Aug 7, 2024 · 1h 22m · news
Alexis Ohanian: The Full P&L Breakdown of the World's Most Valuable Women's Sports Team | E1187 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this in-depth interview, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian discusses his venture capital approach to professional sports ownership, detailing how he scaled Angel City FC into a financial powerhouse, his investment in MrBeast's Feastables, and the power of technological innovation and relentless execution.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 13.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 5.1 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 1.7 Harry pushing back 2.7
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:11:28 American vs European chocolate quality debate
Alexis forcefully pushes back against Harry's snobbish dismissal of American chocolate, defending mass-market taste profiles against high-end Swiss brands.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 37:07 Harry challenges top athletes joining reality showsHarry directly refuses the premise that elite 1% professional athletes would compromise their privacy and off-season rest to film a reality TV show.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 42:42 Alexis educates on living costs and athlete side-hustlesAlexis educates Harry on the economic realities of professional female athletes, explaining how low base league salaries force players to build personal brand deals.
Harry holds his own ▶ 55:44 Harry calls out sports management tech illiteracyHarry forcefully demonstrates his own domain expertise by aggressively calling out sports executives for total technological ignorance and failure to monetize fan engagement.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Value of Recording Podcast Episodes In Person | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry sets an easy conversational tone about in-person podcasting before asking how Alexis transitioned into sports team ownership. Alexis details his 2019 tweetstorm about Megan Rapinoe's valuation and the charity mindset of early NWSL owners. | |
| The Angel City Business Memo and LP Leeway | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Harry demonstrates familiarity with venture capital mechanics by quoting Keith Raboy regarding crazy early-stage investments. Alexis explains the initial expansion fee and how NWSL games were misaligned on television channels like Lifetime. | |
| Private Equity's Disruption of Legacy Sports | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Harry connects Alexis's thesis on sports attention to Taylor Swift and the general attention economy. Alexis illustrates how private capital entry disrupts multi-generational family legacy sports management, using Dan Snyder's poor leadership as a primary case. | |
| Startup Governance Mistakes and Daughter's Co-Ownership | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Alexis details mistakes made in structuring Angel City FC like a seed-stage tech startup, including waiving board control while maintaining full capital liability. Harry listens intently as Alexis shares setting up a trust for his daughters. | |
| The Grassroots Marketing Playbook and COVID Merchandise Strategy | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Harry showcases his own early audience growth hustle by revealing he manually direct-messaged his first 50,000 podcast followers. Alexis details his unsexy grassroots strategy of sending 1,600 personalized thank-you videos to merch buyers during COVID. | |
| The DoorDash Kit Sponsorship and Media Halo Effect | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Harry articulates the concept of media distribution ripple effects, explaining how one major headline triggers secondary coverage across trade publications. Alexis describes securing the record-breaking DoorDash kit sponsorship through YC founder networks. | |
| Team Finances, Salary Caps, and the Media Rights Flywheel | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Harry asks about ongoing operational costs and checks whether Alexis has ever seen a pickleball clip go viral on social media. Alexis reframes sports valuation around digital highlight virality rather than legacy broadcast metrics. | |
| Overcoming NWSL Scandals and the $60M Media Deal | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Harry calculates per-team distributions on the fly when Alexis breaks down the NWSL's $60M per year media rights deal with CBS, ESPN, and Amazon. Alexis outlines how overcoming league abuse scandals catalyzed leadership changes and financial growth. | |
| How Angel City FC Generates $31M in Brand Revenue | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Harry actively interrupts to press Alexis on where Angel City's $31M in annual brand revenue originates. Alexis explains the agency-like model of leveraging female athletes' storytelling strengths and recalls early Reddit merchandise battles. | |
| Drive to Survive for Women's Sports: The Reality Show Playbook | 5 | 6 | 3 | 4 | Harry pushes back on why top 1% athletes would agree to reality television intrusion during their off-season. Alexis educates Harry on the stark pay disparity between male and female global soccer stars, justifying the financial and exposure benefits of reality formats. | |
