Women s sports events are getting hot, and this Chinese couple is making a fortune by buying at the bottom six years ago

At the end of May this year, the defending champion New York Liberty narrowly defeated Golden State Valkyrie 82-77 at home, maintaining a five-game winning streak, ranking first in the WNBA league. During the same period, the defending champion also made a big news in the sports event trading market. The New York Liberty sold its equity at a valuation of US$450 million, setting a record for the highest valuation of women's professional sports clubs.

The fund will be mainly used to build new training facilities. The Liberty announced in March this year that it will build a 75,000-square-foot training facility in Brooklyn Green Point, which is expected to be completed in 2027. The facility will become the first WNBA training base “designed by players and serving players” with a budget of $80 million.

In recent years, women's sports events have risen and gained high attention, which has doubled the value of some women's sports clubs. This also allowed some investors who bought at the bottom a few years earlier to make a lot of money after selling their teams. The Chinese couple bought the bottom and invested in women's sports

The Liberty Team began to be listed for sale as early as November 2017. Alibaba Group's chairman Joe Tsai and his wife Clara WuTsai acquired part of the Liberty's equity from New York Knicks boss James Dolan in 2019 for $10 million to $14 million.

Tsai Chongxin was a basketball enthusiast while studying at Yale University. He once said: "I think sports not only teach you discipline and diligence, but also teach you how to face failure. If you fall and lose the game, you must cheer up again. Many principles also apply in business."

In terms of the management division of labor of the Liberty, the specific daily operations and decision-maker is Wu Minghua. After completing the acquisition, Wu Minghua moved the team's home court from a suburban venue to the Barclays Center where the Nets are located, and systematically improved the team's infrastructure and operational level. "What we did after the acquisition to reverse this 'bad asset' - the first thing is to move the team back to the Barclays Center where the fans are based, and the second thing is to form a team that can win," she once said.

Continuous investment has received rewards. By the end of last year, the number of sponsors of the Liberty team had exceeded 50, an increase of nearly 61% from the previous year, and the revenue it brought to the team soared by 68%. Last season, the New York Liberty ranked second in the WNBA, behind Indiana Fanatics. In the 2024 WNBA season, the New York Liberty defeated the Minnesota Bobcats 67-62, winning the first championship in team history.

Wu Minghua celebrated with the team on the spot, "We have proved that when you are willing to invest in women, you can create a championship team that can fill the stadium."

At the Forbes Iconoclast summit held in New York a few days ago, Wu Minghua confirmed the accuracy of the aforementioned transaction numbers to the media, and admitted that the increase in valuation even surprised herself. "Women's sports is a growth asset with huge long-term upward potential." She thinks.

Wu Minghua said that she is full of expectations for the future of the Liberty and believes that by the mid-2030s, the team is expected to become "the first women's sports franchise worth $1 billion."

It is worth mentioning that starting next season, the WNBA will launch an 11-year new media copyright agreement worth about $200 million per year.

Recently, it was rumored that the Cai couple made a huge profit by investing in the Liberty Team, and the return this year was more than 30 times. But in fact, after the first acquisition of part of the basketball team's equity in 2019, the couple continued to invest more. According to some foreign media estimates, the Cai couple actually spent a total of US$100 million to US$140 million to acquire the Liberty from Dolan.

The women's sports market has great potential

Deloitte once released a research report titled "The Rise of Women's Sports: The Road to Commercialization", saying that over the past decade, many cases have shown that women's sports will attract a large number of TV viewers and create value for sponsors, and a single event can attract tens of thousands of sports fans to watch. In another report on Women's Elite Sports: Breakthrough the Billion Dollar Mark, the agency estimated that in 2024, the global revenue of women's sports events reached US$1.28 billion, an estimated 300% higher than the valuation in 2020. Specifically, revenue is mainly divided into three categories: commercial revenue (including club sponsorship, partnerships and merchandise sales) accounts for the largest share of total revenue ($696 million, or 55%), followed by broadcast revenue ($340 million, or 27%) and game-day revenue ($240 million, or 18%).

"In the past few years, we have seen amazing growth in women's sports around the world, driving a significant increase in its business value, which in turn has attracted more and more interested investors from all over the world." Jennifer Haskel, head of insights at Deloitte Sports Business Group, said: "The surge in fan and investor engagement has brought new and better opportunities for clubs and leagues, including greater business partnerships, more engagement and greater game days. To ensure that this growth remains consistent and sustainable, sports organizations must ensure that investments are in the right place, such as encouraging fan loyalty, player welfare and maintaining cross-league competition."

The expansion of women's sports events is reflected in the size, influence, business value and other aspects. At the same time, women's sports events are gaining more and more business opportunities and social media influence. In the field of sponsorship marketing, women's sports events have achieved cooperation advancement from traditional sports brands such as Nike and Adidas to diversified brands such as mineral water CoolRidgeWater and office equipment (Epson Epson). This change has greatly expanded the boundaries of the future women's sports business map.

With the extension of women's sports events, the commercial value of female athletes is rapidly rising. In 2024, the 20 highest-paid female athletes increased by 15% from US$226 million in 2023. Taking tennis as an example, the high ratings of WTA events and the influence of star players directly drive the growth of personal commercial sponsorship. "A lot of research shows that from a return on investment (ROI) perspective, social postings when working with female athletes are twice as involved in working with male athletes, and that's exactly what advertisers and brands care about," said Sarah Gottfredson, founder of TrailblazingGroup, a business cooperative marketing company for women.

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