The dean of the USC Annenberg College, Willow Bay, and her husband, Disney CEO Bob Iger, are nearing a deal to buy management of Angel Metropolis FC, a supply accustomed to the state of affairs instructed ESPN on Wednesday.
The couple’s intent to buy management of the NWSL membership from Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, the group’s largest shareholder, was first reported by Semafor.
In response to Semafor, the membership’s present valuation is $250 million, and the Iger and Bay proposal would carry the brand new valuation to $300 million.
Ohanian, who’s the husband of Serena Williams, doesn’t have management of the NWSL membership’s board. In a while Wednesday, Ohanian posted on social media: “For all of the reporters who maintain reaching out: after I purchased the franchise to launch @weareangelcity in 2019, I did not setup board management for myself. (Certainly one of many laborious classes I discovered as a first-time sports activities group proprietor). However as I’ve mentioned from bounce, I am not promoting any shares within the team–dunno why I maintain seeing false studies.”
Angel Metropolis is in search of a girl proprietor, the supply instructed ESPN, stressing Bay’s function within the deal. Puck’s Dylan Byers first reported Bay’s involvement.
In March, Sportico listed the membership’s valuation at $180 million. The San Diego Wave offered for a valuation of $120 million in March, setting the NWSL document.
The group has three co-founding companions — Kara Nortman, Natalie Portman and Julie Uhrman.
Different buyers embrace Eva Longoria and former United States girls’s nationwide group stars Abby Wambach and Mia Hamm.
Enjoying at BMO Stadium close to downtown Los Angeles, the membership boasts greater than 16,000 season-ticket holders.
Earlier this 12 months Angel Metropolis FC’s board employed world funding financial institution Moelis & Firm to discover a possible sale of the franchise, Sportico reported.
Former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry additionally bid competitively, one other supply instructed ESPN, however the Bay and Iger pitch was favored for its long-term dedication. Manchester United proprietor Avie Glazer was one other contender, in keeping with studies.
A spokesperson for Disney declined to remark Wednesday on the potential deal. The Walt Disney Firm is almost all proprietor of ESPN.
In November 2023, the NWSL introduced a brand new four-year media rights deal that may associate the U.S. girls’s prime flight with CBS Sports activities, ESPN, Prime Video and Scripps Sports activities in 2024.
Nearly each group within the 14-team NWSL has new possession or main buyers who joined prior to now 4 years, resulting in an inflow of billionaire possession teams with main league expertise and deeper pockets than the league has ever had entry to earlier than.
“We aren’t sitting right here at the moment saying, ‘Is that this factor nonetheless going to be round a 12 months from now?’ which I believe is a really completely different mindset possibly than the previous,” NJ/NY Gotham FC lead proprietor and league board governor Carolyn Tisch Blodgett lately instructed ESPN.
Over the previous 4 years, all however one group — the North Carolina Braveness — has turned over majority possession or joined the league as a brand new group.
In nearly each case, they’ve been splashy, high-profile additions.
“From once we joined the league and even the conversations earlier than, to now, the mindset round need to speculate, need to see development, the right way to obtain excellence, it is wildly completely different,” Kansas Metropolis Present co-owner Chris Lengthy, who sits on the NWSL’s enlargement committee and co-founded the Present in late 2020 along with his spouse, Angie, and Brittany Mahomes, instructed ESPN lately.
“There was a sea change, and it is thrilling,” he mentioned. “There’s a whole lot of well-intentioned, well-capitalized folks that have gotten concerned of late over our 4 seasons, after which secondarily, much more individuals on the door.”
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This NWSL season introduced the arrival of enlargement facet Bay FC, backed by personal fairness agency Sixth Road, which says it manages over $75 billion in belongings, and CEO Alan Waxman.
San Diego Wave FC, which joined the NWSL for round $2 million forward of its 2022 enlargement season, is in the course of a sale course of to the Levine Leichtman household (additionally billionaires) that values the membership between $113 million and $120 million.
Seattle Reign FC offered to OL Groupe in late 2019 for about $3.5 million. Now that group simply offered once more for $58 million.
