(Bloomberg) -- All the attention being paid to women’s sports isn’t just about the exploding number of fans. More deals are coming, too. The New York Liberty captured its first WNBA championship Oct. 20 in front of a sold-out Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Earlier this month, the team’s owner said she expected her franchise to be the first women’s team worth $1 billion within the next 10 years.
“We’ve gone from having a moment to a movement,” Nasdaq Chief Executive Officer and Chair Adena Friedman says in the latest episode of The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly. “In the last few years, they finally had a moment of everyone realizing it’s a great product, it’s a great viewer experience. And now they have this movement of being able to escalate franchise values using social media and broad-based media.”
Listen and subscribe to The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly on Apple, Spotify, iHeart and the Bloomberg Terminal.
Friedman, 55, says she’s seeing more interest in sports deals across the board, especially as institutional capital moves into investing in teams. The National Football League recently approved a slate of funds to purchase minority stakes in franchises, while leagues including the National Basketball Association and the National Women’s Soccer League already have institutional investors .
All of that cash likely means more business for Nasdaq as the need for liquidity builds in sports, Friedman says. Teams like Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves already are traded on the Nasdaq, as is racing series Formula One. More are sure to follow.
“I think you’re going to see teams in multiple sports being public,” Friedman says. “You’re going to see changes in the structures of these leagues and organizations so it unlocks more value and brings more professional people into the mix.”
To see all episodes of The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, click here.To see the latest episodes from Bloomberg Podcasts, click here.To see the latest videos from Bloomberg Originals, click here.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
