Alexis Ohanian on Angel City, Sports Ownership and the Business of Attention

Alexis Ohanian tells Harry Stebbings that sports teams need to tell athletes’ stories beyond the field and compete for attention every day. He argues that the organizations supporting players should bring the same drive to improve that athletes themselves need.

Ohanian values in-person meetings when they have a purpose, but says the pandemic encouraged him to be more deliberate about casual meetings. He would rather know what an encounter is meant to accomplish than simply schedule a catch-up.

His move from technology into sports ownership began with a 2019 tweet. He saw that a team associated with Megan Rapinoe had sold for about $4 million and thought the price made little sense: in his view, a well-marketed star could generate substantial brand revenue on her own.

Ohanian saw the US women’s national team’s success as evidence of an audience that paid attention every four years but did not necessarily follow its players between World Cups. Alex Morgan responded to his online interest; he met her, asked questions about the sport and came away determined to buy a team.

He says some existing owners treated women’s teams as charitable projects for family members, a culture he did not want to inherit. He later met Kara Nortman, Julie Uhrman and Natalie Portman, whose vision for a Los Angeles team aligned with his. He agreed to provide capital while they operated it.

At the time, he recalls, the league’s expansion fee was $1 million, with several million more needed to finance operations. He wrote a long investment memo exploring team economics and saw a mismatch between women’s soccer and its then-broadcast home on Lifetime, as well as underinvestment and low prices.

The proposed investment was contentious at Initialized. Ohanian says an investor’s track record can give limited partners confidence to tolerate unconventional bets. His thesis combined the opportunity in women’s sports with a second bet: private money entering sports would eventually create a larger pool of potential buyers.

He contrasts teams long held by wealthy families with companies competing for attention in the open market. In his view, scarcity and league structures allowed some sports organizations to neglect the operating discipline that consumer technology companies need. He gives the Washington football franchise under Dan Snyder as an example of an owner he considers badly managed.

Ohanian predicted that professional capital would bring more sophisticated management and higher revenues. At the time he imagined a possible exit over a decade or more, with the franchise potentially worth $1 billion. That was his investment thesis, not a guaranteed result.

He lists Angel City among investments that were controversial within his firm. Unlike a straightforward deal where partners strongly agree, he says venture firms need a mechanism for a general partner to back a conviction when colleagues disagree; this was one of his override decisions.

Ohanian also invested $250,000 personally through a trust for his children, after discussing it with limited partners. He believed the story of his and Serena Williams’s daughter becoming a young sports owner would help market the team. He says the later valuation made the children’s stake worth millions on paper.

One mistake, he says, was applying a startup ownership structure to a sports franchise. He was the league’s control owner and responsible for funding the team but did not control the board. The three founders held a majority of ownership; Ohanian says the resulting separation between financial responsibility and governance became problematic.

He estimates his total investment at roughly $7 million and recalls an initial financing round of around $6 million. Unlike a typical startup, the franchise fee had to be paid immediately, while the team would not play for years; COVID added further delay before ordinary match-day revenue.

Before Angel City had a logo or players on the pitch, Ohanian sold merchandise through Fourthwall, a portfolio company offering print-on-demand services. He used customer notifications to record individual thank-you videos, a practice he later continued at LA Golf Club.

He recalls Angel City generating a couple of hundred thousand dollars in early merchandise sales before playing, based on its brand and values. Building a community, he argues, requires unglamorous work: showing up in replies, meeting people and personally thanking early supporters.

Head of revenue Jess Smith pursued a front-of-shirt sponsorship with DoorDash. Ohanian knew CEO Tony Xu from Y Combinator and personally encouraged him to back the team. He describes the low seven-figure deal as a record for its time and says it gave Angel City credibility with other brands.

Operating a team means funding players and staff, subject to league rules and collective bargaining. Ohanian says Angel City relied on both revenue and subsequent financing. After leaving Initialized with colleagues to start 776, he also invested in the team through the new firm.

The major revenue opportunity beyond team-level sponsorships was a new league media deal. Ohanian believed the NWSL had been undervalued and judged social-media highlights as evidence of a sport’s ability to attract attention. His dismissal of other sports on that basis is his own investment judgment.

As Angel City entered the league, investigations into abuse in women’s soccer were underway, including the Yates report. Ohanian says the scrutiny forced the NWSL to confront failures, change leadership and bring in commissioner Jessica Berman. He credits the new leadership and owners with pushing to improve media rights.

