Play ball! GBC's Katherine Rice and Linnea Roberts, Monarch Collective's Kara Nortman and CA First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom (center), gathered with members of the CA Advisory Council on Women's Wealth in early June at the Chase Center in San Francisco to discuss investing in women's sports and watch the Golden State Valkyries take on the Portland Fire.
We started our women’s sports high season in early June, when we co-hosted a suite at the Chase Center in San Francisco to watch the home team Golden State Valkyries take on the Portland Fire, the newest (and 15th) team in the WNBA.
The Valkyries, now in their second season, are already the most valuable franchise in WNBA history, valued at over $1B.
That’s a 20x increase from the team’s purchase price of $50M in 2023 by the owners of the Golden State Warriors, the men’s pro basketball team.
It’s important to note that the Valkyries’ season ticket holders have very little overlap with those of the Warriors (less than 5%, according to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert). That fact is proof-positive that women’s basketball is attracting an entirely new audience—one that’s filling seats and selling out stadiums and buying lots of team-branded merch.
Just don’t call women’s sports a trend or a niche. Rather, it’s the Next Big Thing in professional team-sports entertainment. Consider these numbers:
- WNBA franchise values are up 59% year over year to an average of $427M per team.
- Women’s professional soccer is another case in point: The National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) 14 teams are worth $2.6B combined (led by the Los Angeles Angel City FC at $335M).
- Revenue in women’s sports grew 4.5 times faster than men’s sports between 2022 and 2024, according to a 2025 McKinsey report.
- Media rights and commercial dollars are following a similar growth trajectory. And this year saw new broadcast programming dedicated to covering women’s sports and athletes, such as ESPN‘s “Chiney Today” and “Women’s Sports Sundays.”
- With three in 10 adults in the US saying they follow women’s pro and collegiate sports, according to a 2025 AP-NORC poll, the fan base and revenues are only expected to grow.
Discussing the opportunities presented by this burgeoning sector was one of the highlights of our Chase Center gathering, which we co-hosted with the Monarch Collective and Citizens Bank.
In 2023, Monarch Co-Founders Kara Nortman and Jasmine Robinson launched the very first fund to invest exclusively in women’s sports. The duo had seen this wave coming before most people were paying attention, then built the vehicle to capitalize on it, and effectively created a whole new asset class from scratch.
During our gathering, Kara sat down with Valkyries President Jess Smith to talk about how Jess took the helm before a single game had been played and delivered a sold-out inaugural season, then shattered WNBA attendance records, made the playoffs, and built the most valuable team in the league.
Our own investment in Monarch has given us exposure across the WNBA and the NWSL. We backed Kara and Jasmine early because we trusted their vision and their instincts, and that bet has continued to pay off as the numbers keep climbing.
New leagues keep proving the demand, too. We’re also excited to be an investor in the WTGL, the new women’s team golf league launching in partnership with the LPGA. We’re investing alongside Trybe Ventures, the fund co-founded by Olympic Gold Medalist and US Women’s Soccer champion Alex Morgan and her husband, retired pro soccer player Servando Carrasco. Just last month, Trybe announced bringing on more top female athletes as investors in the WTGL. (Read the full story on The Golf Wire.)
But we’re not just investors in women’s sports. We’re big fans, too. And not only because we love supporting women at the top of their game and being part of an ultimate fan experience.
It is what Kara Nortman describes, simply, as joy: That feeling of being in a sold-out arena cheering at the top of your lungs for your favorite team. (It’s a sentiment former President Barack Obama expressed when he welcomed WNBA All-Star players to home court at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago during WNBA All Star Weekend, July 23-25. View the clip.)
And talk about showing up: GBC’s Liza Valiaveedan and Ita Ekpoudom were among the more than 42,000 fans—a record-breaking crowd of all time for a women’s sporting event in New York—at the Gotham FC vs. Washington Spirit soccer match on July 15 at Citi Field in NYC. Read Emma Hinchliffe‘s coverage in Fortune.
What deeply resonates with us is something California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom expressed at our Valkyries gathering about the importance of sports in girls’ lives. The self-confidence playing a sport builds. The communities it creates that last a lifetime. And the skills that most women in leadership roles say they developed from playing a sport in their youth.
Could there be any better reflection of our mission than that?
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“Female professional athletes have the star power to attract new, younger, and more socially engaged audiences and top-tier sponsorships. It's important that women are at the forefront of this investment opportunity.”