Angel City FC finished its season early this month in 11th place out of 13 teams. This was a disappointing result for the Los Angeles soccer franchise co-founded by venture capitalist Kara Nortman in 2020. However, the team’s on-field struggles tell only part of a much larger story that is reshaping how investors think about women’s sports.
Despite its lackluster performance, Angel City has become a case study in how to best construct a women’s sports property. The team’s celebrity ownership group, which includes Natalie Portman and Serena Williams, has helped generate nearly unprecedented buzz. The franchise also broke sponsorship records before its players ever kicked a ball.
Nortman reflected on the team’s commercial success from the very outset. She stated that they went from zero to thirty million dollars in revenue, sold out games, and built something people did not think was possible. That success became the blueprint for Monarch Collective, the two hundred fifty million dollar fund Nortman launched in 2023. It is the first investment vehicle focused exclusively on women’s sports.
While its origin is rooted in a team that has yet to win a playoff game, Monarch’s portfolio and influence have expanded far beyond Angel City. The fund now holds stakes in three other National Women’s Soccer League clubs: San Diego Wave, Boston Legacy FC, and its newest investment, FC Viktoria Berlin. The deal for thirty-eight percent of the German club makes Monarch the first foreign investor to acquire a stake in a German women’s soccer team.
This diverse collection reflects Nortman’s conviction that women’s sports have reached an inflection point, regardless of any single team’s fortunes. The numbers support her optimism. Nortman explains that the overall men’s sports market globally is estimated to be about half a trillion dollars. The women’s sports market, when Monarch started in 2023, was thought to be about half a billion dollars. It is now closer to three billion dollars.
Tapping into that growth requires a different playbook than men’s sports, according to Nortman. It is not a simple rinse-and-repeat. She asks how many men’s team owners are thinking about parachuting Sephora boxes from rafters, or having a Fenty camera at a New York Liberty game for putting on your lipstick, or an Angel City Hello Kitty collaboration night where merchandise sells out instantly.
Angel City’s innovative approach to marketing and partnerships built so much excitement that last fall, power couple Bob Iger and Willow Bay acquired a majority stake for two hundred fifty million dollars. This made it the most valuable women’s sports franchise in the world.
For Nortman, who left traditional venture capital to focus on women’s sports, Angel City’s commercial achievements have continued to validate Monarch’s thesis. The team has inarguably proven that women’s sports can generate serious revenue with the right pieces in place.
Now the question is whether the momentum can last. Nortman is aware that women’s sports has seen promising moments evaporate before. She frequently references a historical parallel from 1920, when sixty thousand people showed up in Liverpool, England, to watch the Dick, Kerr Ladies play football, a bigger crowd than most Premier League games draw today. The next year, the English Football Association banned women from playing, and the sport essentially disappeared for decades.
Nortman says that everyone gets to wake up and become the discoverer of women’s sports, but it takes consistent, hard work to achieve lasting consistency. That hard work requires more than riding waves of attention from breakout stars. It demands systematic investment in infrastructure, governance, and operations.
This is where Monarch’s approach diverges from typical venture capital. Rather than making passive bets, Monarch takes concentrated positions in a handful of teams and leagues, then gets deeply involved in operations. The fund describes its strategy as venture-like markets with growth equity or private equity-like risk management.
Nortman explains that they show up alongside control owners and add a lot of operational value. The goal is to help teams reach breakeven or profitability on their core operations, positioning them to benefit as higher-margin media revenue grows.
Monarch’s investment interests extend beyond soccer. The fund is focused on sports with no product-market risk, meaning established formats with proven audiences. Nortman questions whether a sport is something people like to watch on their computer or television, distinguishing them from participatory sports.
While Monarch currently has stakes in four football clubs, it is also interested in women’s basketball, golf, and tennis. These are sports with substantial media revenue potential and existing infrastructure.
The firm’s current limited partners include Melinda French Gates and former Netflix executives. Interest in its mission seems to be growing. Monarch’s debut fund of two hundred fifty million dollars is substantially more than the one hundred million initially planned. Nortman says the increased size reflects the market’s rapid maturation during the fundraising period.
She recalls that when they started raising the fund, nine out of ten conversations involved skepticism about women’s basketball. Then came Caitlin Clark’s meteoric rise and the WNBA’s record-breaking viewership, which suddenly made basketball the hottest sector.
That growing interest validates Nortman’s thesis that women’s sports investment is not about finding the single perfect team. It is about supporting an ecosystem where multiple franchises can thrive. Some will win championships, while others may struggle competitively but succeed commercially. The key is having enough capital and operational expertise distributed across the market to weather individual setbacks.
Angel City appears to be inspiring other ownership groups. Nortman notes that other teams, like Kansas City, Bay FC, and the Washington D.C. Spirit, have female-led ownership groups coming in and showing they can build a real business. Whether intentionally or not, Angel City became a template.
As women’s sports enters a sustained boom period, with new WNBA teams like the Golden State Valkyries and NWSL expansion, Nortman remains cautiously optimistic. She argues the key lies in the fundamentals: strong league governance, owner commitment, infrastructure investment, and building genuine community connections. Media attention creates opportunity, but operational excellence makes it sustainable.
Nortman says that every spike in interest is an opportunity to create a consistent experience. You have to look at all the underlying criteria to see where it is likely to stick around.