ROSEMONT, ILLINOIS – SEPTEMBER 28: Haylie McCleney #28 of Team Piancastelli celebrates with her … [+]
Today, Athletes Unlimited announced $30 million in new funding from investors, including day one advisors like Kevin Durant and Angela Ruggiero, as well as investors from outside the sports industry. The sports league model co-founded by Jonathan Soros and Jon Patricof has been at the forefront of sports innovation since hitting the scene. With today’s news, the first professional sports league to be organized as a public benefit corporation will continue to grow.
“I think that it really has exceeded our initial expectations. I mean, we started Athletes Unlimited back in 2020. We announced with softball and we were working on volleyball at that time. But honestly, the fact that we’ve been able to expand to these four sports and now complete eight successful seasons is really beyond what I would have expected,” Patricof said.
Since its inception three years ago, Athletes Unlimited has completed five-week seasons across four sports – softball, lacrosse, basketball, and volleyball. In the AU model, each season is hosted at a single site. This unique model has helped the company reach scale, CEO Jon Patricof told me during a video chat earlier this week.
“Our thought was, let’s not reach scale simply by expanding the number of teams or expanding the duration of the season, but let’s actually expand through the number of sports in our network,” Patricof told me Wednesday.
“As we head to 2023, (we’ll play) over 130 games across our four sports. We’ll be operating in at least four cities. We have over 250 athletes, and that scale is important to investors.”
Women at the Helm
Athletes Unlimited focused exclusively on women athletes at a time when women’s sports leagues were, and arguably remain, an untapped investment by media companies. Nevertheless, Athletes Unlimited secured broadcast deals with CBS Sports during their inaugural softball season. Earlier this year, AU inked a multi-year deal with ESPN.
Many in business will admit success is often linked to timing and such has been the case for AU. For example, Athletes Unlimited established its single-site model before sports leagues shifted to “bubbles” due to the Coronavirus global pandemic. Additionally, Athletes Unlimited came about at a time when athletes, both former and active, are using their voices to advocate for themselves and their communities.
“Athletes Unlimited is at the forefront of women’s sports and an inspiration for how sports leagues can thrive with an athlete-first business model,” said NBA champion Kevin Durant in the press release.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 19: Durant Company/Thirty Five Media Partner Rich Kleiman (L) and NBA … [+]
He and 35 Ventures business partner Rich Kleiman are early advisors and participants in today’s $30 million capital raise.
From the beginning, athletes were empowered to participate in conversations about the league and its future. Canadian softball player was one of the players invited to New York City in 2019 to hear about this new model for professional softball in the United States. Despite early reservations, Hayward and other decided to listen.
“The thing that really stood out to me was the fact that they had done market research, because I don’t know anybody that had been that prepared. That really impressed me. I was like, ‘Okay, regardless of what my own opinions might be on this, research is showing this. So I need to listen and be open-minded’” Hayward told Athletes Unlimited in September 2020.
Hayward and 2022 WNBA champion Sydney Colson served on the players executive council ahead of their sports inaugural season, giving them a chance to define the direction of the league and recruit top talent.
“Athletes Unlimited is offering a chance for people who have maybe been doing that grind for a long time, even if it’s just overseas, but maybe they want to take just half of the season off. With the leaderboard and the way that money can be made, you still have an opportunity to make a good amount of money in six weeks and potentially still arrive late to a team,” Colson told me in January.
At the time, Colson was without a WNBA team but decided to give professional basketball a chance through Athletes Unlimited. Colson went on to win a training camp invite with the Las Vegas Aces. Earlier this month, she was apart of the first professional team to bring a championship to the city of Las Vegas.
“Every pro sports league should take note of what AU is doing, especially the pathway for athletes to have a financial stake in their own leagues,” Kleiman added.
In addition to catching sports business trends at the right time, Athletes Unlimited has intentionally built an innovative model for the athletes and what advisor and AU investor Angela Ruggiero calls the “fluid fan.”
Engaging The Modern Sports Fan
The research Ruggiero and Sports Innovation Lab championed shows fans are following athletes over properties. Additionally, consumers rely on technology for their day-to-day interactions. Things are bought and sold in a few clicks, from entertainment to food shopping. As sports leagues lean into athletes as influencers, they can capture momentum with the fluid fan. In many ways, the Athletes Unlimited model is uniquely positioned to captivate these types of fans.
“If you go back to 2020 when we started Athletes Unlimited, some of the work the Sports Innovation Lab had done and Angela had done back then – which was their age of the fluid fan – I think really aligned incredibly well and gave us a lot of additional confidence in our model,” Patricof told me.
Athletes Unlimited has engaged its athletes and, in the case of AU Basketball especially, prominent media voices to amplify athletes’ stories. Ari Chambers, Forbes 30 under 30 honoree and founder of Highlighter, has moderated unique storytelling and social media engagement for Athletes Unlimited athletes since their inaugural season.
“Athletes Unlimited is incredibly well positioned given its multi-sport league approach. Almost every other league is only focused on one sport while so many investors are interested in investing across sports,” Ruggiero said in the release.
“AU provides an efficient, powerful network that creates tremendous synergies. The athlete-first business strategy combined with their forward-thinking approach to fan engagement and innovations around how sports leagues can be organized and run are all things that attracted me to invest,” Ruggiero added.
The focus on athlete autonomy through an innovative scoring system and a players executive committee is a pillar of Athletes Unlimited and has led to their growth. Further, empowering athletes to craft their playing field has drawn in the modern fan that is team or league agnostic but keen to follow their favorite players.
“The players have really helped drive the league,” Patricof told me. The buy-in from the athletes has led to pivots at critical times, including speaking up about representation and racial justice during the inaugural softball season to opting to call people in about women’s reproductive rights during the return to Dallas, Texas for AU Volleyball.
“Athletes Unlimited is building a major commercial enterprise and leading the way with stakeholder involvement. Professional women’s sports are poised for astounding growth, and Athletes Unlimited distinguishes itself by aligning investors over the long term with other crucial stakeholders – especially players,” Gottesman added in the release. Today, Athletes Unlimited announced Gottesman has also joined the Board of Directors.
Looking Ahead
Guard Sydney Colson in action during Athletes Unlimited women’s basketball.
So, what is next for Athletes Unlimited?
Patricof told me there wouldn’t be any massive changes happening in the next 12 months. Instead, Athletes Unlimited will continue to focus on scale. Instead, the public benefit corporation will focus on expanding its existing imprint.
For example, this year AU added 18 more softball games through the AUX accelerated season in San Diego ahead of the five-week softball season in Rosemont, Illinois. The capital raise, sponsorship, and broadcast deal fuel additional eyes on women’s sports. That ultimately leads to more opportunities for the athletes.
“That’s the type of expansion you’ll see from us in 2023, which is investing in the sports we’re in and going deeper,” Patricof said.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericalayala/2022/09/29/athletes-unlimited-secures-30-million-in-new-funding/