Angel City FC: Uplifting women and strengthening communities

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Image credit: NWSL website

Los Angeles is a city that produces pioneers and cultural influencers across various industries, including entertainment, technology, and sports. The Angel City FC epitomises LA’s ambition and innovative essence more than any other organisation.

Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of Reddit, Initialised Capital and Seven Seven Six, is the largest shareholder as an individual investor for the club, however, he does not hold a majority of the equity or control of the board, instead sharing authority with co-owners Julie Uhrman, entrepreneur with a talent for community building and ranks among the most influential figures in the sports business industry as well as being President of the club. Joining in the ranks as founders are Kara Nortman, a visionary venture capitalist and , the acclaimed Academy Award winning actress and passionate advocate for women’s rights.

Angel City FC’s journey started following the US Women’s National Team’s 2019 World Cup victory. The triumph, which garnered record viewership, alongside movements for gender and pay equity, propelled the creation of the club has obtained attention since it was awarded expansion license for the 2022 season back in 2020.

Capitalising on the World Cup momentum and data indicating strong fan interest in women’s sports, the group established Angel City FC, confident in the increasing value and growth potential.

Angel City FC’s business strategy in sports is truly pioneering. By implementing creative revenue models, including distinctive sponsorship arrangements and a dedication to community investment, the club has shown that supporting women’s sports holds significant, untapped commercial potential. It is important to highlight that the club’s sponsorship model, which allocates 10% of sponsorship dollars back into the community.

Rocky Rodriguez headers the ball
Image credit: NWSL website

This approach has redirected over $4.5 million into the community, forging partnerships with Hollywood A-listers and influential activists like Uzo Aduba, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Garner, and Eva Longoria, are amongst an ownership group over 100 strong, most of whom are women.

Through a new partnership with HubSpot, Angel City FC will support women athletes via a fund dedicated to post-retirement education and entrepreneurship endeavours. Emphasising revenue sharing and community reinvestment, Angel City FC persistently adopts a groundbreaking approach to achieve commercial success while advancing its broader mission.

Central to Angel City’s mission is the community it serves and builds. In its brief existence, the club has successfully cultivated a diverse and inclusive fan base, resulting in unprecedented support and engagement.

Angel City’s impressive 90% season ticket holder retention rate and strategic, values-aligned sponsorships further attest to the club’s success in community building. “How do we leave the community better than when we started?” Uhrman emphasises as a key question the club seriously contemplates with each partnership opportunity.

Consider the partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market. Through this collaboration, the club focuses on nutrition and education, partnering with two local schools to create gardens and host free monthly farmers markets benefiting the community. Additionally, an education program teaches children about nutrition and the importance of developing strong bodies, further enhancing the impact of the Sprouts partnership.

While Sportico reported that for the clubs first season in 2022, the new entity had already been valued at more than $150m approximately, Angel City’s average crowd attendance for the 2022 and 2023 seasons at BMO stadium had surpassed Sydney FC’s attendance during the 2022/23 A-League Men season by approximately 3000, which led the competition.

With at least four more expansion franchises planned in the coming years, perhaps the question is why the A-Leagues can’t strive to establish their own Angel City FC, or at the very least, embrace the concept of standalone women’s teams in the A-League Women?

However, Uhrman, on her end, recognises that the Angel City model isn’t universally applicable and cannot simply be replicated everywhere around the world.

The NWSL was established in 2012, the following year was when matches were played, ever since then NWSL is being praised for reaching a stage where there is ongoing work needed to address sustainability and player safety concerns (the league has faced a series of abuse scandals in recent years).

With new investments and ambitions, such as relocating its headquarters from Chicago to New York, aligning with the MLS and America’s major sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL – the league is poised to strengthen its foundations and sustainability as it enters a new phase of existence.

In this phase, the NWSL not only aims to solidify its position in the American sports hierarchy but also seeks to distinguish itself within the rapidly expanding women’s football ecosystem worldwide.

The club’s website has a dedicated category for their six unique supporter groups, with each of them having social media platform and a website, with a brief description about each group. Looking at this from an Australian footballing perspective, it all sounds too good to be true, how Angel City FC has excelled the marketing area for its club efficiently in a short period of time, whereas compared to the clubs here in the country, it needs to take learnings from America on how they implement the marketing strategies in different area of a football club and apply it for their respected clubs.

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The Spreadsheet Is Dead: Majestri’s Fix for How Clubs Actually Assess Players

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If you’ve ever sat through a club’s end-of-season review, you’ll know the drill. A coach pulls out a folder of notes, someone half-remembers what a player was like back in Round 3 and a parent quietly wonders what they actually got for their rego fees beyond a team photo. Football club platform Majestri says it has a fix for that, and it’s built directly into its Player Assessment module.

Why clubs bother assessing players in the first place

According to Majestri, clubs run player assessments for one of three reasons – usually more than one at once. Some are chasing genuine development, using the data to lift the level across their high-performance squads. Others are after a fairer way to pick teams, putting every player on the same measurable scale so selection is based on evidence rather than a coach’s gut feel about who “looks the part.” And for clubs operating under a Football Australia or state federation licence, assessments at set intervals often aren’t optional – they’re a compliance requirement, with the paperwork to prove it when asked.

Whatever the motivation, Majestri’s pitch is the same: don’t let that assessment data die in a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop.

