Patience Is A Virtue

“They say discipline and dedication and respect are the key factors, but patience is a virtue that is absolutely essential!” – Ria Ramnarine

Ria Ramnarine, a Trinidadian and Tobagonian former professional boxer, put into essence what it is to work in women’s football so poignantly. Everyone knows that building companies, organizations, clubs and so on is a lot of hard work but it’s also a lot of patience and women’s football has been patient for decades. Today we are seeing that come out on the balance sheet.?

Julie Uhrman , Angel City Football Club president, was recently quoted as saying that Angel City is “going to be the first women’s team to have a billion-dollar valuation in five years.”?

A BILLION DOLLARS!!! That is absolutely incredible and a tribute to not just the amazing work of Angel City and the NWSL but all the women and men who have worked tirelessly and valiantly to push women’s football to this new precipice.?

To start 2023 I want us to look at the big money we are now seeing in the women’s game.?

The NWSL: Jessica Berman has been flipping the league on its head. She has cleaned out and restructured the organization following the shocking report but what I want to focus on is the positive investment coming into the game. The salary cap rose 25%, reaching a total amount of? almost $1.4 million per team and allocation money has risen to $600,000 for next season. She also sees the clubs tripling their investment “Our teams are doubling and tripling their investment, whether it relates to coaching staff, or facilities, or other areas that we know our players need and deserve in order to perform at the highest level.”?

The league is also expanding with two new teams. One, which will be announced anytime,? that I believe will be paying around 50 million as an expansion fee. A far cry from the $2 million that all other expansion teams have paid thus far to enter the league.?

Deloitte Money League has added women’s football to the report for the first time since its inception 26 years ago. It’s not a complete report about the women’s game and is more of an expansion piece to the clubs that are currently on the list but it is a step in the right direction.?

My key takeaways:

"In 2023, all 20 of the top clubs listed in the Money League have a women’s team."-----> The shift is complete from independent women's clubs to big business men's clubs now creating or buying into having a women's side. This is awesome and patients have had a key part in this for most people in the women’s game.?

"Historically more successful clubs are able to extract greater amounts of revenue from commercial sources, and are also able to utilize large club stadia to attract greater crowds and drive interest." -----> Women's teams need to be connected to big men's clubs with the right resources (financial and human) and structure to take the game to the next level. The men’s clubs don’t just need to have these resources but are also willing to use them. Recently Arsenal played a game at Emirates where 46,000 showed up in the freezing conditions to support but the opening of the stadiums is still rare and women are more likely to be put in the position of this past weekend where many games were called off a few minutes after kickoff as the conditions were ridiculously dangerous. This would never happen in men’s football; the game would have been called off much earlier. This was an atrocity and we need to do better. Luckily no one was seriously injured but it was a waste of time for clubs and fans not to mention the tv deals that had to scramble to fill the space.??

"Unbundling of commercial rights:? important that women’s commercial rights are given the right amount of focus and effort to enable their value to be maximized correctly." -----> The days of just throwing in the rights of WF with any deal is now over. FIFA and UEFA have unbundled the rights to major events and proven that the market sees value and more money can be brought in from women's football with the numbers going up every tournament.

"Empirical evidence that shows the average revenue of a club with a written strategy is higher than for those without."? ----> This one seems obvious but the fact that it's proven means a lot of clubs are leaving money on the table by not having one. I can help with that ??

European Clubs:? 221 clubs will benefit from the new club benefits program implemented by UEFA.? A total of 4,316,500€ will be distributed to 17 national associations. This money will be a welcomed surprise for most of the clubs who had not had this originally budgeted for the 2022/20223 season. Fingers crossed th clubs use the money in the most positive and efficient way.?

That’s enough for me this month. We have been patient and I am sure we will need to be patient for a while longer if the game is propelling forward and we can keep doing it together. We are off to the right start. Until next month.