A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. March Madness is here again! You may remember, last year’s women’s college basketball final between undefeated South Carolina and Caitlin Clark ‘s Iowa had higher TV ratings than the men’s championship game – the first time that had ever happened. An average of 18.7 million viewers tuned in for the game on ABC and ESPN. The men’s title game, between UConn and Purdue, drew 14.8 million on TBS and TNT. That game made some investors think about women’s sports in a different light. The money gap between men’s and women’s sports is still massive. The WNBA increased its media rights revenue sixfold in its new TV deal, which begins next season, given the newfound popularity of the sport. And still, its deal is only worth $2.2 billion over the next 11 years. For comparison, the NBA’s agreement over the same timeframe is worth nearly $75 billion. Few expect the ratings for this year’s women’s finale to approach last year’s without Clark’s presence. But women’s college basketball ratings are actually up this year on ESPN – 3% higher than last year and 41% higher than the year before. The 87 women’s games broadcast on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU averaged 280,000 viewers – the highest rating since the 2008-09 season. That’s obviously a far cry from 18.7 million. But the present delta between women’s and men’s sports, in terms of attention and media dollars, compared to the growth potential is what makes people like Kara Nortman so bullish. Nortman is the co-founder and managing partner of Monarch Collective, the largest pool of capital exclusively dedicated to women’s sports investment. Last week, Monarch announced it had expanded its fund by $100 million to $250 million. Investors include Melinda French Gates ‘ Pivotal Ventures, Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden , and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland. Nortman said the women’s sports market grew 30% last year in commercial revenue to about $1.3 billion – a number confirmed by Deloitte. That’s a tiny fraction of the men’s sports market, which she pegged between $500 billion and $750 billion. “The market is still quite small,” Nortman told me in an interview. “It’s a very early market. It’s venture in terms of the market dynamics, but I’d say we take a more kind of growth equity or private equity-like approach in terms of investing in the most mature parts of it.” The fund invests in “mature sports where there are media revenue trends.” In other words, most of the fund’s money goes toward basketball and soccer. Monarch owns minority stakes in three NWSL teams (Boston, San Diego, and Angel City, whose controlling stake was acquired by Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay last year). The fund is planning on seven to nine total investments with “very few in a given year,” Nortman said. Monarch is hard capped at $250 million, so it won’t be taking on more money. “We want to always be big enough to really show up and support the needs, but small enough to collaborate and be side by side with control owners and other people,” said Nortman. The early signs are encouraging. While Boston’s franchise fee to join the NWSL was $53 million in September 2023, Denver’s fee paid this year is $110 million , according to Reuters. “That’s 2x on just a franchise fee for a limited number of assets right now,” said Nortman, who is confident team valuations will grow just as they have in the major men’s sports. The main leaning indicator for Nortman is increasing media rights. “If you look at the top five men’s leagues, in the last 10 years, they’ve all grown 3x to 6x at a more mature state,” said Nortman. “The flip side is I think we should always expect we can’t expect things to always go up and to the right.” If last year’s NCAA championship game showed the potential of women’s sports, this year’s championship has a new goal – to prove the women’s game is on the same lucrative path as men’s sports … just earlier in the journey. On the record With Robinhood exec JB Mackenzie … Robinhood is pushing into the boundaries of sports betting. The electronic trading platform has partnered with the predictions market Kalshi to give users the ability to wager on the outcome of an NCAA tournament game. An example might be a bet like, “Will Duke make the Final Four?” You can either wager on “Yes” or “No.” The model is controversial. Technically, it’s not standard sports betting – as JB Mackenzie , vice president and general manager of futures and international at Robinhood, told me in this week’s “On The Record” segment. Sports betting is legalized on a state-by-state basis. Prediction markets are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – a federal agency. Robinhood almost launched this product for the Super Bowl but pulled back after the CFTC had questions “about where these markets are going and how they’re being reviewed,” Mackenzie told me. This time, Robinhood felt comfortable moving ahead with the product. “Whenever something is new, what you want to do is make sure that your controls and your oversight are in place, so that you are in a good spot,” Mackenzie said. “So it’s really about making sure both the regulator as well as the FCM (Futures Commission Merchant) are in