Monarch Collective

⚽️ We’re Hiring 🏀 We’re excited to announce that Monarch Collective is growing, and we have some fantastic opportunities to join our team! ✨ Open Positions: 1. Finance Lead 2. Ops & Marketing Lead If you’d like to learn more about the available positions and apply, please visit https://lnkd.in/gQa5xgpK

Why Are We Arguing About the WNBA’s Growth? The growth of the #WNBA is nothing short of incredible. And yet, anywhere you turn there seems to be a caveat to be found. “It’s all Caitlin - she’s putting the league on her back.” “But the WNBA's losing money.” “Will anyone watch when she’s not playing? Can they keep it up?” At Monarch Collective, we often pull data on women’s sports - cutting and recutting to understand the fundamentals of where we are and where we’ll go. Based on publicly available data, we backed into the latest engagement numbers for the WNBA and our takeaway is pure optimism. Interest is up and to the right. Full stop. On ESPN, WNBA games averaged 454K viewers in 2023. In 2024, this grew to 1.2M - an impressive +85% for non-Caitlin Clark games and +278% for Caitlin Clark games. In arenas, Caitlin helped break an attendance record in almost every market. And, across non-Indiana games, league attendance has grown 47% YoY since 2022. Caitlin is a generational player. She’s a phenomenon who is changing the league and there is (and has been for a while!) real momentum brewing across the entire WNBA. Both can be true. Now, here is where we get really excited…the growth is even more incredible when you look at the nuance, instead of just the headlines. All of this is happening while we are barely scratching the surface on optimizing distribution. When schedules first came out, it was widely reported that 36 of 40 Indiana Fever games would be nationally broadcast (it ended up being 38 of 40). Other teams followed suit in announcing broadcast schedules. But not all channels are equal - NBA TV is a national network but has ~1/10th of the household reach of ABC. And, when you look at the largest channels, ABC, ESPN/ESPN2, and CBS, ~80% of the games on those networks featured one of three teams (Indiana, New York, and Las Vegas). Atlanta had only one game on those networks this year. This isn’t to say that Atlanta would have drawn as well as New York, but they don’t have distribution to even compare it apples-to-apples. Imagine what this could be in a few years with further improvements across team gameday experiences and focused marketing and distribution across teams. So, where do we go from here? It’s important to look at the nuanced trend data over longer periods of time. There is a mistake in using men’s sports or other historical data as a comparison or playbook. This moment of inflection is unique - even across women’s sports - and it’s hard to dictate where the ceiling will be. What’s important is that we celebrate the moment and each begin to understand the role that we play in continuing to push “up and to the right.” Not just over the next few years but over the long-term. As we often say, cultural shifts happen over time because 100 years of work happens overnight. Tags: #womenssports #womeninsports #womensbasketball #sports #WNBA #WNBPA #ESPN Jasmine Robinson Christine Jiang

“We found people who said, ‘I never would’ve thought about investing in sports, but the way that women’s sports can move topics [like] gender equity and racial equity forward in really unique ways really speaks to me.’” In this podcast episode, Jasmine Robinson, Managing Director at Pivotal-backed Monarch Collective, highlights the growing investment opportunities in women’s sports, as well as the approach her fund is taking to scale the market.

Jasmine Robinson will be speaking at Sportico RISE: Women’s Sports on Wednesday, October 23. You can register to join in New York City at https://lnkd.in/gRsiSwaa.

This years Olympics represent the first with equal gender representation. Women were first included in the modern Olympic Games in 1900 in Paris with 22 women participating out of a total of 997 athletes. However, their participation was limited to sports deemed “appropriate” for women at the time, specifically tennis, sailing, croquet, and golf. By the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, nearly 300 women competed, representing about 10% of the total athletes. By 1984 LA Olympics, the first I attended, women represented 23%. And in this Olympics we hit parity! Now we have the opportunity to consider how the definition of “Equity” can evolve. I had a chance to discuss this the day after Angel City Football Club's Equity Summit on CNN (in front of the Arc de Triomphe) this week in Paris!