| Balancing Team Culture, Media Activity, and Pitch Performance | 6 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Harry directly challenges whether extensive media creation distorts team culture or harms actual pitch performance. Alexis counters by showing how non-star role players generate massive fan affinities through authentic media exposure. | |
| NWSL Salary Cap Reality and Player Financial Supplemental Solutions | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Harry expresses genuine shock at the NWSL's low salary cap figures and asks how athletes survive financially in expensive cities like Los Angeles. Alexis explains player supplemental income strategies via personal social media brand deals. | |
| The Debate on Salary Caps and Competitive Parity | 6 | 4 | 3 | 5 | Harry challenges the validity of salary caps by arguing they violate free-market principles described by Adam Smith. Alexis steelmans salary caps as a tool for competitive parity across small markets while balancing fan desire for dominant dynasties. | |
| Building Sports Franchises as Software Companies | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Alexis criticizes traditional sports operators for being devoid of modern software tools and warns of the intoxicating fame proximity drug in sports. Harry asks about non-player operational expense drivers. | |
| Aligning Capital and Board Control: The Iger-Bay Investment | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | Harry presses hard on market rumors suggesting Alexis sold secondary equity during the Willow Bay and Bob Iger investment. Alexis explicitly rejects the rumor, confirming he retains full ownership while re-aligning board control. | |
| Global League Competition and Private Equity in Sports | 7 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Harry introduces economic terms like asymptotes and challenges whether MLS team valuations are in a bubble without top-tier global talent. Alexis strongly agrees with Harry's critique of MLS sustainability compared to European soccer leagues. | |
| The Lag in Sports Technology Adoption and Fan Engagement | 7 | 3 | 1 | 4 | Harry forcibly asserts his opinion on the appalling lack of technological awareness among current sports executives, citing terrible cellular coverage at major venues like Wembley. Alexis supports this by presenting software automation tools like Scoreplay. | |
| Scripted Media vs. Live Experiences in the Attention Economy | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Harry discusses what gets squeezed out of consumer attention and shares his uncompromising management style with his media team. Alexis predicts 80-90% of generic scripted content will lose to live, high-stakes human experiences. | |
| Becoming the First Outside Investor in MrBeast's Feastables | 6 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Harry bluntly asks for exact valuation and investment figures for Feastables, quickly running financial calculations on creator distribution power. Alexis details acquiring a 10% equity stake at a $40M pre-launch valuation. | |
| Scaling the MrBeast Empire: Feastables vs. Burger and VueStats SaaS | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks Alexis to analyze the operational differences between MrBeast's Feastables and his failed virtual burger venture. Alexis points to direct operational control and highlights MrBeast's expansion into high-margin SaaS platforms like VueStats. | |
| Valuing Beast Industries and the Power of Subscription Distribution | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Harry probes whether Beast Industries can justify a $5B valuation and analyzes the distribution power of streaming video platforms. Alexis compares Beast Industries' top-line revenue trajectory directly to Reddit's pre-IPO figures. | |
| Can Feastables Beat the Legacy Chocolate Giants? | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | Harry openly insults American chocolate standards in favor of premium European chocolatiers like Läderach. Alexis vigorously defends Feastables and mass-market American taste profiles while sharing his historical angel investing hits and secondary regrets. | |
| Observing Greatness: Lessons from Serena Williams | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Alexis shares rare personal observations of Serena Williams's relentless drive, noting her singular focus on trophies rather than process enjoyment. He identifies beauty and fashion as major untapped sports sponsors. | |
| Relentlessness, Mortality, and the Decision to Not Compromise | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Harry prompts a reflective discussion by asking Alexis about traits he feels slightly ashamed of that drive his success. Alexis speaks openly about his zero-lives-remaining mortality mindset stemming from his mother's terminal cancer. |
Statements from this episode (65)
Ohanian: Sports clubs must continuously market their players off the pitch
“And so part of the job of a club is to then tell the story of our players every minute they're not on the pitch.”
Ohanian: Eliminating default casual meetings was COVID's best outcome
“The best part that came out of COVID was at least defaulting to, and we see this culture internally, defaulting to not having the casual meeting.”
Stebbings: I ghost VCs who request agenda-less catch-up meetings
“I never know what to say, so I just ghost them.”
Ohanian: US men's soccer has never won anything on a global stage
“American soccer is defined by women. And for non-American listeners, you have to understand, our men are terrible. All right. They've never won anything on a global stage.”