a good standing, because at the end of the day, we want to give a great product out to our clients, and this is one of the ways we do it – by making sure that both the regulators and ourselves are feeling that we’re in a good place.” Beyond the regulatory aspect, prediction markets aren’t products with odds set by a sportsbook. Rather, they are “two-sided,” with a buyer and seller for every transaction, as Mackenzie explained. A “Yes” bet on Duke needs to be matched with a “No” bet by someone else. There’s no “house” – the sportsbook – setting odds and taking action. In the predictions market, you place a trade on the likely outcome, and that trade functions as its own security. In other words, you can place a bet and then sell before the event actually takes place if the market feels the likelihood of the outcome increases. “If your trade goes up, you can take profit, or if it’s going down, it also gives you the opportunity to get out of that trade before that event occurs,” explained Mackenzie. “So it actually acts just like the deep liquid financial markets we have today in equities, options and futures – unlike with the sports betting side, where you really just have to go to the actual ending of that event to either get paid or that you ended up having to pay into.” To be fair, there are often “cash out” opportunities on FanDuel, DraftKings, and other sports betting platforms that allow profit-taking before the close of an event. But these opportunities aren’t always available, and the payouts are set by the sportsbooks. Don’t you just miss just filling out your bracket and calling it a day? Watch the full interview and follow and listen to the new CNBC Sport podcast. CNBC Sport highlight reel The best of CNBC Sport from the past week: The NBA has filed two trademarks for “NBA Inside Stuff,” CNBC has learned. NBC is already thinking about bringing back a refreshed version of the show, sources told Jess Golden and me. The original “NBA Inside Stuff” aired on the network from 1990 to 2002. The dream of the ’90s is alive in Portland – and perhaps on NBC next season when the NBA comes back. Now let’s get that deal done for “Roundball Rock!” Continuing the women’s sports theme — new professional sports are popping up that are co-ed in nature, including sailing and pickleball. CNBC’s Harriet Taylor has more details. John Fisher moved the A’s out of Oakland, and now he’s looking for money to help finance a ballpark in Las Vegas. The A’s owner is now offering shares in the team , valued at $2 billion, to raise money for the ballpark’s construction, CNBC’s Michael Ozanian has learned. The A’s are set to play this season out of Sacramento. The Fisher family owns 95% of the franchise. The Professional Tennis Players’ Association, co-founded by Novak Djokovic , is suing the ATP and WTA tours, accusing them of being a “cartel” which suppresses wages and player opportunity. PTPA executive director Ahmad Nassar joined “Squawk Box” this week to explain the association’s complaints. DraftKings CEO Jason Robins also dropped by “Squawk Box” to talk about March Madness and how Duke and UConn are attracting a lot of the betting action. To emphasize his point, he wore a Duke hat. The big number: 25 million That’s how many people watched the first game of the Major League Baseball regular season between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs across all media platforms. The game began at 6 a.m. ET, so most of that audience came from Japan – no surprise, given Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani ‘s outsized influence. It was the most-watched game in Japan ever, smashing the old record by more than 6 million viewers. Quote of the week “We do not do things that are easily manipulatable, and we have to really showcase that to our regulator.” — Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour also talked to me this week about his company’s prediction market partnership with Robinhood. Mansour told me he expects March Madness volume over the next few weeks to be similar to volume the site had for the presidential election, which put Kalshi on the map . Around the league Major League Soccer noticed the success of the NHL’s “4 Nations Face-Off” All-Star Game replacement last month, which pitted country against country. The MLS announced this week that its 2025 All-Star Game will feature MLS All-Stars taking on a team of All-Stars from Mexico’s LIGA MX. The game takes place July 22 at Austin’s Q2 Stadium. You know who else noticed the NHL’s All-Star success? The NHL. Commissioner Gary Bettman said this week that something different is coming in 2026 because “we’ve raised the bar about as high as you can for an All-Star game in any sport,” and “we want to make sure whatever we do is up to the standards that we’ve created.” The Winter Olympics also take place in February 2026. NHL players are expected to participate at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. The ratings expectations for Unrivaled, the women’s three-on-three basketball league, were modest for its first season – as evidenced by this odd looking graphic TNT Sports put out on social media this week about the league’s finale. The key statistic is the championship game’s ratings – an average of 364,000 viewers. But you have to squint to figure it out!
