Women’s sports have captured investors’ attention as WNBA viewership soars to a record high amid the WNBA Finals. Fortuna Investments CEO Justus Parmar joins Josh Lipton on Asking for a Trend to discuss why the venture capital firm is investing in women’s sports.
Parmar outlines his view that sports is an emerging investment area, with women’s sports representing an especially attractive investment opportunity. “It’s a very unique asset class. So you’ve got the big four men’s clubs. Those are kind of the blue-chip stocks of the portfolio. You’ve got men’s baseball, men’s basketball, men’s football, obviously, and (the) NHL… When it comes to women’s sports, it’s much like a, I don’t want to say a venture or a growth investment, but you know, some people think it’s underrepresented.”
“Only 5% of the Fortune 500 companies that advertise in women’s sports. I actually think that’s a huge opportunity. The ceiling is so high for this. And relatively speaking, the buy-in is actually significantly cheaper. So it’s a great time to be alive. It’s a great time to be an investor. It’s a great time to be looking and backing some of these in unique companies and assets and individual players and teams because the sky literally is the limit for them.”
“When the viewership is there, the fans show up. The fans have extraordinary voting and political capital, and then the corporate sponsorships generally show up,” Parmar says.
He notes that the venture capital firm’s interest in women’s sports is not a “charity endeavor or DEI type of ‘let’s empower these people for the sake of doing it.’ These women are extremely talented.”
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This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.