Alexis Ohanian: Early NWSL owners treated franchises as charity
“I started talking to existing owners. And I found this very weird dynamic because all of them Basically had gotten the team because they had a daughter or a granddaughter who liked soccer, and they thought, oh, this will be nice for them. And they really thoug…”
Ohanian: Angel City NWSL expansion fee was $1 million
“So, to buy an expansion was a million dollars back then. Now you obviously need another few million dollars to, like, actually finance the team, but remember, an entire team had sold for four million dollars, so even the million dollar expansion fee was pretty…”
Ohanian: Sports franchises were historically family trophy assets without exits
“Historically, sports teams, certainly in the United States, and I think in the rest of the world, were just basically rich family toys, and they were inherited by multiple generations, and there wasn't really an exit for them.”
Ohanian: Institutional capital will make professional sports teams more sophisticated and profitable
“As those private dollars come in, these teams are going to get more sophisticated. Because people are going to show up and they're going to say, look, why are you here? Oh, because my daddy gave me this job. Okay, well that's nice, but are you the best person …”
Ohanian used GP 'silver bullet' to invest in Angel City FC
“And there are some companies that look like that, but then there are others, and I'd put those in the categories, where we needed to build a release valve to basically silver bullet, and just say, even though everyone is vehemently against doing this deal, you…”
Ohanian: $250k Angel City investment made daughters multi-millionaires
“They're now actually, because of this latest round, they're literally multi-millionaires because of that one investment four years ago”
Ohanian: Not securing board control of Angel City FC was a mistake
“I didn't insist on any kind of board, and then as the board got developed with successive rounds, I was just fine with actually not having control, which was a mistake.”
Ohanian Gave Angel City FC Founders Majority Ownership Without Capital Contribution
“I actually made sure the three founders Natalie, Cara, and Julie actually had a majority of the ownership.”
Ohanian invested $7M to $8M total in Angel City FC
“All told three, four, five, six. Seven? Seven million? Eight million? Well, ok, so the, we did it as a, ah, the very, very first round was, I think, six.”
Ohanian sent 1,600 personal thank-you videos to LA Golf Club buyers
“I, and I've done literally 1600 of these, the fourth wall team told me, just for LA Golf Club.”
Angel City FC made hundreds of thousands in merch before launch
“She said we did, I think it was a couple 100,000 dollars in revenue. That first year with fake merch, not fake merch, but like merch devoid of a logo with no team or players ever having played”
Ohanian: Building community requires unsexy brute force execution
“When people talk about building community, they talk about the fancy, fluffy, oh, we have a community. No one talks about the actual work that it takes. And it's just this. It is unsexy. It's not glamorous. It's brute force. It's showing up. It's doing the wor…”
Ohanian: Angel City FC Secured Record Low Seven-Figure DoorDash Sponsorship
“And she's talking to some of these brands and she's trying to secure the biggest ever front of kit deal in women's soccer, maybe even women's sports. And it was a seven figure deal, low seven figure, but it was a seven figure deal. That was record breaking at …”
Ohanian: Traditional sports media rights rely on outdated data
“Media deals are all based on data that is very out of date and an audience that is much older, right? What is relevant is where things are headed.”
Ohanian: Sports lacking viral social media highlights missing long-term value
“If you can't show me a sport where the highlights go viral on social media, the freest market of ideas that has ever existed in the world, You might have some stuff missing, and I don't know what the there is, but there's something missing.”
Ohanian: Yates Report scandal was best thing for NWSL overhaul
“But it was actually the best thing that could have happened, because. Look, it brought, sunlight is a great disinfectant. And so it cleansed, it really forced the league to overhaul everything.”
Ohanian: NWSL signed a $60M annual media rights deal
“The, we'll pay the league sixty million dollars a year for four years. And that's a medley of Amazon, CBS, ESPN, and then.”
Ohanian: Angel City FC generated $31M in revenue last year
“So we, you know, I think last year the team did like 31 mil in revenue and that's just in brand deals with a little bit of merch and everything else.”
Ohanian: Women's sports is the most brand-safe platform for advertisers
“Now in the world of sports, those conversations are so much easier because there's nothing more brand safe for these advertisers than sports, and specifically women's sports.”
