It was a striking message, last month, from former American football player Tom Brady. On X he called on the fans of the women’s team of Birmingham City to stand square behind their team at the crucial match against London City Lionesses in the after competition. With one leg The Blues In the Women’s Super League, he wrote, the highest English women’s football competition.
Why is a well-known American sportsman, seven-time winner of the Super Bowl, concerned about the performance of a women’s team in the one-after English division? Did it start with the successes of four -time world champion America? Does he have a playing daughter?
No. Brady bought a share of 3.3 percent in Birmingham City in the summer of 2023. The men’s and women’s team of that club are doing well, and financially it is going well. Birmingham City achieved a profit of converted more than 33 million euros this year, an increase of 45 percent compared to a year earlier. A good investment (for the time being) from Brady, who belongs to a growing group of Americans who (also) put their capital in European women’s football teams.
The owner of the opponent is the leader in that for Birmingham City so crucial (but lost) match: Michele Kang. At the end of 2023 she bought London City Lionesses – a club without a male pendant – and less than a year later she would also get a majority stake in a French top club: Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, recently renamed Ol Lyonnnes. Together with Washington Spirit – number four in the highest American football competition, the NWSL – those clubs were housed in the Kynisca Sports International company last year.
Where Brady focuses on European football in its entirety, Kang only focuses on women’s football. Although Brady goes for a committed investor, his idealism does not go as far as hers. Kang wants to make women’s football independent financially, and offer players more opportunities. For example, she was the one behind the biggest donation in American women’s football ever, at the end of last year. “Women’s sport does not get the attention it deserves,” Kang gave an explanation of the gift of 30 million dollars, more than 26 million euros, to the American Football Association. “I’m going to do everything to boost the bar in women’s football.”
Brady and Kang are different in it, but have in common that they smoke opportunities in European women’s football at an early stage, says Christina Philippou, university teacher sports financing at the University of Portsmouth. She comes with a complicated financial story, about the American competition relatively inaccessible to investors, but the essence is that it is much more lucrative to invest in Europe. There is infrastructure, sponsorship, marketing and media attention in no proportion to talent and competition level. “Investors feel about everything that it pays to step in,” she says.
That is also the experience of Brian Anderson, which leads the sports division of the American law firm Sheppard Mullin, which has Chelsea and Arsenal, among others. “What was once a fragmented, under -financed market is rapidly developing now that American investors see the value and long -term potential of women’s sport abroad,” he says.
According to Anderson, various recent deals prove how “strategic and dedicated” these investors are. The American business couple Angie and Chris Long bought the Danish HB Køge Women two weeks ago. The well -performing female branch of the club was disconnected from the moderately performing men’s branch when purchasing. For example, the Longs, who are also the owner of the leader in the NWSL, Kansas City Current, do not have to distribute their attention.
Another recent example: the investment of Alexis Ohanian in Chelsea Women. For 20 million pounds (around 24 million euros), Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, bought 10 percent of the shares. With his wife Serena Williams, former tennis player, he recently saw Chelsea win the FA Cup in the Wembley Stadium. Ohanian, also major shareholder of the American women’s club Angel City, did not disguise his goal with Chelsea to the BBC. He hoped that his investment could contribute to “a billion -dollar franchise.”
Another American player on the market is Mercury/13, a new investment group that wants to invest 100 million dollars (around 88 million euros) in women’s football. Until now it remained with the purchase of FC Como, a team in the Femminile Serie A, but Mercury/13 has already announced that they are looking at a Spanish and an English team. “Women’s sport has become a movement for gender equality, probably the most powerful of our generation,” said co -founder Victoire Cogevina Reynal in one interview. From an economic perspective, that is “huge“She said.
According to Anderson, the American investment drive for fans and clubs can lead to a disappointment, especially at Multi-Club Ownership. That concept, known from men’s football, has also entered European women’s football. “Some clubs are worried that they lose their best players to more prominent clubs in the ownership group,” he says. “In order to make this type of investment really profit, it is important that each team gets the attention and smart planning it deserves. That makes the whole group stronger.”
“Women’s football remains financially vulnerable,” says Philippou, pointing to Reading and Blackburn Rovers, two women’s teams who no longer play in the highest English competition, because owners find investments in their men’s team more important.
She is not starting to laugh at my question why American investors do not show an interest in Dutch club teams. “Weirdly behind,“She mentions the Eredivisie.” Most people know a Dutch international at a European top club, or a Dutch coach. But a player from the Eredivisie? I fear the worst. “