The wins just seem to keep coming for the NWSL.

Now into the second half of a season that is on pace to break total match attendance and viewership records, a new mark around franchise valuations appears to be on the way, too. 

That’s coming by way of a potential ownership stake sale in Angel City FC. The Los Angeles-based club is said to be valued at a league-high $250 million as Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay close in on the purchase of a controlling share, according to multiple reports. One report, from Semafor, put the new number even higher, saying Angel City will now be valued at more than $300 million with the new investment.

Iger and Bay would be taking over Angel City’s largest ownership stake from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who declined to comment about it when asked by Front Office Sports on Wednesday.

Whatever the final valuation for Angel City ends up being, should the deal be completed, it represents the richest women’s sports team in the world, and is likely to come in at more than double the most recent NWSL franchise sale. In March, the San Diego Wave were sold for a then-league record $113 million. 

The NWSL Rocket Ship

While markets certainly play a factor is a specific club’s value, a clear upward trend can be seen in the NWSL over the last year:

• Portland Thorns: Sold for $63 million in January
• Bay FC: Launched this year, and a forthcoming Boston club, paid $53 million expansion fees
• Chicago Red Stars: Sold for $35.5 million in 2023

The growth just from the Portland sale to San Diego to now Angel City—roughly doubling each time—is on par with, or even better in some cases, than trends in top men’s leagues. The most recent NFL sales include the Commanders ($6.05 billion), Broncos ($4.65 billion), and Panthers ($2.275 billion). In the NBA, the Hornets sold for $3 billion last summer shortly after the Suns sold for $4 billion.

Big Move for Iger

While the 73-year-old Iger has long been a force within sports media, this would represent his first personal investment in a professional franchise. “We have been waiting for the right opportunity,” Iger and Bay said in a pitch deck obtained by Semafor.  

Iger is currently under contract with Disney—which holds NWSL media rights—through 2026, setting up a unique scenario where a club investor would also be the top executive of a league broadcast partner. His term is set to end one year before the NWSL’s $240 million media rights deals with ESPN, CBS, Amazon, and Scripps Sports expire after the ’27 season. For now, it’s unclear how his involvement with Angel City could impact the Disney-NWSL relationship.

Five years ago, Monumental Sports & Entertainment chairman Ted Leonsis notably said that, “I believe that in 10 years, an NBA 2K player will be more well known, popular, and better compensated than LeBron James. It’s just math.”

Not only is that prediction becoming more elusive with James’s new $104 million contract extension with the Lakers, but the league Leonsis was lauding then is now fundamentally retrenching amid a broader sluggishness across esports. 

The NBA-backed NBA 2K League—which debuted in 2018 and marked the first major U.S. sports league to form its own esports property—on Tuesday said it is “revamping” its operations to focus on influencer-based content, driven in part by NBA and WNBA players and other celebrities, instead of continuing as a more traditional esports property.

Additionally, gaming and entertainment news website Dexerto reported that most of the current NBA 2K league staff has been laid off. With those moves, the league is now effectively on hiatus until next year. 

“The future business will combine NBA and Take-Two brand assets, and seek to engage consumers who live and play where pop culture, gaming, and basketball collide,” the league said in a statement, which also promised “more details on our 2025 competitive season in the coming months.”

Bigger Issues

The NBA 2K League’s woes are far from isolated. Despite previously heady predictions, far beyond those of just Leonsis, for the growth of esports, the overall market has been declining for more than a year. That retreat, branded within the industry as a so-called “esports winter,” has been marked by a series of layoffs, team closures, falling valuations, financial losses, and missed expectations in terms of viewership. 

In addition to those larger challenges, sports as a content genre has struggled within esports, with many fans and competitors preferring other types of games such as first-person shooters.