In an episode of Audible podcast She Obtained Recreation, sports activities journalist and host Bonnie Bernstein asks Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership president Julie Uhrman what she would say to a teenage woman who performs sports activities and is considering quitting. Her response: “She’s stronger than she thinks. There’s a lot that sports activities can carry to you; 93 p.c of all females within the C-suite performed sports activities. It’s one thing to prioritize. It’s one thing to be part of. It’s essential. After which I’d discover a approach to assist.”
That final sentence is indicative of Uhrman’s path as a serial entrepreneur who’s centered on discovering options in each trade she’s been part of — from working as an govt at Playboy Enterprises, Lionsgate Leisure and IGN to founding the Android-based gaming console Ouya, and now co-founding Los Angeles’ first girls’s skilled soccer group for the reason that Los Angeles Sol ceased operations in 2010. Enterprise capitalist Kara Nortman and actress Natalie Portman co-founded the corporate with Uhrman in 2020.
“The mission of She Obtained Recreation is for example the plain hyperlink between sports activities participation and profession success,” explains Bernstein. “Julie personifies that to a ‘T.’ That twinkle in her eye when she talks about kicking ass as the one woman (alongside along with her twin) on the YMCA boys basketball group as a child? That was the look of somebody who’s channeled each ounce of the arrogance, drive and work ethic she honed as an athlete to thrive within the aggressive worlds of finance, entrepreneurship and sports activities group possession.”
Uhrman’s fortitude has attracted Hollywood’s elite, with Alexis Ohanian being the lead investor of Angel Metropolis FC. His spouse, Serena Williams, counts herself among the many many well-known girls buyers within the group, alongside Jessica Chastain, Candace Parker, Christina Aguilera and Gabrielle Union. Now with the FIFA Ladies’s World Cup underway, Angel Metropolis is sharing its mission on a worldwide scale with a collection of activations that may develop the dialogue round girls’s sports activities and display what leveling the enjoying area appears to be like like for feminine athletes.
“One of the best job on this planet is being the proprietor and president of Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership,” Uhrman tells LeslyNewsMagazine. “We get to have affect on and off the pitch. We get to develop a sport regionally, nationally and globally. Now we have this greater mission to drive to true fairness and each resolution we make is a step in that path, so I’ve the most effective job on this planet.”
You introduced the formation of Angel Metropolis FC on July 21, 2020. Are you the place you anticipated to be at this level?
I feel we’re far past the place we thought we might be. The fact was we created our personal expectations. There was no roadmap for what Angel Metropolis has grow to be. We’re three feminine founders, majority feminine possession group, majority feminine group. And we had been constructing Angel Metropolis in another way the place mission and capital might coexist. We wished to construct Angel Metropolis, initially, to be a worldwide model, to drive consideration and consciousness for our final purpose, which is to drive actual fairness and pay fairness for these girls and utilizing sport and Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership as a lens with which to have these conversations to bend that curve. This was by no means achieved earlier than, main with goal, driving to revenue. Each factor of Angel Metropolis, we concentrate on the affect we are able to have in the neighborhood as a lot as we concentrate on the affect we are able to have on the pitch and for our house owners. So, wanting again to that second we introduced Angel Metropolis, no, I by no means thought we’d promote out seven video games, have over 16,000 season ticket holders, drive the best quantity of sponsorship income in all of ladies’s sports activities and drive the quantity of affect in our neighborhood. We’re going to place over $2.5 million to work in the neighborhood by the tip of this 12 months, supporting over 29 totally different organizations which have a significant affect in fairness necessities and training. So, I’m thrilled with the place we’re. We all the time say it’s only the start as a result of we now have a lot extra we need to do for the neighborhood to develop our fan base, to develop the product, to help our gamers, and drive consideration [and] consciousness for girls’s sports activities globally.
A big portion of Angel Metropolis’s feminine possession is comprised of celebrities, from actresses to athletes. Did you anticipate such high-profile curiosity within the group as you had been launching?
