When its season ended early this month, Angel City FC finished 11th out of 13 teams, a disappointing result for the Los Angeles soccer franchise that venture capitalist Kara Nortman co-founded in 2020. But the season’s struggles tell only part of a much larger story that’s reshaping how investors think about women’s sports.
Despite its lackluster on-field performance, Angel City itself has become a case study (including literally, inside Harvard Business School) in how to best construct a women’s sports property. The team’s celebrity ownership group, including Natalie Portman and Serena Williams, has helped generate nearly unprecedented buzz. The franchise has also been savvy about sponsorships, breaking records before players kicked a ball.
“We went from zero to $30 million in revenue. We sold out games. We built something people didn’t think was possible,” Nortman reflected in an interview last month, pointing to Angel City’s commercial success from the very outset of the team’s formation. “That really led to the formation of Monarch.”
That commercial success, not trophies, became the blueprint for Monarch Collective, the $250 million fund Nortman launched in 2023, which has become the first investment vehicle focused exclusively on women’s sports. While its origin story may be rooted in a team that has yet to win a playoff game, Monarch’s portfolio and influence have expanded far beyond Angel City’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 (debuting next year), and its newest investment, announced earlier this month, FC Viktoria Berlin. The deal for 38% of the German club, makes Monarch the first foreign investor to acquire a stake in a German women’s soccer team.
It’s a diverse collection that reflects Nortman’s conviction that women’s sports have reached an inflection point, regardless of any single team’s fortunes. The numbers support her optimis …