Alexis Ohanian isn’t investing in women’s sports just for the love of the game — he sees an opportunity to make money. That business-first approach stands out in a world where some investors may accept losses for tax or strategic reasons.
Investing in Women
Ohanian focuses on sports and leagues featuring recognizable superstar athletes who can attract attention, build audiences, and create valuable business opportunities. He has pointed to track star Sha’Carri Richardson as an example of an athlete whose star power can translate into commercial value.
But he is also selective about where he puts his money, showing a preference for ventures that already have established athletes capable of drawing an audience. Ohanian is betting that increased visibility can lead to sponsorships, media opportunities, ticket sales and other revenue streams.
“Could there be? Maybe, but I’m not ready to invest unless it really has even one or two bright, bright stars that you can build around. That guarantees you attention, which is engagement and community, and it lets you build everything else on top of that,” he said, according to The Times of London.
Ohanian’s wife, Serena Williams, initially tried to discourage him from investing in women’s soccer when he helped launch Angel City FC in 2020.
“She was right, there were a lot of things to improve, but the good news is I’m very stubborn,” he said with a grin. “Telling me not to do something is a good way to actually get me to do that,” according to The Times.
He recalled earlier conversations with sports owners who treated women’s soccer teams mainly as tax write-offs.
“I remember talking to owners six years ago who genuinely felt the only reason they had a women’s soccer team was so that they could lose money to write off taxes,” he said.
His goal of building a billion-dollar women’s franchise once seemed out of place.
“To show up at the first board of governors meeting and say that I wanted to build a billion-dollar team was heretical. I started Reddit out of college, so I had never been in a boardroom where people were not trying to build billion-dollar companies. But it’s changed a lot,” he told The Times.
Ohanian’s original stake in Angel City FC was reportedly between $5 million and $8 million. The club sold for $250 million in 2024 and was then the world’s most valuable women’s sports team, according to The New York Times.
In May 2025 his firm Seven Seven Six bought a 10 percent stake in Chelsea’s women’s team for £20 million, The Times reported.
Ohanian has also built Athlos, a women’s track-and-field league, from the ground up. It features a $1 million prize purse, Tiffany crowns, premium production and athlete equity, with owner-advisers including Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall, according to The Times.
In a 2025 interview Ohanian framed women’s sports as a business opportunity. “Something I’ve always stressed, women’s sports is not a charity. Women’s sports, the reason I’ve been investing in it the last five years is because it is a tremendous business opportunity,” he said, according to CNBC.
“When you’re an emerging league, it is very, very, very hard to solve that chicken-and-egg problem, because you don’t yet have a league, by definition. You’re building it from scratch, and so you’re not going to have a meteoric deal that’s going to have anything close to an eye-popping number,” he said.
Athlos prioritized brand partnerships and broad distribution over exclusivity.
Tiffany & Co. designed the league’s winner crowns and Toyota returned as a partner. Athlos reached more than 3 million people in its first year, much of it through digital platforms, according to CNBC.
“As long as you have an internet connection, you will be able to watch them,” he said.
Production quality remains essential. “All those details matter so much in women’s sport because the default assumption of a lot of folks historically has been, ‘This is underinvested in, this is substandard play’ because the production quality is so bad,” he said.
“Perception is reality. Tennis does a very good job, feeling like this is a very important, rich sport. We get the benefit of being incredibly accessible, but still carving out portions of it that feel very high end. It helps us drive the brands that get these athletes paid,” he said to The Times.