I used to be initially shocked by the extent of curiosity and pleasure from celebrities and athletes, however in a short time I understood why the imaginative and prescient of Angel Metropolis made sense to them. We try to mix mission and revenue. We try to attain a better purpose than simply wins on the pitch; we’re driving for actual fairness. And when you concentrate on athletes and actresses, they use their platform not solely to advertise the mission that they’re at present engaged on but in addition to lean into their social affect efforts and to attract consideration and consciousness for what issues to them. After we began Angel Metropolis, it was throughout the presidential election. We partnered with Eva Longoria and America Ferrera, two of our house owners, as they had been attempting to get out the vote for the Hispanic neighborhood to see how might we leverage the viewers of Angel Metropolis to inform that message and likewise to indicate their help for Angel Metropolis. After we began elevating cash for Angel Metropolis, we acquired over 100 no’s as a result of conventional buyers didn’t perceive, are we a nonprofit, or are we a for-profit? Are we a sports activities group, or are we a charity? And after we pitched the idea of Angel Metropolis, the primary pitch was to Eva Longoria. And after we defined that we wished to mix mission and capital, we wished to construct a corporation the place we lead with ardour and goal to drive to profitability and actually rewrite the playbook of how one can carry a brand new membership or a brand new model to market with goal at its core the place you don’t sacrifice goal for revenue, however you deliberately drive each on the similar time. As quickly as I used to be achieved talking, she mentioned, “I’m in.” Our first test. Our first supporter has leaned in each step of the best way as a result of she essentially understands that we’re constructing a model and a platform to drive affect. And that affect is for girls’s sports activities, it’s for our neighborhood, it’s for our group, it’s for gender fairness, it’s for pay fairness, and it’s what she does day-after-day.
That definitely modified our technique, and we’re so lucky to have buyers corresponding to America, Sophia Bush, Lilly Singh, Jennifer Garner, Uzo Aduba, Billie Jean King, Lindsey Vonn, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle. These unimaginable girls who, in their very own lives, actually challenged the established order and need to drive for a greater future and are keen to leverage their persona, their model, their platform to take action. So, their alignment with Angel Metropolis felt actually genuine. And due to that, they’ve leaned in all through our growth, highlighting our successes, driving curiosity and engagement for Angel Metropolis, after which collaborating in neighborhood and affect occasions to assist us make a distinction in the neighborhood.
In Could, your three-part documentary, Angel Metropolis, was launched on Max. How did that mission come about?
We actually wished to inform the story of Angel Metropolis from the start. Most sports activities documentaries actually concentrate on the gamers, however we wished to speak in regards to the uniqueness of how Angel Metropolis was constructed with three feminine founders led by Natalie Portman and a group of folks that got here from very totally different backgrounds to leverage their experience and their community to construct Angel Metropolis a special approach. What I really like in regards to the documentary is how actual it’s. You see what it’s wish to construct knowledgeable girls’s soccer group from a enterprise facet, from a training facet, from a participant’s facet. We don’t cover any of the ups and downs. We don’t shrink back from the struggles and challenges, definitely, we spotlight our successes, nevertheless it takes a village. What I’m so happy with with Angel Metropolis is that this can be a group that’s dedicated not solely to rising Angel Metropolis Soccer Membership however to being a optimistic affect in the neighborhood and to have the ability to inform that story was actually particular.
Natalie Portman actually echoes loads of the feelings you expressed right here within the documentary, notably when she says, “There’s no playbook, we now have to put in writing out personal.” Have house owners of different girls’s sports activities groups reached out to you about replicating what you’re doing of their leagues?
They’ve, and we’ve performed a giant function, speaking with potential enlargement groups, spending time with new groups in San Diego and San Francisco and the Utah Royals. The purpose is simply to share what we now have achieved. Sports activities is inherently an area enterprise, so we may give them our technique, however how they bring about it to gentle, the way it resonates with their neighborhood is actually as much as them. We open up our complete playbook and share all the things from our technique and ways to our price range and organizational chart — something and all the things to provide anyone type of a leg as much as how they need to construct themselves. Now we have discovered unimaginable success main with goal and discovering values-aligned companions. I don’t assume that’s distinctive to us, and I feel it’s a successful recipe, however every membership has to resolve what’s genuine for them and, in the end, what meets their targets.
