get right of entry to to this capital … if you find yourself looking to develop a industry is in reality going to assist us transfer the needle,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated in an interview Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Field.”
The league in a press unencumber known as it “the largest-ever capital elevate for a ladies’s sports activities assets.”
The WNBA’s fund-raising spherical is the newest indication of the momentum and investor consideration towards ladies’s sports activities at each the pro and collegiate degree. It additionally comes more or less 3 months earlier than the 12-team league is about to start out its twenty sixth season, in Might. Loose company is underway now.
The league’s milestone twenty fifth season, which concluded in October, noticed a big soar in TV viewership, in step with Disney-owned ESPN, which declares some common season video games and all the postseason.
Common-season viewership greater 49% when put next with the 2020 season and 24% when put next with 2019 earlier than the Covid pandemic, in step with ESPN. The postseason and WNBA Finals each noticed their best possible viewership figures in years.
LAS VEGAS, NV – JULY 27: WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert addresses the media earlier than the AT&T WNBA All-Celebrity Sport 2019 on July 27, 2019 on the Mandalay Bay Occasions Middle in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brian Babineau | Nationwide Basketball Affiliation | Getty Pictures
Engelbert, former CEO of consulting massive Deloitte, stated the WNBA plans to make use of its money in a number of tactics to assist the league determine an financial fashion that is “sustainable for the longer term.”
“We have now such a lot alternative to globalize the sport, enlargement,” stated Engelbert, who has led the WNBA since July 2019. “We have now alternative to explode our virtual footprint and consider what direct to client approach.”
“It is in reality a large number of expansion tasks,” Engelbert added, together with sports activities making a bet as extra states across the U.S. legalize it and “advertising our stars into family names each right here within the U.S. and globally.”
Nike, which has subsidized the WNBA’s jerseys since 2018, made “a vital fairness funding” within the league, the discharge press unencumber stated.
Different noteworthy buyers come with Carnival Chairman Micky Arison, who additionally owns the NBA’s Miami Warmth; Clara Wu Tsai and Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, homeowners of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty; and three-time WNBA champion Swin Money, who now could be vp of basketball operations for the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans.
Money, who performed within the WNBA from 2002 to 2016, stated her participation as an investor additionally indicators strengthen for present gamers as they additional determine the league.
“Out of doors buyers are nice, and that’s the reason necessary, however the ladies who’ve additionally helped construct this league , it is necessary for us to face along this subsequent technology,” stated Money, who seemed on “Squawk Field” along Engelbert.
Metropolitan Capital Advisors co-founder and CEO Karen Finerman, a typical dealer on CNBC’s “Speedy Cash,” additionally participated within the WNBA’s funding spherical.