For decades, women's sports have been systemically undervalued. Women's teams, leagues, and athletes have been historically underrepresented in mainstream media coverage. Legacy tracking systems used to measure audiences were designed around men's sports and lack key metrics for tracking how engaged women's sports fans really are. Traditional sports economics built around mature men's leagues with predictable revenue streams, consistently fails to capture the explosive growth potential and values-driven commercial dynamics reshaping women's sports.
Early stage women's sports backers are seeing outsized returns.
Transaction data from 2019-2025 reveals early-stage investors in women's sports generating multiples of 15X to 145X in as little as 24 months. NWSL franchises have grown 21X in value since 2021. WNBA expansion fees jumped from $60M to $250M in just three years. It's a pattern consistent across leagues: investors who entered during the systematic undervaluation are seeing their positions multiply at unprecedented rates.
Converging market shifts are driving this transformation.
Analysis of investment activity from 2019-2025 shows three distinct windows that built momentum for today's surge. 2019-2021 saw pioneering investors recognize fundamental value gaps, with streaming platforms and new measurement methodologies beginning to reveal true audience engagement. 2022-2023 brought institutional capital as the Title IX 50th anniversary and post-COVID viewing habit shifts validated commercial potential. 2024 onward represents rapid acceleration, with transaction multiples reaching levels that reflect women's sports finally being valued for growth potential rather than historical performance.
Yet the opportunity remains nascent.
Women's sports revenues of $1.88B in 2024 (projected $2.35B in 2025) represent less than 1% of the $500B global professional sports market. The mathematical reality is stark: if women's sports reach even 5% of total market share still dramatically smaller than women's participation in sports viewership the addressable market expands 5X from current levels. For investors, this represents a market positioned for exponential growth, with the steepest value creation curves still ahead.
The women's sports market is beginning to recalibrate.
As decades of systematic underinvestment give way to market recognition, early-stage positions in women's sports are generating returns that reflect both the correction of historical mispricing and the acceleration of fundamental growth drivers that legacy models consistently missed.
Amid converging market shifts, women's sports has capitalized on disruptive tech innovation to realize unprecedented value. During COVID, while virtually every major men's sport lost substantial audiences, women's sports posted record gains, with NWSL seeing 400%+ growth.
Structural changes post COVID, such as cord cutting, connected TV adoption, streaming content consumption, and new measurement capabilities, finally provided the data infrastructure to track women's sports audiences accurately, revealing what Nielsen panels had systematically missed for decades. Women's sports audiences, while smaller by legacy measures, demonstrated dramatically higher engagement quality: stronger brand loyalty, greater purchase intent, and measurably superior ROI for sponsors. These weren't just improved metrics for women's sports. They exposed decades of systematic undervaluation that early investors are now capturing through extraordinary returns.
Transaction Trends and ROI Patterns
Angel City FC offers a clear example. In April 2021, the team joined the NWSL with a $2 million expansion fee. In July 2024, Willow Bay acquired the team in a transaction that valued it at $250 million. In other words, Angel City's valuation grew 125x over 39 months.
Disclaimer: figures serve illustrative purposes only; estimates based on publicly available information – does not reflect actual deal terms or outcomes
The Las Vegas Aces followed a similar trajectory. Acquired in 2021 at a reported $1.7 million valuation, the team was valued at $250 million by early 2025. Sportico published the 2025 figure, translating to 145x valuation growth over 52 months.
Similar results have played out across multiple leagues. The New York Liberty grew 42x over 72 months. Seattle Reign and Atlanta Dream each achieved 16.5x growth over 51 and 52 months respectively.
How the Market Has Shifted in Just Six Years
GIGA's review of women's sports investment activity from 2019 to 2025 shows three clear phases of market change:
2019-2021: Early investors entered when women's sports remained largely relegated to streaming platforms and systematically undervalued by legacy broadcast measurement. Connected TV adoption and device proliferation revealed previously invisible audiences that traditional Nielsen panel measurements systematically missed. Women's soccer viewership on streaming platforms grew 300% year-over-year, while traditional ratings showed flat performance, exposing the fundamental measurement gap that had chronically undervalued women's sports. New tracking capabilities began capturing social media engagement, where women's sports content generated 40% higher interaction rates than men's equivalents. Teams like Angel City, Seattle Reign, and the Aces secured entry points that would generate 16x to 145x returns during this period of deepest market mispricing.
