USWNT’s Alex Morgan announce her resignation letter and departure…
Alex Morgan to Leave NWSL Much Better Than She Found It
Alex Morgan Retirement
Morgan was an outspoken advocate for reforms as the NWSL went through a series of abuse scandals, and she helped spur the recent wave of investment in the league. PHOTO BY ORLANDO RAMIREZ/GETTY IMAGES
On Thursday, soccer legend Alex Morgan announced her retirement from the sport. Sunday’s NWSL game for the San Diego Wave will be her last. The announcement spurred San Diego to open its 300 level for the game at Snapdragon Stadium, and six of the NWSL’s media partners decided to air the game simultaneously.
“Alex Morgan has had an immeasurable impact on both the NWSL and the global soccer community, and she has inspired generations of players and fans around the world,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in a statement.
Morgan’s on-field resume includes a pair of World Cup titles (2015 and 2019), an Olympic gold medal (2012), and 123 career international goals, which ranks 10th all time among men and women. As dominant as Morgan was as a player, her off-field impact should resonate much longer after she’s hung up her cleats.
The NWSL started play in 2013 after two earlier women’s leagues failed to make it through five seasons. U.S. Soccer essentially founded the league as an extension of U.S. Soccer. The mantra: Don’t fail, which largely translated to don’t spend much money.
Five years after the league launched, only two teams, Portland and Utah, averaged more than 5,200 fans per game. Teams typically generated $1.5 million to $3 million in revenue with Portland the one outlier. But a group of investors was on the sidelines ready to take this league to the next level, and Morgan helped put that in motion.
In March 2019, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian tweeted about the macro trends behind young girls. “Now that I think about it, how do I become an owner of an NWSL,” Ohanian posted. “I can help,” Morgan replied.
“I can’t stress enough that it was because of Alex that I got to spend the day with her, learn, ask a ton of dumb questions about professional women’s soccer, and get the confidence to say ‘yes, this is a huge investible opportunity,’” Ohanian said at Sportico’s Invest in Sports conference in May.
Ohanian would be the lead investor in Angel City FC, which was co-founded by Julie Uhrman, Kara Nortman and Natalie Portman. ACFC and San Diego paid expansion fees of around $2 million to join the league for the 2022 season. Both clubs had bigger ambitions than previous NWSL franchises,
The arrival of ACFC and San Diego helped spur an influx of investment in the NWSL. In 2022, Michele Kang bought the Washington Spirit for $35 million—more than 10 times the previous high-water mark—and has poured money into the team. Last year, expansion teams in Boston and the Bay Area fetched $53 million apiece, and Sixth Street, which launched Bay FC, pledged to spend $125 million to get the team up and going.
Angie and Chris Long brought the NWSL to Kansas City from Utah and have bet more than anyone in the league with a privately financed $140 million stadium that opened this year. It was the first stadium dedicated to women’s soccer, and now other teams are thinking about how they can take control of their future—and stadium revenue—with their own buildings.
Angel City generated more than $30 million in revenue last year and just sold a control stake in the team at a $250 million valuation. San Diego is on the verge of a $113 million sale. The arrival of Jessica Berman as commissioner, the NWSL’s decoupling from U.S. Soccer, and a host of other people and decisions have helped put the league on a growth trajectory, but Morgan’s initial reply to Ohanian’s tweet should not be overlooked.
Last season, all but one of the league’s 12 teams averaged more than 5,200 fans and half of them were over 10,000. Leaguwide revenue will be roughly sevenfold this year versus 2019.
Morgan was also a leader in the USWNT’s long push for equal pay, including being one of five players who filed the initial gender discrimination complaint against U.S. Soccer in 2016. Six years later, U.S. women won a $24 million settlement and reached a historic equal-pay deal with U.S. Soccer moving forward. Morgan also used her status as an outspoken advocate for reforms as the NWSL went through a wave of abuse scandals earlier this decade.
Morgan took the mantle from Mia Hamm as the world’s most marketable female soccer player. Her deep endorsement portfolio pushed her off-field earnings to roughly $6 million annually. In recent years, Morgan has focused more on building businesses, including her media platform Togethxr, which she co-founded in 2021, and the new three-on-three women’s basketball league, Unrivaled, that counts Morgan as an investor.
“I’ve found my calling in investing in women’s sports,” Morgan said at her post-announcement press conference. “That’s where I will make the most impact.”
