When the season ended earlier this month, Angel City FC finished eleventh out of 13 teams, a disappointing result for the Los Angeles soccer franchise co-founded in 2020 by enterprise capitalist Kara Nortman. But the season’s struggles tell only part of a much broader story that is changing the way investors think about women’s sports.
Despite its poor performance on the pitch, Angel City itself has turn into a case study (incl literallyat Harvard Business School) on how best to build a sports facility for women. The group of celebrities that made up the band, including Natalie Portman and Serena Williams, helped create almost unprecedented buzz. The franchise has also shown great sponsorship savvy, breaking records before players even kicked a ball.
“We went from zero to $30 million in revenue. We sold out every game. We built something people didn’t think was possible,” Nortman stated in interview last monthpointing to Angel City’s business success from the very starting of the band’s formation. “That really led to the creation of Monarch.”
Commercial success, not trophies, became the blueprint for Monarch Collective, the $250 million fund that Nortman launched in 2023, which became the first investment vehicle focused exclusively on women’s sports. While the company’s history could also be rooted in a team that has yet to win a playoff game, Monarch’s portfolio and influence has prolonged far beyond the Angel City training facility in Thousand Oaks, California.
The fund currently holds shares in three other National Women’s Soccer League clubs: San Diego Wave, Boston Legacy FC (debut next yr) and its latest investment, announced earlier this monthFC Victoria Berlin. Transaction for 38% of the German club, makes Monarch the first foreign investor to amass shares in the German women’s soccer team.
It’s a diverse collection that reflects Northman’s belief that women’s sports have reached a turning point, regardless of the fate of any one team. The numbers also confirm her optimism.
“The entire global men’s sports market is estimated to be worth around half a trillion dollars,” explains Nortman. “When we founded Monarch in 2023, the women’s sports market was worth about half a billion dollars. It’s now closer to $3 billion.”
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Taking advantage of that growth requires a different playbook than men’s sports, Northman says. It’s not a easy rinse and repeat. “For example, how many men’s team owners think about parachuting Sephora boxes from the rafters? Or having to [a New York] Freedom [WNBA game] Fenty donning camera [Fenty] lipsticks, or Angel City is having a Hello Kitty collab night where people cannot determine get their hands on the merch before it sells out?”
Angel City’s progressive approach to marketing and partnerships helped generate so much excitement that last fall, power couple Bob Iger and Willow Bay acquired a majority stake in it for $250 million, making it the most beneficial women’s sports franchise in the world.
For Nortman, who left Upfront Ventures and more traditional enterprise capital to focus full time on women’s sports, Angel City’s business track record continues to support Monarch’s thesis. While there is currently a tension – at least in the sports press – between Angel City’s business success and on-field performance, the team has undoubtedly proven that women’s sports can generate serious revenue if the right elements are put in place.
Now, as with any successful latest enterprise, the query is: Can the momentum proceed? Nortman is well aware that there have been promising moments in women’s sports before. He often draws a striking historical parallel from 1920, when 60,000 spectators showed up in Liverpool, England, to look at the Dick, Kerr Ladies play, an audience larger than most Premier League games today. The following yr, the English Football Association banned women from playing, and the sport essentially disappeared for many years.
“Anyone can wake up and become an explorer of women’s sports,” says Nortman. “But it takes consistent and hard work for that to translate into consistency.”
In her opinion, this tough work requires greater than just attracting the attention of stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. It requires systematic investment in infrastructure, management and operations – the unsightly work of building sustainable businesses.
This is where Monarch’s approach diverges from typical enterprise capital. Instead of making passive bets on dozens of startups, Monarch takes concentrated positions in a few teams and leagues and then becomes deeply involved in operations. The fund describes its strategy as “venture markets” with “growth equity” or “private equity” risk management.
“We act alongside the owners of the controls and add great operational value,” explains Nortman. The goal is to assist teams break-even or break-even in their core business, so they will reap the advantages as higher-margin media revenues grow.
Monarch’s investment interests extend beyond football. The fund’s broader focus is on what Nortman calls “no product market risk” sports: established formats and proven audiences.
“Do people like watching this sport on the computer or on TV?” – he asks. “There are participation sports like pickleball, but will people sit at home and create an event based on watching them?”
Indeed, while Monarch currently has interests in 4 “soccer” clubs, it also has interests in women’s basketball, golf and tennis – sports with significant media revenue potential, along with existing infrastructure.
The company’s current limited partners include Melinda French Gates, former Netflix executives and other wealthy individuals, and interest in the company’s mission appears to be growing. First, Monarch’s $250 million debut fund is significantly greater than the $100 million that Nortman and her co-founder Jasmine Robinson, a former investor in sports, media, gaming and fitness company Causeway, initially planned to lift. He says the increased size reflects the market’s rapid maturation during Monarch’s fundraising period.
“When we started fundraising, nine out of 10 conversations were, ‘Yeah, we don’t think so [women’s] basketball is really something,” says Nortman, recalling “a lot of skepticism about the game.” Then got here Caitlin Clark’s meteoric rise, record WNBA viewership, and suddenly basketball became the hottest sector in women’s sports.
This growing interest supports Nortman’s thesis that investing in women’s sports is not about finding one perfect team, but about fostering an ecosystem in which multiple franchises can thrive. Some will win championships. Some will struggle to compete but can be commercially successful. The key is to have enough capital and operational knowledge spread across the market to weather individual failures.
Angel City already appears to be inspiring other ownership groups. “Other teams started to form – Kansas City, Bay FC, Washington DC Spirit – with ownership groups led by women who started coming in and showing that they could build real P&L,” Nortman notes. Intentional or not, Angel City has turn into a template.
As women’s sports enter what appears to be a lasting boom – the Golden State Valkyries just played their first WNBA game next season, the NWSL is expanding and media rights deals are increasing – Nortman stays cautiously optimistic that this moment can be different from previous surges in interest.
The key, she believes, lies in the fundamentals: strong league management, owner involvement, investment in infrastructure and building real community connections. Media attention creates opportunities; operational excellence ensures durability.
“Each jump is an opportunity to create a cohesive experience around it,” says Nortman. “You have to look at all the fundamental criteria to see where it is most likely to stick.”