Alexis Ohanian’s Next Big Bet: Women’s Sports

This sample extends to the world of sports activities, the place feminine athletes generate huge social followings and outsized engagement in comparison with their male counterparts.

Feminine athletes boast a 14% larger social media following than males, in keeping with a 2023 report from World Athletics. Feminine faculty athletes generate 4 instances the overall viewers engagement of male athletes and 7 instances extra engagement per deal, in keeping with 2022 information from SponsorUnited.

Final yr on this planet of faculty basketball, of the 20 gamers within the Closing 4 with essentially the most social media followers, 16 have been ladies, together with the highest seven, according to analysis from Sportico. Among the many 4 No. 1 seeds within the males’s and ladies’s attracts, six of the highest 10 gamers with essentially the most Instagram followers have been ladies.

“That is the Reddit man speaking, however on-line group in 2024—that’s the tip of the spear,” Ohanian mentioned. “I care far more about the place persons are organizing on-line round sports activities than I do in regards to the huge media rights offers that shock everybody. These are essential, however they’re trailing indicators.” 

Regardless of their outsized social footprint, most feminine athletes receives a commission far lower than their male counterparts and have far fewer alternatives. This inequality, mockingly, typically makes them rather more motivated to succeed, simpler to work with, and savvier storytellers of their very own narrative. 

From a strategic perspective, then, investing in ladies is the smarter transfer, in keeping with Ohanian. In advertising parlance, the return on funding is simple.

“The web is the free market of consideration,” Ohanian mentioned. “Follower counts don’t care about your emotions. Every single day you need to get up and struggle for consideration, and the place is it on-line? It’s on the ladies.”

The truth TV enterprise: Off Season FC

Ohanian’s funding on this planet of girls’s sports activities additionally extends into leisure. Financed by Seven Seven Six and soccer star Midge Purce, the upcoming actuality tv sequence Off Season FC follows 11 NWSL soccer gamers as they practice, reside and get together collectively for 2 weeks in Miami.

The six-episode program was co-produced by 32 Flavors and Field to Field Movies, the companies behind Bravo’s Vanderpump Guidelines and the Netflix sequence Components 1: Drive to Survive, respectively. Off Season FC goals to mix the drama of actuality tv with the intrigue of a sports activities docuseries.

The primary season, which has not but premiered, will stream solely on X, a part of the platform’s broader push into internet hosting premium video. Its second season, which is already slated for manufacturing, will air on an unnamed community, in keeping with Ohanian.