The Goldman Sachs playbook for investing in women's sports
And pre-winter break firings 🔥
How are some of the wealthiest investors and firms in the world choosing to invest in women’s sports?
On a recent podcast for banking giant Goldman Sachs, Stacy Sonnenberg, the firm’s head of global sports finance, gives us a glimpse into where investors are deploying capital in women’s sports.
And it’s more niche than you might expect.
Here are the three key areas where investors are deploying capital:
Investment in facilities.
“We work closely with FC Barcelona, and they built a new stadium that their women's team plays in, Johan Cruyff Stadium,” Sonnenberg says. “And so it's a great facility. Now the women, though, need to actually play in Camp Nou, because they can sell it out, which is exciting.”
Facilities is a huge topic of debate here in the UK with the WSL. While some of the top teams, such as Arsenal and Chelsea, can continually sell out the “men’s team stadiums”, other teams in the WSL struggle — either because they don’t have that partnership with a men’s teams or they simply don’t have as big a fanbase yet to play in the larger stadiums. Those teams often relegated to playing in training grounds that are inaccessible by public transport and have poor facilities. Investments in facilities that are accessible is going to be key for growing the WSL and women’s sports more broadly.
Investment in going direct-to-consumer
A tremendous amount of investment is needed for leagues to make the shift to direct-to-consumer media. This includes everything from live streaming to social media and pre- and post- match updates from the club.
Investment in interaction with sponsors
Gone are the days of simply slapping a sponsors logo on a shirt. Activation opportunities are now key to building organic relationships between fans and sponsors. However, successfully pulling off true activation opportunities also require investment, Sonnenberg says. Investors can provide the capital for infrastructure to better manage sponsorship relationships.
“Patient Capital”
Anyone who is making these investments needs to be aware that this requires “patient capital,” Sonnenberg says.
“You buy a club today or you invest in women's sports today, there's an ongoing investment that's required right now to continue to build up that fan base and get the media rights to where the other leagues are,” Sonnenberg says. “And that's going to take time.”
“And so I think it needs to be patient capital with women's sports, but I think that capital will see a return.”
The best of the rest
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Image source: The original uploader was RMajouji at English Wikipedia., CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons