New Women’s Soccer Team, Founded by Women, Will Press Equal Pay Cause

Kara Nortman’s path to owning a professional women’s soccer team began in Vancouver, British Columbia, when she went looking for a women’s soccer jersey during the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Nortman found some, eventually, without players’ names on the backs.

“I just didn’t understand why it was so hard,” Nortman said. “I was trying to get people to take my money. Why could nobody take it?”

A Southern California native from a sports-driven family, Nortman, a venture capitalist, soon became devoted to women’s soccer, following the top division in the United States, the National Women’s Soccer League, and talking about the game with anyone who would listen — including the actress Natalie Portman, whom she met at a fund-raiser. Both soon became active supporters of the U.S. women’s team’s fight for equal pay, and after last summer’s Women’s World Cup, they decided it was time to involve themselves more personally in the game.

“Natalie texted me three times, just one line: ‘Let’s bring a team to L.A.,’” Nortman said.

On Tuesday, their dream became a reality when the N.W.S.L. announced that it would expand to Los Angeles in 2022, with a team bankrolled by an ownership group that includes not only Nortman and Portman, but also the tennis star Serena Williams and her husband, the tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian; the media consultant Julie Uhrman; and more than a dozen former members of the U.S. women’s team.

The Los Angeles team, which said it would release its name and stadium plans before the end of the year, will be the only team in the N.W.S.L. to be owned almost entirely by women. The ownership group of 33 people also includes several women of color, including the actresses Uzo Aduba, Eva Longoria and America Ferrera, and the talk-show host Lilly Singh.

Perhaps befitting such a diverse ownership group — which also includes the World Cup winners Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach — the team came into being in a nontraditional way. The owners decided on a mission before approaching the league, then consulted members of the U.S. women’s national team and their players association to better understand the needs of women’s pros. The mission was clear from the start, said Uhrman, the club’s president: “Champions on and off the field.”

Part of that motto, she said, would be embracing the fight for pay equity for women by bolstering media coverage of the league, securing new sponsorships and, ultimately, creating stronger revenue streams through increased viewership.

“It’s our goal to have women’s professional soccer players make a living only playing women’s professional soccer,” Uhrman said.

Becca Roux, the executive director of the United States Women’s National Team Players Association, said the combination of female investors, former women’s pros and people of color on the new team’s board of directors had the potential to be game-changing steps for not only the N.W.S.L., but for other major leagues. Williams and Ohanian’s 2-year-old daughter, Olympia, is also listed as an investor.

“We’ve seen other athletes — mostly men — join ownership of sports teams in recent years, but not so much women because they often didn’t make enough money in their careers to buy into a sports franchise,” Roux said.

Many challenges remain for the N.W.S.L. The league’s new commissioner, Lisa Baird, has helped stabilize the league since taking over earlier this year, and helped attract several deep-pocketed sponsors to help underwrite its summer tournament. But the N.W.S.L. also requested and received a loan from federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program this spring to cover the salaries of its players, who despite a recent raise still earn as little as $20,000 a year.