Cameron Brink and Caitlin Clark are two of the WNBA’s most well-known stars. They’ll both earn salaries below $80,000 this season.
Harry How | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
March Madness is here again! You may remember, last year’s women’s college basketball final between undefeated South Carolina and Caitlin Clark‘s Iowa had higher TV ratings than the men’s championship game – the first time that had ever happened. An average of 18.7 million viewers tuned in for the game on ABC and ESPN. The men’s title game, between UConn and Purdue, drew 14.8 million on TBS and TNT.
That game made some investors think about women’s sports in a different light. The money gap between men’s and women’s sports is still massive. The WNBA increased its media rights revenue sixfold in its new TV deal, which begins next season, given the newfound popularity of the sport. And still, its deal is only worth $2.2 billion over the next 11 years. For comparison, the NBA’s agreement over the same timeframe is worth nearly $75 billion.
Few expect the ratings for this year’s women’s finale to approach last year’s without Clark’s presence. But women’s college basketball ratings are actually up this year on ESPN – 3% higher than last year and 41% higher than the year before. The 87 women’s games broadcast on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU averaged 280,000 viewers – the highest rating since the 2008-09 season.
That’s obviously a far cry from 18.7 million. But the present delta between women’s and men’s sports, in terms of attention and media dollars, compared to the growth potential is what makes people like Kara Nortman so bullish.
Nortman is the co-founder and managing partner of Monarch Collective, the largest pool of capital exclusively dedicated to women’s sports investment. Last week, Monarch announced it had expanded its fund by $100 million to $250 million. Investors include Melinda French Gates‘ Pivotal Ventures, Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden, and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland.
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Nortman said the women’s sports market grew 30% last year in commercial revenue to about $1.3 billion – a number confirmed by Deloitte. That’s a tiny fraction of the men’s sports market, which she pegged between $500 billion and $750 billion.
“The market is still quite small,” Nortman told me in an interview. “It’s a very early market. It’s venture in terms of the market dynamics, but I’d say we take a more kind of growth equity or private equity-like approach in terms of investing in the most mature parts of it.”
The fund invests in “mature sports where there are media revenue trends.” In other words, most of the fund’s money goes toward basketball and soccer.
Monarch owns minority stakes in three NWSL teams (Boston, San Diego, and Angel City, whose controlling stake was acquired by Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay last year). The fund is planning on seven to nine total investments with “very few in a given year,” Nortman said. Monarch is hard capped at $250 million, so it won’t be taking on more money.
“We want to always be big enough to really show up and support the needs, but small enough to collaborate and be side by side with control owners and other people,” said Nortman.
The early signs are encouraging. While Boston’s franchise fee to join the NWSL was $53 million in September 2023, Denver’s fee paid this year is $110 million, according to Reuters.
“That’s 2x on just a franchise fee for a limited number of assets right now,” said Nortman, who is confident team valuations will grow just as they have in the major men’s sports.
The main leaning indicator for Nortman is increasing media rights.
“If you look at the top five men’s leagues, in the last 10 years, they’ve all grown 3x to 6x at a more mature state,” said Nortman. “The flip side is I think we should always expect we can’t expect things to always go up and to the right.”
If last year’s NCAA championship game showed the potential of women’s sports, this year’s championship has a new goal – to prove the women’s game is on the same lucrative path as men’s sports … just earlier in the journey.
On the record
With Robinhood exec JB Mackenzie …