Every four years, we get an opportunity to experience sport in its most beautiful and purest form. For most athletes, representing their country on the world’s biggest stage is the pinnacle. For us viewers, we get to be inspired by their stories and feel the magic of watching someone achieve their dream. I vividly remember being a kid trading pins at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and cannot wait for the Olympics to return to my hometown again in 2028!  With the Paris Olympics kicking off tomorrow, here are the women’s sports highlights that I’m looking forward to: 🏀 With the swarm of new women’s basketball fans, will viewership and interest follow into the Olympics? We strongly believe “yes,” even without Caitlin Clark. We’re also excited to see how the 3x3 event continues to evolve after its debut in Tokyo. ⚽ The USWNT scored three times in the first 25 minutes today on the feet of Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson to beat Zambia 3-0. While Emma Hayes’ first game coaching the #USWNT was less than eight weeks ago, expectations are high for the Chelsea coaching legend. Next up Germany and then the #USWNT take on Australia on July 31st (I will be in the crowd!). Many of us were inspired by the performance, starpower, and heart of hometown Matilda's run at last summer's World Cup. In a tough group draw, the game against the Matildas could be the decider in one or both teams moving on. Is this Team USA’s year to return to the top or will Spain prove that it is the new behemoth to beat? 👟 🤸🏼♀️ We expect that there will be several breakout stars from this olympics, likely from Track & Field or Gymnastics, which both saw strong growth in US Trials viewership on NBC. If you don’t already know Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone, keep an eye on her as one of the most fun to watch. 🗼Incredible venues all around! Beach volleyball will be played under the Eiffel Tower (which will also host Men’s Blind Football for the Paralympic Games). La Concorde, near the Arc de Triomphe and the Hôtel des Invalides, will host 3x3 Basketball, Skateboarding, BMX, and Breaking. 🏠 Angel City Football Club will host its 2nd Annual Equity Summit at the Paris Olympics next week. Monarch Collective will be in Paris around that date for those that would like to connect! How about you? What events are you looking forward to watching? #womenssports #womeninsports

Thanks to Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly for a fun discussion on the opportunity in women’s sports and our approach at Monarch Collective ⚽️🏀

Five months ago, I sat in Emirates Stadium watching Arsenal Women defeat Manchester United in front of a record-setting crowd of 60,000. Fast forward a few months and Chelsea captured its 5th WSL title (in fantastic fashion), Viviane Miedema is heading to Manchester City, Lucy Bronze to Chelsea, and I’m already counting down the days until the start of next season. On the business side, the news this offseason has been full of highs and lows. Attendance was up 41%, live viewing hours increased by 10%, and Deloitte reported that WSL clubs grew aggregate revenue by 50% in 2022/23. On the other hand, Reading announced its withdrawal from the Championship due to a lack of funding and Manchester United Women have been moved to temporary training facilities. What is driving the gaps in how clubs view the women’s team opportunity? It’s one thing to fund a women’s team, but it’s another to build it sustainably, with a strong commercial base. In our experience at Monarch Collective, we believe that it makes a difference when you have talent who wake up everyday thinking about the women’s product and fanbase. Clubs are hiring women’s-specific talent on the sporting side with dedicated training and support staff, but there is an opportunity to further build this into the commercial business as well. In particular, it will be increasingly important in the UK commercial market to have an exceptional and dedicated partnerships org. Being penny-wise on building a new type of women’s team footprint now, could lead to pound-foolish (pun intended) looking back ten years from now. I’d love to hear from you - what should UK clubs be thinking about as the women’s game continues to grow? #womenssports #womeninsports Women's Professional Game Nikki Doucet Dawn Airey CBE

Join me tomorrow at 2:00pm ET for an exclusive conversation with Monarch Collective Managing Partner Kara Nortman around building the highest-valued women's sports team in the world, Angel City FC, and the immense investment opportunities that lie ahead for women's sports. Register here to join: https://lnkd.in/eZksQf_t

Pleased to share my SuperReturn International 2024 speaker interview on Monarch Collective with my co-founder Jasmine Robinson and Angel City Football Club with co-founders Julie Uhrman and Natalie Portman. This may be the best short version of the Women's Sports WHY, HOW and WHAT. Covering: (1) Women's Sports as an Asset Class - risk, growth and how different types of investors can show up and play a role based on their unique skill. COLLABORATION! (2) What is the simplest metric to unlock all revenue streams for a women's sports team? (3) How to assess one's curiosity - when is it fleeting vs. relentless? (4) When to trust one's own consumer instincts? When to ask for help? (5) How to make best in class returns in women's sports? Or said another way "moving beyond access" to not mistake good for great. https://lnkd.in/gWM-5MUz