“The argument that women’s sports don’t bring in the same dollars or viewers is inane,” he wrote—and in came ridicule from readers who didn’t believe that people would want to pay to watch women play.
One user clapped back, “if you think this imbalance is temporary then you have a great opportunity to invest accordingly.” And that’s exactly what he did.
“I saved all those tweets from all the haters who said I was an idiot. No one watches women’s sports. You’re gonna lose all your money,” Ohanian revealed. And every time we hit another revenue milestone, I tag them and thank them for the motivation.”
While pointing out how quickly his investments are paying off, Ohanian suggested that the current momentum behind women’s sports is more like the scale of a Silicon Valley startup.
“We’re a ways from overheated,” he insisted. “You’re seeing the rise in valuations, the rise in team revenues… that has grown so fast because we’re seeing just how suppressed the investments were historically. It cost me a million dollars—that was the expansion fee, and I overpaid in January of 2020—to start Angel City, that same League, the NWSL, recently charged $150 million to a group in Denver.”
“So expansion fees going up 150x in four or five years—that sounds like a tech story. It’s a women’s sports story.”
For Ohanian and others invested in women’s sports, it means the market is only scratching the surface of its potential—and the “trolls” can expect to get a front row seat (in the form of a tag notification) as the wins pile up.