Ohanian: Female athletes outperform male athletes at content creation and storytelling
“And so they're so much more sophisticated about storytelling, about content creation. And so when you give them the opportunity, they are They're out, outperforming the men, and it, it's a different, it almost looks more like an agency model built in to the te…”
Ohanian: Young boys will idolize female athletes as much as male athletes
“But I think we're entering an era now where young boys will, it'll be just as easy for them to idolize male athletes as female athletes, and I think that, I mean, That's a great thing. And it's just starting to turn the corner here, and it'll be a wild new gen…”
Ohanian: Reality sports docuseries across men's and women's sports will be a gold mine
“In this new world, you're going to see so many more, and it won't just be women's sports, because you do have to tell the stories around women's sports differently, but it'll also be applied to male sports, like we've seen with drivers surviving elsewhere, and…”
Alexis Ohanian personally funded reality TV show 'The Off Season' for women's soccer
“What's crazy, so I funded a reality show called The Off Season, which was 11 national team and professional women soccer players in a house for three weeks for an off season in Miami. They trained together, they partied together, they lived together, cameras r…”
Ohanian: Top women's soccer players earn a few million annually in salary and endorsements
“In a salary, a couple million dollars a year, like, and they're in taxes and then maybe a few million dollars in brand deals.”
Ohanian: Media era creates greater commercial opportunities for role players
“I do think in this new era, you're actually gonna find more opportunities for those role players Because you're gonna see folks who have fans that don't just have fans for their work on the court or on the pitch or on the track. They have fans because they're …”
Ohanian: Daniel Ricciardo punches above his weight due to Drive to Survive
“And, you know, I, I'm not an F-one expert, but I feel like Danny Ricardo punches way above his weight because he has such a strong fan base now, thanks to that show.”
Ohanian: Angel City FC averages 20,000 attendees per game
“We average about 20,000 attendees. So sell out about half the games”
Ohanian: Live sports is the one entertainment pillar AI won't disrupt
“I am very long in this age of AI on sports, obviously, because I, that's the one pillar of entertainment that is not going to be upended. Like, we will never want to see robots playing football.”
Ohanian: NWSL median player salary was $30K-$40K when he entered
“The salary when I came into the league, the median salary was like 40, Maybe 30,000 dollars.”
Diamond League championship prize was only $30,000 in 2023
“Last year the top prize for the Diamond League was 30,000 dollars, like, the championship, and that's a solo sport, so you have to pay everything out of pocket.”
Alexis Ohanian labels Dan Snyder one of the worst sports team owners ever
“And again, one of the worst owners of all time.”
Alexis Ohanian: Most sports teams fail to utilize software force multipliers
“So many of the things that we do are done better, cheaper, faster using software. Built tools so founders can help themselves using software. It's a force multiplier. We built things into our teams. Like even the merchandising around that thank you video app. …”
Alexis Ohanian: LA Golf Club is structured like a software startup
“And when we started the TGL team, LA golf club, I was, I had learned a lot of lessons and I realized, okay, one, I'm going to make sure I own and control this thing. And two, we're going to build this with all of the effectiveness and software that any tech st…”
Alexis Ohanian: Top sports operators must be immune to fame
“And unfortunately, that drug can bring out the best in people, but also the worst, and so I think the most effect, and as I've gotten to know more and more owners, the most effective operators in sports have an immunity to that drug, and it's this drug of, lik…”
Ohanian: Did Not Sell Secondary Shares in Angel City Restructuring
“Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, no, that's not true. So I didn't sell anything.”
Ohanian: Angel City FC Will Become a Billion-Dollar Franchise
“Like I said, I, the reason I saw this opportunity in 2019 was I thought we could build a billion dollar franchise. So talk to me after that.”
Ohanian: English women's football league is still below NWSL level
“There's some great teams here, obviously, in England but that league's catching up, but it's still not, not at the level of the NWSL.”
Ohanian: Private equity entry into sports leagues is necessary and positive
“I think it's a good thing. On the whole, to have more dollars and more sophisticated managers involved I get the, there is this tension of, like, what are their incentives long term? And I think always gonna be some balance, but there's only so many billionair…”
Ohanian: Major League Soccer (MLS) is an overpriced sports league
“But I don't think, there are definitely some leagues that I think are overpriced. I'd say the MLS is one that's overpriced.”
Ohanian: NWSL will be bigger than MLS in 10 years
“That's why I think the NWSL will be bigger than the MLS in 10 years. Because we can tell a story of excellence in women's football in America using the NWSL. But not the MLS.”