He says a subsequent league agreement was worth $60 million a year for four years across multiple media partners, a substantial increase over the previous arrangement. Stebbings roughly divides that total by the number of teams; the conversation does not establish that each team receives an equal net amount.

Sponsorship pricing can also reinforce itself across a league. Ohanian says teams share information about their deals, enabling others to use comparable contracts in negotiations. Higher prices for one club can help establish a higher benchmark for others.

Ohanian initially says Angel City generated about $31 million in annual revenue, largely from sponsorships. He later explicitly corrects any misunderstanding: $31 million was the team’s total annual revenue, including merchandise and tickets, not sponsorship revenue alone.

He looks to esports organizations such as 100 Thieves for lessons in building an audience around players. Fans care about athletes beyond the game itself, he says, so clubs can develop content about their lives and training, creating sponsorship opportunities that can benefit both team and athlete.

Ohanian argues that many women athletes have become resourceful storytellers partly because they have historically needed brand deals to supplement sports income. His broad comparison between male and female content creators is a personal generalization. He hopes young fans will grow up idolizing both women and men athletes.

Merchandise revenue was still in the single-digit millions, he says, smaller than sponsorships. League-wide deals with suppliers such as Fanatics can improve infrastructure and bring revenue, but may also limit teams that want to experiment independently with merchandise and customer relationships.

He traces his interest in merchandise to Reddit’s early days. Despite co-founder Steve’s objections, Ohanian says he sold roughly 100 to 200 shirts, packed them himself and included handwritten thanks. Seeing fans wear the logo taught him how powerful that expression of belonging could be.

He sees an opportunity in telling the human stories behind athletes, citing documentaries such as Drive to Survive. Ohanian believes this approach can attract audiences beyond the conventional sports broadcast. He cautions that participation cannot be forced, although he thinks many athletes welcome the chance to tell their stories.

Ohanian funded The Off-Season, a reality series following eleven women soccer players living and training together in Miami. He estimates its cost at $4 million to $5 million and says it was planned for distribution on X. The producers needed athletes’ trust that editing would represent them honestly, rather than manufacture drama.

Stebbings asks why top athletes would spend their off-season on camera. Ohanian responds that even leading women footballers generally earned far less than top men at the time, and that storytelling can create additional opportunity. His salary comparisons are conversational estimates rather than a comprehensive pay study.

Stebbings worries that media commitments could harm team culture or performance. Ohanian acknowledges differences between stars and role players but believes storytelling may give less prominent athletes fans and opportunities too. Coaches still have to manage the resulting tensions.

Angel City averaged about 20,000 attendees in a roughly 22,000-seat stadium, Ohanian says, selling out around half its games. Ticket pricing creates a tension: higher prices can support the team and players, but supporters have asked that matches remain accessible.

He expects smaller venues and richer experiences around events to matter more, because very large stadiums must also find uses outside games. He is bullish on live human sports in an AI-heavy media environment, believing the emotional connection to real competition will become more valuable. That is a forecast.

Asked about costs, Ohanian corrects an estimate of the league salary cap to $2.75 million per team at the time of the conversation. He says the cap had risen from roughly $1.3 million a year earlier and argues it should rise further. Players may supplement salaries through their own brand deals.

He sees a similar opportunity in track. Ohanian says the Diamond League’s top championship prize was $30,000 and that his own Athlos event would offer a $60,000 top prize. The larger purse, he says, could both improve athlete incentives and generate publicity; he has a direct financial interest in the event.

On salary caps, he recognizes the argument that they help smaller-market teams compete. But a league also needs outstanding teams and stars that attract new fans. He is uncertain whether caps are the best way to balance competitive hope with the appeal of excellence.

Staff and operating overhead are another major expense, although the discussion does not produce a complete cost breakdown. Ohanian argues that software can multiply a small team’s effectiveness and says he applied lessons from Angel City when building LA Golf Club, where he retained ownership and control.

He warns that proximity to sports and fame can seduce owners into tolerating decisions they would reject in another business. In his view, the best operators stay focused on improvement, culture and the support athletes need rather than treating a team as a vanity project.

Regarding the reported $250 million Angel City transaction, Ohanian says it was an investment, not a sale of his stake. He describes an agreement to align capital responsibility and board control under new investors Willow Bay and Bob Iger. He says he sold no shares and continued to hold his investment.

He still hopes Angel City can become a billion-dollar franchise, while acknowledging potential competitive threats from other leagues. Asked about private equity in sports, he generally welcomes more capital and sophisticated managers but recognizes the tension around investors’ long-term incentives.

