Kara Nortman bet early on women’s sports, when few investors would. And now she is part of defining the category that she banked on.
Through her $250 million investment vehicle, Monarch Collective, Nortman is weaving a cross-continental portfolio and building out a playbook she can execute again. The most recent is a takeover of a 38 percent stake in FC Viktoria Berlin that represents something unique: the first foreign investment in a German women’s club and, still more pertinent than that, evidence not just of an instinct to back but to build an industry.
A Venture Lens on a Private Equity Challenge in Sports
Monarch avoids a spray-and-pray portfolio. Instead, it makes concentrated bets, ends up on the operating table and then starts pushing for a break-even point on core business while media upside accrues. Nortman dubs it “venture-like markets” with “growth equity or private equity-like risk management.”
Crucially, the fund is chasing sports with no product-market risk: formats audiences are already watching. That’s football, basketball, golf and tennis—properties with known demand markers, established rights deals and scalable sponsorship inventory. In other words, the work is less in creating new sports than it is further professionalizing and monetizing existing ones through better governance, scheduling, infrastructure and data-driven commercial operations.
From Angel City to a Broader Repeatable Portfolio Strategy
Angel City FC, which Nortman co-founded, served as the prototype. In seasons when results have not kept pace, the club has still sold out games, developed pioneering partnerships and forged a fan base that marketers can quantify. It inspired a case study taught at Harvard Business School. The franchise’s commercial success reached a crescendo when it was purchased by Bob Iger and Willow Bay in a majority acquisition deal worth roughly $250 million—placing it among the most highly valued franchises in women’s sports at that time.
Monarch expanded the blueprint by acquiring stakes in the San Diego Wave, Boston Legacy FC and now Viktoria Berlin—each a chance to solidify best practices around ticketing, brand/sponsorship and community.
It is intentional diversity, a collection of different markets, governance realities and revenue mixes that produces a knowledge network more durable than any single team’s win-loss column.
The marketing playbook skews toward fan identity and pop-culture adjacency. Think the Sephora dunk from arena rafters, a Fenty cam at Liberty games that turns beauty moments into UGC and sold-out Angel City Hello Kitty collaborations. That’s not a derivative copy of the men’s model; that’s audience-first monetization designed for a digitally native fan.
The Market Has Arrived for Women’s Sports Media and Sponsors
Momentum is no longer theoretical. The NWSL’s multi-partner media deal is said to be worth about $240 million over four seasons, enough so that the bar for operations has to be raised. WNBA broadcasts have posted modern viewership highs, buoyed by rookie storylines and appointment-window scheduling. Bespoke infrastructure—like Kansas City Current’s stadium, the first of its kind for a women’s pro team—signals owner commitment over the long term and unlocks more margin in higher-margin revenue streams (premium, concessions, events other than matches).
Sponsors are following. Industry trackers are reporting double-digit annual growth for women’s sports sponsorships, and brands cite higher ROI per dollar compared to similar men’s properties. The gap is due in part to Monarch’s unsaturated inventory and community engagement—an arbitrage the company hopes will continue with category-extending partnerships.
Building for Durability Through Governance and Discipline
Nortman is clear-eyed about risk. But history has its cautionary tales, from the packed stadiums a century ago for the Dick, Kerr Ladies to sudden institutional backlashes that snuffed out momentum. Her response is decidedly unglamorous: governance, operational discipline and capital plans that withstand a bad season. Break-even operations plus scalable media and sponsorship upside are the model; star power is an accelerant, not a prerequisite.
That means professionalizing back offices, putting resources into data and pricing, forming youth-to-pro pathways, and treating community not as PR but retention. Ghosts of spikes past—from viral breakout rookies and World Cup bumps—have to translate into repeatable experiences, better season-ticket math, inventory that can be bundled and sold smarter next cycle.
Who Is Behind the Bet Fueling Monarch’s Expansion Strategy
Monarch’s LPs consist of Melinda French Gates, former leaders at Netflix and a slate of operators who understand the subscription and content flywheel. The fund closed at $250 million—a figure far beyond early ambitions—following the arc of sentiment that the box score drew: cynicism embedded in women’s basketball, and then momentum that burst its banks on the court, alive in high WNBA viewership and sold-out arenas. The goal, according to Nortman, isn’t simply to decide on a perfect team; it is to fund a functioning ecosystem that allows various franchises to win across different dimensions.
The outcome is a rare convergence: investors on long time horizons, operators developing fundamentals, and fans receiving a superior product every season. Now that Monarch is pushing into Europe with Viktoria Berlin and continuing to build a North American footprint, Nortman’s early bet feels less like contrarian courage and more like category creation in real time.