womens-sports
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Stanton & Company Bet on Women’s Sports Before the Crowd Arrived
Amy Stanton built an agency around female athletes when the market treated them as an afterthought. Twenty years later, its sharpest advice is also its least glamorous: publicity only works when the product, distribution and story are ready.
The Lacrosse League That Went Looking for a Hometown
Paul and Mike Rabil built the Premier Lacrosse League by taking the whole show on the road. Now local loyalties, a women’s league and $100 million in fresh capital are testing how far that idea can travel.
The Team Natalie Portman Built to Prove Women's Soccer Was Underpriced
A women's soccer club built by Hollywood, venture capital and athletes bet that fans, sponsors and equity could sit on the same balance sheet. In 2024 the market priced that bet at $250 million.
The banker who hated banks built a better one
She left a 20-year agency career, took a pay cut, and bet on a broken bank in the middle of a financial crisis. Fifteen years later, roughly 11 million people bank with the brand she built.
Garth Knutson Plays the Long Game - Then Moves the Budget
Aflac's CMO built his career connecting people, clients and ideas. Now he is showing how an old mascot stays useful: protect the memory structure, keep tinkering and know when conviction deserves real money.
The NWSL Is Building the League Women’s Soccer Was Always Told to Wait For
Sixteen clubs, four major media partners and one newly liberated player market have turned the NWSL into a revealing test of what happens when women’s soccer is treated as a durable business, not a charitable cause.
The WNBA's 30-Year Overnight Success
After decades of proving the audience existed, women's professional basketball has entered its infrastructure era. The WNBA is adding cities, screens and revenue-sharing at the same time - and learning how to turn attention into an institution.
Unrivaled Basketball
Unrivaled is a women's 3-on-3 professional basketball league founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart and run by president and CEO Alex Bazzell. Built to keep top players competing at home during the WNBA offseason, it pairs the highest average salary in American women's team sports with equity ownership for its athletes. Launched in Miami in January 2025, the compressed full-court league reached a $340 million valuation after a 2025 Series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
Kara Nortman
Kara Nortman is a Princeton and Stanford MBA-educated venture capitalist who spent eight years at Upfront Ventures before pivoting to become the defining force in women's sports investment. She co-founded Angel City FC — the NWSL team that became the world's most valuable women's sports franchise at $250 million — and then launched Monarch Collective, the world's largest women's sports investment fund at $250 million. She was also in the room at IAC's Hatch Labs when a restaurant-reservation app called Cardify was reborn as Tinder.