Why WNBA Valuations Could Catch the NHL
Jason Wright says it could happen, “save for some weird gender bias.”
In January 2025, an investor group paid $110 million for an NWSL team in Denver, setting a new record for North American women's professional sports expansion fees. This was more than double the previous record of $53 million paid by Bay FC and a Boston ownership group in 2023. Just one year earlier, the Wave's expansion fee was only $2 million.
When Ariel Investments led the $110 million bid for the Summit, many doubted the high valuation, but Jason Wright, Ariel's Project Level investment fund manager, assured them they were "way past the value."
Wright, a former NFL player and Commanders president, believes women's sports valuations will continue to accelerate. In a recent speech at Front Office Sports' Huddle in the Hamptons, he noted that WNBA valuations surged from an average of $250 million to $414 million in a single year. He compares women's sports to small-cap stocks, with the potential for rapid growth, saying they don't need to become NFL or NBA-level assets to generate substantial returns.
NHL team Arthur Blank paid $165 million for an NWSL team in Atlanta in November, and just five months later, the Haslams paid $205 million for a team in Columbus. Wright argues that the investment case for women's sports is still accelerating. While he doesn't expect the WNBA to match the NHL's valuation, he believes it will reach NHL-level valuations, excluding any potential gender bias.
The Valkyries, currently the most valuable WNBA franchise with a $780 million valuation, is evidence of the growing value in women's sports. The average NHL valuation is about $2.2 billion, while the WNBA's average valuation is roughly $416 million. Wright attributes this gap to the increasing viewership of WNBA games, which averaged 970,000 viewers last season, compared to the NHL's 450,000.
Wright predicts that within the next five years, a women's pro franchise will achieve a $1 billion valuation, and the gap between NHL and WNBA valuations will close as women's sports prove to be an appreciating asset class. The continued growth in girls' participation in youth sports, as reported by the Aspen Institute's recent study, further supports this trend. The Summit's early success, smashing the NWSL attendance record in its first season, demonstrates that the women's sports boom is legitimate and sustainable.
Written by urgent.news from Front Office Sports's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