Ohanian: Sports Teams and VC Firms Should Operate as Software Companies
“In the same way that I think venture capital should be run like a tech company, I think sports teams should have, they should be building software. They should be software companies.”
Ohanian: Sports Owners Will Rapidly Adopt Tech Within Five Years
“Give it five more years and folks will level up quickly because you'll see all you need is one example in a league. One team to be doing it really well. And everyone will fast follow”
Ohanian: Tech Will Drive a 90/10 Power Law in Sports Franchise Valuation
“I think it will be a power law, but even in the big four in America, I think you'll see a power law where maybe it's ninety-ten even where so much of the value is going to very few of the teams because we know that's what software does.”
Ohanian Previously Advised Founders Against Starting Sports Tech Companies
“There's a lot of this tech should have happened a decade ago, 15 years ago, but none of the best entrepreneurs, we all, I certainly talk them out of doing it, because I was like, you're never going to be able to sell your way in.”
Ohanian: Legacy Sports Broadcast Protections Will Collapse Within 5-10 Years
“Probably on the order of the next five to 10 years, you'll start to see them just topple.”
Ohanian: 80% of TV and movies will lose attention market share
“I think it is, let's go back to that Pareto, eighty-twenty action. I think 80% of movie, television, that kind of scripted, created, even non-scripted, that sort of entertainment slips.”
Ohanian: 90% of derivative music will lose in the attention economy
“But imagine maybe even 90% of music that's created is so either derivative or pop or one hit wonder. Like, it's just that, that's the stuff that's gonna be the biggest loser.”
Alexis Ohanian: Top creators can build massive businesses around commodity products
“As long as Jimmy's happy, as long as you're making something you truly stand behind, I'm long on it all day. Even if it's a fucking commodity, right? You can break through with something that is solved in terms of making it.”
Ohanian: YouTube heavily relies on MrBeast for platform insights
“It's crazy how much YouTube leans on him for insights.”
Ohanian: Beast Industries Is Worth at Least $5 Billion
“For sure. At least that. Today, at least that.”
Alexis Ohanian turned $10,000 in pre-launch Ethereum into $17.1 million
“It would be Ethereum at the I think it was the pre-token sale, the token sale for Ethereum. So the pre-launch token sale. 17.1000000. Today's prices. 10,000 dollars.”
Alexis Ohanian's $10K investment in GOAT grew to $7.4 million
“So I put 10 grand, it was called Grub With Us back then. In 2011, and so that 10 grand is worth, whatever it was, three point, no, yeah, three, estimated lat, no, sorry, current last, 7.4 million dollars.”
Alexis Ohanian regrets selling Bitcoin early to pay for his wedding
“I actually, the bigger mistake was I had a bunch of Bitcoin that I sold to pay for. I mean, it wasn't that bad. I sold it for like, you know, a wedding and an engagement ring and all that stuff.”
Alexis Ohanian: Initialized could have returned Fund I by selling Zenefits
“I should have sold, we got, we could have returned the fund once over in whenever the fidelity markdown was, like literally putting an SPV together to sell Zenefits and then the markdown, the fidelity markdown happened and it killed the SPV. That was one, that…”
Alexis Ohanian regrets doubling down on Clubhouse instead of selling
“Oh, Clubhouse. That's when I should have sold. Should have sold Clubhouse. I had like the series A and I remember when that multi-billion dollar round came up, I actually put more money in because I'm an idiot.”
Ohanian: Serena Williams Was Driven by Winning Trophies, Not Loving Training
“She did not love the process all the time, and she'd be the first to admit, like, I am doing this thing because I want to win. I do it for the trophy. I do it for the outcome, and obviously, look, being a professional athlete at that level is much harder than …”
Ohanian: Being an Elite Athlete Is Much Harder Than VC or Tech
“Being a professional athlete at that level is much harder than the work that we do, so I get that, like, it's just harder work as well”
Ohanian: Beauty and fashion underinvest in sports because male sports lack fit
“The two big industries. Are beauty and fashion, which spend a ton of money on brand marketing, but don't spend it on sports yet because men don't really drive that value.”
Ohanian: Beauty and fashion sports sponsorship will grow massively via women's sports
“Dude, it's that this will change massively, and you can already see it coming out of the WNBA has always done a good job, but now people are really paying attention to like the fits, the walk-ups, the clothing that they're wearing.”