According to statistics, women’s sports revenue is expected to reach a record-breaking US$2.35 billion this year, a year-on-year increase of 25%. 2025 Deloitte Report.
This statistic alone shows how quickly the women’s sports industry is growing, but it doesn’t reveal the full picture of why. but Alexis OhanianFounding controlling owner of Angeles City Football Club and Los Angeles Golf Club, founder of Athlos, the professional women’s track and field event series, in Fortune Global Forum Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh said on Tuesday it was due to rising investment in the team’s valuation.
Ohanian, co-founder and former CEO of Reddit, said investment in women’s sports has historically been “suppressed.” While women’s sports are “still far from overheated,” we’re starting to see it “quickly pick up” as valuations and team revenue rise.
Ohanian uses the following example National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), charged a Denver group $110 million for a record-breaking expansion. He said this showed that expansion costs had risen more than 100-fold in just a few years.
“It sounds like a tech story,” Ohanian said. “This is the story of women’s sports.”
Ohanian also predicts that we’ll see billion-dollar women’s sports teams in the next five years. To put things in perspective, though, all NFL and NBA teams are valued at at least $5 billion, while MLB has more than a dozen teams worth more than $4 billion.
Women’s sport is growing, but not fast enough
While statistics and anecdotes suggest the growth of women’s sport is “exponential,” it’s still a long way from overheating, portia archerCEO of the Women’s Tennis Association said at the Fortune Global Forum.
Although Deloitte’s report shows that women’s sports revenue is expected to reach a record-breaking $2.35 billion this year, that figure is less than 3% of the $80 billion in total revenue that includes men’s sports.
“The forecast five years out will continue to increase,” she said. “But it’s not enough. It should definitely be bigger and more.”
But Archer was recently named The most influential women in sportsare working to change this. She worked to launch industry-first family benefits programs, including up to 12 months of paid maternity leave for WTA players with support from the Saudi Public Investment Fund. She also oversaw a major WTA rebranding“World of Rally,” aims to redefine women’s tennis as a global cultural platform, increase commercial revenue and expand a global fan audience.
at the same time, Ben HarbergerThe head of Harburg Group, owner of Al Kholood Club and Cádiz Club de Futbol, told the Fortune Global Forum that there are more opportunities to make sports clubs around the world more inclusive.
“I was in the stands with the fans,” he said. “I engage with them directly.”
Coupled with the development of an app for watching matches not available on TV, it made fans feel like they were the 12th player and introduced a “whole new generation of people who were unloved and unappreciated”.