Chelsea have received interest from investors seeking to acquire a minority stake in their highly successful women’s team, with the club’s owners prepared to consider proposals.
So why are they seeking investment, how much are they attempting to raise and to what purpose? And what are the benchmarks driving the Chelsea co-owners’ valuation of their women’s setup?
Here The Athletic attempts to provide some answers.
How much are Chelsea trying to raise?
Chelsea are only exploring the sale of a minority stake in their women’s team, but any deal could value the whole entity in the region of $200million (£159.3m).
How much co-owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital — whose consortium bought Chelsea, including the women’s team, for £2.5billion in May 2022 — could raise will depend in large part on how big a chunk of one of the world’s best women’s teams they would be prepared to give up.
Investing in the women’s side was one of the “key areas” to which the consortium committed when completing that deal almost two years ago.
There is no indication at this stage that Boehly and Clearlake would countenance selling a majority stake in Chelsea Women — the most successful English club in the WSL era having won five of the last six titles, and six overall since the league’s inception in its current form in 2011 — similar to the deal that saw American businesswoman Michele Kang assume control of Olympique Lyonnais Feminin earlier this year.
Liam Twomey
How have they reached that figure?
A key benchmark for Boehly and Clearlake in valuing Chelsea Women is Angel City FC. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) franchise was valued by Sportico at $180million earlier this year, shortly after The Athletic reported they had hired investment bank Moelis and Company to raise funds.
Boehly and Clearlake believe Chelsea Women’s sustained dominance of the Women’s Super League — they have won the last four WSL titles and could still claim a fifth this weekend — and status as a perennial Women’s Champions League contender mark them out as one of the strongest brands in the women’s game globally.
There is even a belief within the club that Chelsea Women could one day be worth $500million, a valuation likely to raise eyebrows outside Stamford Bridge. Any path to achieving it would require vast, sustained investment in playing talent and infrastructure, coupled with continued success at the highest level in the post-Emma Hayes era.
Liam Twomey
What are the benefits?
That depends who might be prepared to buy in, the reputation they have and the skill set they may possess.
The Angel City raise was oversubscribed and this is one factor that has led to inbound interest for Chelsea. This is me speculating rather than an indication of what’s in store, but a strategic partnership with high-profile individuals, as we have seen with actress Natalie Portman at Angel City, or Ryan Reynolds at Wrexham, could do plenty to enhance profile and or attract interest from streaming services.
Equally, Chelsea know that their team is significantly stronger than any team in NWSL yet the NWSL has a broadcasting contract worth over six times that of the English WSL, which demonstrates the room for growth within English women’s football with the right innovation, investment and infrastructure for the sport.
Chelsea’s owners may be hoping to attract further expertise to enhance these factors. And, of course, the final benefit is cash — although Chelsea would insist this is not a cash grab but, instead, a signal of their desire to grow the women’s game.
Adam Crafton
How do English and US women’s teams compare in value?
Comparing values across leagues is not always an apples-to-apples exercise given each league’s own history, the status of football as a sport in their respective countries, fanbases, league and ownership structures, etc.
On the U.S. side, estimated NWSL valuations are exactly that — estimates. While NWSL team values have been trending upward quickly, they should be taken with a grain of salt.
Some of the bump in valuations can be traced back to the sale of the Washington Spirit in 2022 after a protracted battle between old majority owner Steve Baldwin and current majority owner Michele Kang. At the time, the club was valued at around $10m; Baldwin reportedly offered to sell and rescinded at least once, including an offer to sell for $30m, seemingly in a bid to price out Kang.
Kang eventually offered Baldwin $35m, a price that Kang herself said at the time was “well above market given past sale prices, to say the least”.
Valuations took off after that. The expansion fee to join NWSL was approximately $2-5m when Angel City and San Diego Wave bought in back in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Bay FC paid $53m to join NWSL in 2023.
Former Angel City head of revenue Jess Smith, currently president of the WNBA’s Golden State expansion team, attributed the valuations to the overall growing commercial power of women’s sports. “I think the realness of the valuations is that it’s a unique product offering,” she told The Athletic in 2023. “You truly can’t buy anything that makes consumers respect you, in my opinion, (for moving) towards the path of equity that’s like women’s sports.”
Football Benchmark’s Andrea Sartori also cautioned against conflating a team’s overall valuation with its actual sale price.
“It’s crucial to distinguish between price and value as two distinct concepts, often diverging from each other,” he told The Athletic in March when discussing recent NWSL club sales, including the $113m sale of the Wave.
Steph Yang
Why is there such a difference?
The women’s game is experiencing significant growth globally, thanks to growing interest by media, fans and rights holders. That growing interest fuels the desire for expansion we’ve been seeing in the NWSL and now at Chelsea. In the U.S., the success of women’s soccer both on and off the pitch has helped fuel that growth.
In speaking with The Athletic in March, Santori said: “It’s important to note that there still exists a significant disparity between women’s and men’s football, particularly evident when comparing clubs’ revenue and transfer fees. However, in the case of the USA and a few other countries, such as Australia and Sweden, this gap is comparatively narrower due to the significant tradition and prominence of women’s football.”
That’s not to say there isn’t potential for this growth to be mimicked elsewhere in the world, especially in Europe.
Santori added: “The sporting and financial growth path of women’s football in the UK, and to a lesser extent Germany and Spain, show a clear trajectory to be followed by other European countries with strong traditions in men’s football — both at club and national team levels — and who have embarked on their development path in more recent years.”
Melanie Anzidei
Is the English market expected to catch up?
*Puts finger in the air*
It depends on several factors: how exciting investors think women’s football in England is and how much they want to buy into it. That depends on the WSL’s international interest, which depends on where it is broadcast and if they can continue to attract global star players. If more people become interested, there will be more potential buyers which raises the price tag.
The WSL is starting to be seen as a global powerhouse in women’s football but its future will depend on the success of NewCo, the new company that will take over the running of the Women’s Super League (WSL) and Women’s Championship from the 2024-25 season. Investors are betting that NewCo will take the domestic game in England to new heights.
The existing domestic broadcast rights agreement, shared between BBC and Sky Sports and worth between £7m and £8m per year, pales in comparison to the NWSL and has been extended for one year. The decision to roll over the deal was to buy more time to agree a longer-term deal. NewCo were reportedly aiming for a £15m-£20m-per-season deal and, if they secure that in 2025, market valuations will rise.
Charlotte Harpur
(Top photo: Visionhaus/Getty Images)
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