Some sports assets may be overpriced, Ohanian says; he names MLS and questions whether its valuations can be sustained without becoming a top destination for players. He predicts the NWSL will be larger than MLS in ten years. Both assessments reflect his own investment interests and are not established outcomes.

He argues that sports teams should make greater use of software. As an example, he cites ScorePlay, another investment, which he says helps teams use AI to organize game footage and photographs and prepare social content or reports for sponsors more efficiently.

Stebbings criticizes sports organizations’ understanding of technology and fan engagement. Ohanian agrees that revenue and examples of success can persuade owners to change. He expects teams to adopt tools more quickly once a leading club demonstrates results, though legacy contracts and habits create friction.

He predicts that the value of sports franchises could become even more concentrated as technology amplifies advantages. A small example is the new Clippers arena’s charging ports at every seat: Ohanian sees charged phones and strong connectivity as ways for fans to share the event with wider audiences.

Stebbings describes poor mobile connectivity at a Wembley concert. Ohanian speculates that legacy broadcasting incentives might contribute to such restrictions, but does not establish the cause. He expects some barriers protecting traditional revenue streams to give way over the following five to ten years.

Asked what loses attention as sports content expands, Ohanian predicts that much ordinary television, film and music will struggle as AI accelerates content production. He thinks exceptional live experiences and allegiance to a team will continue to command attention. These are scenarios, not measured outcomes.

Ohanian invested in MrBeast’s Feastables before launch. He had previously seeded Patreon and long wanted to work with creator Jimmy Donaldson. He says he was willing to back a product Donaldson genuinely believed in because of the trust and reach he had built with his audience.

Ohanian says he bought 10% at a $40 million valuation in 2020, before launch. Some limited partners questioned whether a chocolate company fit a venture fund. He saw it as a bet on a creator’s distribution and commitment, rather than simply another consumer-packaged-goods company.

He says he also invested in the MrBeast holding company. In his view, Donaldson learned from earlier ventures and maintained greater control over Feastables. Ohanian has a financial interest in both businesses, so his enthusiastic assessment is not independent.

He points to ViewStats, a creator analytics software product, as another application of Donaldson’s experience. Ohanian predicts that Beast Industries as a whole could eventually reach revenue comparable to Reddit’s pre-IPO revenue and gives his own multibillion-dollar valuation opinion; he does not present these as realized results.

He also expects MrBeast’s Amazon Prime Video show to demonstrate the value a creator can bring by attracting subscribers. That could improve future negotiating leverage, he predicts. The same logic, he says, makes live sports appealing to platforms seeking new viewers.

Asked how Feastables could become a billion-dollar business, Ohanian points to its growth and the size of the chocolate market. He and Stebbings joke about differences between American and European chocolate. The valuation remains a question about possible future value, not an achieved sale.

In the quick-fire round, Ohanian calls his pre-launch Ethereum token purchase his best investment. He says a $10,000 investment was worth approximately $17.1 million at the prices he was viewing, and notes he had sold some Ethereum. This is a time-specific valuation, not necessarily realized profit.

He also describes a $10,000 early investment in GrubWithUs, later GOAT, which he estimates at roughly $7.4 million based on the latest valuation. He says that position was incorporated into Initialized’s first fund and had not yet been fully realized.

As examples of investments he wishes he had sold, he recalls a planned Zenefits secondary transaction that fell apart after a valuation markdown and a Clubhouse stake he held through a later high-priced round. Stebbings notes that the optimism around audio platforms was understandable at the time.

Watching Serena Williams has taught him about commitment. Ohanian says he loves his own work every day, whereas Williams pursued the outcome of winning even when she did not enjoy every part of the training process. Her sustained discipline since childhood inspires him.

He sees beauty and fashion as industries with room to spend more on sports partnerships, especially as attention grows around women athletes’ style. He points to early examples such as Glossier and Skims, while Stebbings highlights the visibility a brand can gain from Formula 1 sponsorship.

Asked which trait has helped him but can be difficult for others, Ohanian chooses relentlessness. He says he struggles to work with people who do not share that orientation and has gradually become more comfortable setting boundaries around what matters to him.

His mother’s terminal cancer sharpened his sense of mortality when he was young. He tries not to waste time, whether at work or with family and friends, even if that means being absent from a group chat for periods. He says he tries to be fully present as a father and husband.

Ohanian says that around four years before the interview he became more comfortable with this part of his personality, left Reddit’s board, split from Initialized and started 776. His advice is to understand what really matters to you and avoid compromising on those things.

The conversation ends with Ohanian planning time with his daughter during the London trip. Stebbings thanks him for joining the discussion.