Tonight in Unpacks: The NWSL’s 2024 campaign kicks of Saturday, and Bay FC will enter the fray with its inaugural match at Angel City FC in L.A. In an Early Access look at next week’s magazine, SBJ’s Joe Lemire reports on the four women behind the team -- and their shared past and vision for the future.
You’re reading the Lite version of SBJ Unpacks. Subscribe to SBJ All Access for the full version of this newsletter, plus daily email alerts, executive transactions, virtual SBJ Event access and dozens of other subscriber-only benefits. Here are the stories you’re missing in tonight’s full newsletter:
Also tonight:
- Big East Tournament staying at MSG through 2032
- CFP contract sets stage for TV deal
- Digging into the Bears’ stadium pivot
- MLB's Rangers continue gaming push, partner with Rival X
Listen to SBJ's most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour wraps up the week with storylines around the 2024 NWSL season, ESPN’s strategy for selling women’s sports, an upcoming docuseries on Allen Iverson and more.
Meet the women behind the NWSL's Bay FC
The effort to bring the NWSL to Northern California started modestly but effectively ... and it then reached an inflection point when the founding four -- Leslie Osborne, Brandi Chastain, Danielle Slaton and Aly Wagner -- were introduced to Sixth Street, a $75 billion global investment firm that had already invested in sports properties such as the NBA’s Spurs, Legends hospitality and in FC Barcelona’s media rights.
In April 2023, when the NWSL announced it would add a Bay Area expansion team, Sixth Street made the largest institutional investment ever in women’s sports, at $125 million (the expansion fee was $53 million), to become the first private equity firm to take a controlling stake in a NWSL club. That club, Bay FC, plays its first game on March 17.
“Historically, if you looked over women’s soccer, it was people who really had good hearts with some deeper pockets, but it was personal and that they were doing something good for the community,” Chastain said. “But in the long run, maybe they didn’t have deep enough pockets to survive. ... This is as much a business deal as it is the love of the game.”
SBJ's Joe Lemire chronicles the birth of Bay FC and the role its founders have played in the growth of women's soccer in this Early Access look at next week's magazine.
(l-to-r): Bay FC's Brandi Chastain, Danielle Slaton, Aly Wagner and Leslie Osborne each played at Santa Clara