Disney Plus: In addition to buying the controlling stake in Angel City FC, Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, plan to invest $50 million into the club for future growth.
Bob Iger knows a thing or two about making a transformational purchase. As the CEO of Disney, he famously led the multibillion-dollar acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm. Now, he’s giving women’s soccer its Hollywood moment.
This month, Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, closed their purchase of a controlling stake in the National Women’s Soccer League’s Angel City FC at an enterprise value of $250 million. Bay, the dean of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, will lead the Los Angeles-based franchise’s board and represent the club at NWSL meetings as its governor. But even in the immediate wake of the transaction, Iger’s value in the owner’s box is hard to overstate, insiders say.
While the price tag is an outlier in the world of women’s sports—more than double the next-highest sale in the NWSL’s 12-year history, $113 million for the San Diego Wave earlier this year—the 73-year-old Iger is raising hopes that the entire league could soon be in line for a payday.
“It’s just further validation about this team, this league and this sport,” says Edwin E. Draughan of sports investment bank Park Lane. “I think people on the outside looking in will say, ‘Well, Bob Iger is in this; well, smart money is coming here—let me try to get in.’ And I think you’re starting to see folks trying to figure out how to get in, whether it’s big money or institutional capital.”
That slew of notable investors, who have collectively raised the league’s profile and deepened its resources, began in earnest with the $35 million........