Ariel Investments Sees a $1 Billion Women’s Sports Team in the Next 5 Years

Ariel Investments, an investor in the Denver Summit expansion NWSL team and League One Volleyball, believes women’s sports is approaching a breakout moment, and projects that a women’s pro franchise will achieve a $1 billion valuation within the next half-decade. “That’s going to happen pretty soon,” Ariel president and general counsel Emma Rodriguez-Ayala told Front Office Sports during a panel at a Future of Women’s Sports event held in Nashville in March. Women’s sports teams are already hitting heights previously unseen.

In March, the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun were sold to the Fertitta family for a record $300 million. In May of last year, the New York Liberty brought on a group of minority investors , including Alibaba founder and billionaire Jack Ma and supermodel Karlie Kloss, in a deal valuing the franchise at $450 million; that represented a record valuation for a pro women’s sports franchise. In soccer, an ownership group led by IMA Financial Group CEO Robert Cohen paid a record $110 million expansion fee for the Summit in January 2025 .

Ariel, a Chicago-based asset management firm, is led by co-CEO and president Mellody Hobson, the former chair of Starbucks who in her personal capacity is an investor in the Broncos and White Sox. Other investments in the Ariel portfolio include Manchester United and Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. Recently, Ariel has been making waves in the world of women’s sports, including in February, when the firm announced it had raised $250 million for Project Level.

That fundis still raising money with a reported goal of $1 billion . It is invested in the Summit and LOVB. It targets women’s teams and leagues in the U.