We’re greater than a soccer membership. We’ve all the time wished to be greater than a soccer membership. Soccer is essential to us, and we’re leaning in and investing in that, not solely within the gamers however because it pertains to the amenities and the expertise on recreation day. We discuss our recreation day being the best present on earth, and each recreation is any person’s first recreation. So, how can we elevate that have? How do we offer one thing particular? How do we offer an expertise for all? As a result of soccer is for all, and I feel we constructed the biggest numerous and inclusive neighborhood inside sports activities. And that’s as a result of we offer one thing for everybody, and it’s a secure, enjoyable setting.
The profit-sharing mannequin you’ve developed compensates gamers for utilizing their likeness in any group promotions. How distinctive is that strategy?
In the end, we need to get to pay fairness for gamers, however we acknowledge it’s a enterprise, so we now have to develop the enterprise, and we now have to develop income. There are lots of people which are a part of serving to us obtain that. It’s our media companions, it’s our sponsors, nevertheless it’s additionally our followers and our gamers. When followers come to video games, they not solely purchase tickets, however they’ll additionally purchase concessions. Perhaps they’ll purchase merch, they’ll pay parking, proper? That drives our income, which in the end drives our affect. The gamers additionally play a job as a result of we essentially consider that fandom has shifted to some extent the place you comply with a participant first, a group second and a league third. So, it’s one factor for Angel Metropolis to advertise a recreation on Sunday, but when Alyssa Thompson tells her viewers, which is arguably greater than Angel Metropolis’s, that there’s a recreation on Sunday and supplies them a hyperlink to purchase a ticket, we expect that’s going to be extra profitable. It additionally empowers gamers to be part of the answer to drive to pay fairness and empowers followers as a result of they are saying, “Hey, if I purchase a ticket, I now know that 1 p.c of the online ticket receipts go to the gamers. So, I will help drive to pay fairness.” And the gamers know that they play a job additionally. So, we created this 1 p.c fan-filled program the place 1 p.c of all NetGate receipts go to our gamers within the occasion that our gamers use their identify, picture and likeness successfully [on] their social platform to advertise our video games.
And look, we considered it this manner. We pay Google and Meta to drive ticket gross sales, proper? However we’d have far more success if we now have our 24-person roster drive ticket gross sales. And followers are extra seemingly to reply to them than to reply to another person. So, it’s the primary of its sort. We’d like to see different groups choose it up. We’d love to extend it from 1 p.c over time. But it surely’s only a approach of claiming all of us play a job. Followers play a job, gamers play a job, and it’s actually genuine to the expertise to take part in this system.
You talked about media being one of many key stakeholders in reaching fairness. Has protection of your video games matched your expectations?
We’re nonetheless catching up on getting girls’s sports activities the media consideration that it deserves, particularly broadcast home windows and broadcast channels the place the followers don’t have to take action a lot work to seek out it. We’ve had an awesome expertise with CBS and CBSSN and Paramount+. The league is within the technique of negotiating our future broadcasts and streaming home and worldwide rights. So, I’m hopeful we’ll discover a accomplice that basically needs to raise and spotlight girls’s sports activities. And that’s about accessibility. It’s in regards to the time that we play after which the shoulder programming that goes round it. A recreation is barely 90 minutes, however the tales you may inform about these gamers and the groups [are] actually infinitesimal. So, we need to discover a accomplice that desires to develop the game outdoors of recreation days as nicely.
Angel Metropolis has numerous initiatives deliberate for the Ladies’s World Cup. Inform me about Fairness Home and the Angel Metropolis Fairness Summit.
In L.A., we now have over 15 watch events all all through town in downtown L.A., Glendale, Anaheim, Culver Metropolis and Silver Lake, to actually rejoice the athletes and to help all of the groups and particularly U.S.A. And throughout the World Cup … Angel Metropolis is launching the Angel Metropolis Fairness Home Expertise. It’s a possibility for us to domesticate expertise and rejoice the most effective feminine soccer gamers and stage significant conversations round lasting affect because it pertains to pay fairness and gender fairness and entry and alternatives for youth in sport. The entire expertise culminates … [with the] Angel Metropolis Fairness Summit. It’s a day of panels, hearth chats and roundtables with esteemed thought leaders in soccer, in leisure and in sports activities … The purpose is to carry these people collectively in order that we are able to actually discuss fairness and the way sports activities play a major function to bend the curve.
Interview edited for size and readability.