Ms. Kang’s influence grew quickly in the midst of a wave of new investment, and interest in, the women’s game.
In the summer of 2020, an eclectic group of owners including the actors Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria, the soccer legend Mia Hamm and the tennis great Serena Williams announced the creation of a team in Los Angeles, Angel City F.C., which made its debut in 2022, along with another expansion club, the San Diego Wave. An additional club, Racing Louisville F.C., joined the league in 2021, and the Utah Royals were sold and their assets moved to a new franchise in Kansas City, the Current. The Utah Royals will be added back to the N.W.S.L. in the 2024 season, along with another expansion club, Bay F.C. The league, now in its 11th season, is already looking at further expansion.
None of this is a surprise to Ms. Kang, who seems dumbfounded if not frustrated by how anyone could undervalue a women’s professional soccer league, or why there has been a lag in investments.
“I give full credit to people who carried the teams,” she continued, speaking of past N.W.S.L. owners. “But it was being viewed as a charity or a nonprofit, and business disciplines were not applied from where I stand.”
That attitude signals legitimacy in a unique way, said Natalie L. Smith, an associate professor of sports management at East Tennessee State University who studies women’s soccer.
If Angel City signaled legitimacy through celebrity, she said, Ms. Kang signals worth through business investment, which sends a message to other potential investors as well.
These moves come in the midst of two transitions in the world of soccer, said Stefan Szymanski, an economist at the University of Michigan and the co-author of “Soccernomics.” “One obviously is the rise of women’s soccer, which is long overdue and which seems to be going places quite rapidly in the moment. The second is the transformation of soccer ownership and the management of clubs generally worldwide.”
