Exploring the growth of women’s sports with Alexis Ohanian. The 2024 has already been predicted as the year when the global women’s sports industry will finally break the $1 Billion barrier, and guess what? That’s a straight 300% increase from 2021! And, while talking about the rapid rise of women’s sports, who can we forget this 41-year-old internet entrepreneur and investor? Serena Williams’ husband has recently invested quite a lot of his time and money towards the growth of women’s sports and here’s what he has to say about his successful run as a women’s sports investor.
Recently, Ohanian won the ADWEEK’s Brand Genius Award for all the work he has done over the last few years in not just developing the companies but also contributing to the communities by elevating women’s sports. Just like, Reddit, the world of female athletes has until recently been defined by under-appreciation both in terms of commercial potential and its cultural impact. However, Alexis Ohanian considers this oversight more as an advantage than anything else in the digital age.
Be it Angel City FC, Athlos NYC, or Off Season FC, we have seen multiple such initiatives taken by Serena Williams’ husband over the last few months. His portfolio of women’s sports enterprises keeps increasing!
Reflecting on his initial thoughts of investing in women’s sports during an interview with ADWEEK, Alexis Ohanian stated, “The silver lining of women’s sports being so underinvested was that they were so easy to invest in. You can try anything you want. There is no way that things have been done before.”
Previously while speaking on his investments in Angel City FC, he had also stated the same about how women’s soccer in particular was “tremendously under-resourced, under-marketed, undervalued, underappreciated, under-supported…” So, it was more of taking the opportunity and doing something extraordinary for him. According to Ohanian, the social content is mostly driven by women. He believes every platform that has become a success in social media is because of teen girls.
According to multiple reports, female college athletes generate four times the total audience engagement than male athletes. So, this clearly gives us an idea about what Serena Williams‘ husband is trying to make us understand. Who was the main driving force behind such investments in women’s sports for Alexis Ohanian?
“Serena Williams is the prototype…” – Alexis Ohanian gives credit to his wife for being the major driving force behind these investments
Is Alexis Ohanian the unsung hero behind Serena Williams’ success and women’s sports revolution?
During a conversation on the rise of women’s sports on CNBC, Alexis Ohanian admitted, “The core phenomenon here probably came from a certain someone I’m married to, right? Serena Williams is the prototype for how you can show women’s sports is and can be and should be on the same level as men’s.” Later on, he also spoke about how stalwarts like Serena Williams, Venus Williams, and Billie Jean King played a crucial role in increasing the viewership in women’s tennis compared to male events.
Are these the only names that inspired Ohanian to take this route? Well, not really! In an interview with On Her Turf, he revealed that his elder daughter, Olympia who is also a big soccer fan played a crucial role in motivating him to invest in Angel City FC. “A big part of the reason why I started Angel City FC was because Olympia was running around, this is 2019 in a Alex Morgan jersey,” said Ohanian. However, he also made it clear to the fans that it’s not just them, but there are many other people and many other things that helped him start this new journey with women’s sports.
According to him the main thing which the women’s leagues are lacking at the moment is a proper investment. “What I think has been missing in all these other leagues is they’re not started from, in Tech we say first principles, they’re started almost as like a well-intentioned charity,” he said in April 2024 during a previous interview. Share your thoughts on Alexis Ohanian’s heavy investments towards the growth of women’s sports.