Build your own assessment, your way

There’s no one-size-fits-all template here. The Assessment Designer lets technical directors set their own criteria, sort them into whatever categories their coaching staff already use – think core skills, possession, defending, attacking – and decide what each point on the rating scale actually means. Crucially, every criterion also gets a comment field, because a bare number rarely tells the full story of a player’s development.

The Assessment Module Builder for an NPL Juniors assessment
The Assessment Module Builder, showing an NPL Juniors assessment with a 1-10 rating scale banded from under performing through to excelling and role-specific criteria grouped into core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

Build it once and it’s reusable every time that assessment cycle comes around, so every player and every coach – is working off the same yardstick.

Something for the parents to actually take home

One of the more relatable pain points Majestri is targeting: most families never see much tangible return from a season of fees beyond a team photo. Player Assessment addresses that with report cards – colour-coded against the same scale coaches used, grouped by category with averages calculated automatically, and delivered as a PDF or an interactive web page a parent can read without needing a coaching badge themselves.

A player report card for an under-15 player
A report card for an under-15 player, colour-coded from under performing to excelling, with a score for every criterion and a group average across core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

 

Turning the numbers into something useful

The real value, though, sits in what Majestri calls the Player Analysis Lab. This is where clubs can plot a player against their team-mates or an entire age group across two categories at once, spotting clusters and outliers at a glance. Every score gets read against the group average – so a “7” actually means something in context – and clubs can report at the broad category level or drill into individual fields underneath. The results can be filtered down and exported for selection meetings or grading purposes.

The Player Analysis Lab comparing players in an under-15 and under-16 squad
The Player Analysis Lab comparing seven players across under-15 and under-16 squads, with a scatter plot, a sortable table of scores against the player average, and controls for choosing which categories and fields to report on. Source: Majestri.

The admin side nobody enjoys, made easier

Beyond the flashy analytics, there’s a practical layer built for the volunteers actually running the process:

  • Sweep monitoring – a quick view of which assessments are done and which are still outstanding, organised into defined assessment periods so progress can be tracked against peers.
  • Individual development plans – every player gets a personalised plan, and clubs can group common improvement areas to run cross-team training sessions that lift the whole club rather than just one squad.
  • Access control – coaches and technical staff can only see assessments for the teams they’re responsible for, and completed assessments are only visible to people linked to that player’s registration.
“Hard numbers to draw on when you review coaching staff and curriculum – and something tangible for the players and parents who pay the fees.” – Majestri

 

The bigger picture

Majestri frames all of this as sitting on top of the club’s own data – assessment results live on each player’s profile inside the platform rather than in a spreadsheet that walks out the door when a technical director moves on. For committees, it also means hard numbers to lean on when reviewing coaching staff or curriculum, rather than relying on anecdote.

It’s a fairly clear read on where club administration software is heading: less about digitising paperwork for its own sake, and more about making the data clubs already collect actually work for player development, team selection and compliance  without adding to the workload of the volunteers who run the show.

For more information on Majestri’s Player Assessment module, visit majestri.com.au/player-assessment.

Football Has the Audience. Does It Have the Commercial Strategy?

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Image Credit: One Nil Media

Soccerscene has launched Survey 4: Commercial Confidence in Football, calling on clubs, sponsors, governing bodies, commercial leaders and football industry professionals to assess whether the game is making the most of its enormous commercial potential.

Football has the audience, participation base and community reach to be one of Australia’s most powerful commercial platforms. But does the industry have the commercial strategy, professionalism and infrastructure required to turn that potential into sustainable growth?

That is the question at the centre of Soccerscene’s latest industry research.

The survey examines how attractive grassroots football is to potential commercial partners, what industry professionals believe is limiting football’s commercial potential, and whether clubs are presenting themselves professionally enough to sponsors.

It also explores what sponsors value most when engaging with football – from community reach and participation scale to brand alignment, values and purpose – as well as whether improved facilities could directly contribute to stronger sponsorship outcomes.

Is football fully capitalising on its commercial opportunity?

Football continues to provide brands with access to highly engaged communities across grassroots, community and elite environments. Yet the commercial landscape remains fragmented, with clubs operating with vastly different levels of resources, capability, governance, media infrastructure and commercial expertise.

Soccerscene’s survey is designed to capture the industry’s perspective on where the opportunities exist – and where football may be leaving commercial value on the table.

The research will look specifically at four key areas:

  • Commercial attractiveness – How attractive is grassroots football as a commercial partnership?
  • Commercial barriers – What is holding football back from reaching its full commercial potential?
  • Club professionalism – Are clubs presenting themselves effectively and professionally to sponsors?
  • Sponsor value – What are sponsors really looking for when they invest in football?

The survey also asks whether better facilities would have a direct impact on sponsorship outcomes, highlighting the potential relationship between infrastructure, commercial presentation and investment.

Have your say

Soccerscene is encouraging football clubs, sponsors, commercial professionals, governing bodies, administrators, media professionals and industry stakeholders to participate.

The findings will contribute to Soccerscene’s ongoing program of industry research, designed to provide a clearer picture of the challenges and opportunities facing football and the organisations operating within it.

Take the Survey: Commercial Confidence in Football

Complete the Commercial Confidence in Football Survey here

The survey will close on 30 August 2026 at midnight, with responses received before the deadline included in the final analysis.

Football has the audience. The question is whether it has the commercial strategy to match.

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