2022-2023: The Title IX 50th anniversary catalyzed corporate awareness campaigns just as post-COVID structural shifts validated women's sports commercial potential. Connected TV adoption and device proliferation enabled new content consumption behaviors precisely when cord-cutting trends disaggregated traditional linear sports packages.
More critically, new data tracking capabilities revealed what legacy Nielsen measurements had systematically missed: women's sports audiences demonstrated dramatically higher quality engagement, stronger brand loyalty, and greater purchase intent despite smaller absolute numbers. The old measuring stick of audience size had completely undervalued women's sports ROI. Fresh data showed female sports fans exhibited 32% higher brand loyalty and 30% greater purchasing intent for supporting companies, enabling women's sports properties to command premium rates and attract institutional capital. Teams like Golden State Valkyries and Bay FC entered here with higher expansion fees, yet still showed rapid valuation gains (10x in 20 months; 2.3x in 17 months, respectively).
2024 Onward: Early traction, data validation, investor demand, audience engagement and better data tracking are all helping fuel rapid acceleration. The virtuous cycle accelerated: expanding media coverage addressed the legacy barrier where fans couldn't watch if they didn't know when or where games aired. Media companies began paying premiums for women's sports content, with the WNBA's new $2.2 billion deal representing a 6x increase from their previous contract. Increased visibility drove higher valuations, new investor confidence, and team expansion, creating ripple effects across fashion, entertainment, cultural narratives, and youth participation. Though entry prices increased, monthly valuation growth continued at unprecedented rates, reflecting a market finally pricing growth potential rather than historical performance.
Note: reflects estimates based on publicly available transaction data, expansion fee, team valuation reports; 2025 adjusted value via BLS CPI data; reflects year 1 NBA 1946-47 & WNBA 1997
The Opportunity Is Still in Its Early Stages
By 2025, women's sports are projected to generate $2.35 billion in global revenue. That figure is up sharply from just a few years ago, but even as valuation multiples accelerate, women's sports still account for a tiny fraction of the estimated $500 billion global professional sports market: less than 1 percent.
The supply-demand imbalance remains stark. Only 33 Fortune 500 companies sponsor women's leagues, just 6% compared to 20% for men's sports. Media rights remain undervalued by an average of 2.5x across women's sports properties, with premium positioning still available for early movers before market saturation. Institutional investment in women's sports totaled just $1.2 billion in 2024, compared to $47 billion in men's sports: a 39:1 ratio that far exceeds any justifiable performance differential.
The mathematical reality suggests this gap will close rapidly. If women's sports capture even 5% of the $500 billion global professional sports market (still dramatically smaller than women's participation in sports viewership and consumer spending), the addressable market expands 5x from current levels. For reference, women represent 40% of global sports fans and 38% of sports-related consumer spending, yet women's sports capture less than 1% of total market value.
Disclaimer: figures serve illustrative purposes only; estimates based on publicly available information – does not reflect actual deal terms or outcomes
Much of the recent expansion has focused on team sports like basketball, soccer, volleyball, and hockey. Capital is flowing. Infrastructure is strengthening. New baselines are forming across leagues.
The investment thesis writes itself: systematic undervaluation is correcting through measurable market mechanisms, early-stage positions continue generating exceptional returns, and the steepest value creation curves remain ahead. Legacy models built for steady-state men's sports economics completely miss the exponential growth dynamics, values-driven engagement, and commercial potential reshaping women's sports. This isn't speculative growth; it's fundamental repricing of demonstrable commercial value that traditional metrics consistently failed to capture.
One notable exception is gymnastics.
Yet within this broader transformation, one sport stands out as the ultimate market inefficiency. Despite delivering the largest TV audiences during NBC's historic Paris 2024 Olympic coverage, along with record-breaking NCAA audiences up 11X in last 5 years, gymnastics has yet to establish professional infrastructure. There are no franchises, expansion deals, or transaction value growth charts to track. From a market perspective, it represents the most glaring gap in women's sports and potentially the most compelling commercial opportunity for investors who recognize the pattern emerging across other women's sports properties.
In our next installment, we'll explore this dynamic in more detail, and why gymnastics represents one of the most compelling commercial opportunities in women's sports.