Underdog Stories / Football history

Why Is Angel City FC So Valuable Without a Trophy?

Why Angel City FC is so valuable: a $2 million entry fee, a sold-out opener and a women's football team run as a real business, trophy or no trophy.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · July 13, 2026

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On April 29, 2022, all 22,000 seats at BMO Stadium were full for a team that had never played a competitive match. Fireworks went off. Singers sang, a marching band marched, and so many famous owners crowded onto the pitch that the pregame photo looked like an awards show. That night is most of the answer to why Angel City FC is so valuable.

Angel City was built and sold as a business in its own right, with big sponsors, full stands and supporters who turned up on day one. Sportico put the club at $335 million in March 2026. The trophy case was empty. It turns out nobody was paying for the trophy case.

How did a $2 million expansion fee become $335 million?

Angel City and the San Diego Wave each played their first NWSL season in 2022 after their ownership groups paid $2 million expansion fees. That is the starting line.

Sportico's first NWSL list, in 2023, had Angel City at $180 million, likely the world's most valuable women's team in any sport. In 2024, Willow Bay and her husband Bob Iger bought in. That sale set a record valuation for a women's sports franchise at $250 million, and gave the couple a roughly 40% stake. The episode adds that $50 million in new capital came with the deal and that Bay took control of the board.

The 2026 estimate is up 34% from 2024 and 86% from 2023. Forbes, working separately, landed close by at $340 million, up 21% from 2025.

Two cautions. Both numbers are estimates, and the only price anyone has actually paid is the 2024 one. And the club did not do all of this alone. The NWSL's entry price has since climbed to $165 million for Atlanta, awarded the 17th franchise in November. Forbes says that for many teams lower down the table, valuations are bets that the league-wide upswell will someday justify the price. Angel City helped start the tide. It also rides it.

What is Angel City's 10% sponsorship model?

Every sponsorship deal sends 10% of its value to a community project. Chris Horwedel's point in the episode is that the project is named in the contract, so a sponsor can't just say it cares about empowerment and move on. He is also clear that this is still corporate sponsorship. Nobody, he says, has confused the stadium signage with a monastery.

Sportico's example is the back-of-the-jersey deal with Sprouts. Ten percent of it goes to the Garden School Foundation, a Los Angeles nonprofit focused on children's nutrition education and access to fresh food. PNC's version sends 10% of the bank's sponsorship to a fund giving grants to retired NWSL players who want to start businesses.

The money adds up. Fast Company reported that $5.6 million was already set to be distributed over five years. By January 2025 the club said more than $3.5 million had gone directly to the Los Angeles community.

None of this would matter commercially if sponsors didn't want in. They did. The club's eight-figure deal with DoorDash as its first primary kit sponsor is the largest in the NWSL.

What is La Fortaleza, and did the crowds last?

La Fortaleza is the supporters' section, "the fortress," gathered behind one goal at BMO Stadium. Six recognized groups share it. Mosaic 1781 stresses the city's mix of communities. Padrosas is led by women and femmes of color. Rebellion 99 grew out of the earlier campaign to get Los Angeles an NWSL team at all. They bring drums, flags, Sol Rosa smoke and multilingual banners, which makes the place louder and scruffier than a celebrity ownership list would suggest.

The numbers backed it up. According to the episode, Angel City averaged more than 19,000 fans in its first season, the highest in the league, and sold 15,000 season tickets before kickoff. It sold $6 million of merchandise in 2022, the most in the league. In 2023 its reported revenue was $31 million, nearly double the next-highest team.

“Women's teams were not inherently small businesses. They had simply been treated like them.”
— Chris Horwedel, on Why We Love This Club

The crowd has not been a constant, though. Sportico's 2026 report had Angel City's attendance down 16% in 2025. The league as a whole dipped 5%. A full house on opening night is not the same thing as a full house every week, and the hosts' enthusiasm doesn't change that.

Why did Angel City retire number 22 before anyone wore it?

Because it is the club's favorite number. In October 2021 Angel City retired number 22 to mark its founding year and the number of players on the pitch. The crest tilts at 22 degrees for the same reason.

Then the club sold shirts with the number on them. The money goes to Player 22, which helps retired women's players with education, financial help and training for starting their own businesses. Chris calls it one of the club's best ideas, and he's right. Most professional women's players don't retire rich. Nobody shows you what happens to them next, least of all television.

It also fits the business case. A club that treats the end of a career as part of its job is giving sponsors and fans a reason to care that has nothing to do with the scoreline.

Why is Angel City FC so valuable when the results are so uneven?

Because the results are only one part of the product, and the club has been selling the other parts well. That doesn't make the results irrelevant. Chris says plainly that a team can't present itself as the future of women's sport and accept permanent mediocrity.

The record is a mixed bag. Angel City finished 8th in 2022. Christen Press, its first signing and a Los Angeles native, tore her ACL that June. She needed four operations and came back in 2024, 781 days later. In 2023 interim coach Becky Tweed led an 11-match unbeaten run, and a 5-1 win over Portland on the last day got the club into its first playoffs. Then OL Reign scored in the 87th minute of the quarterfinal in Seattle and won 1-0.

In 2024 the club was fined $200,000 and docked three points for breaking the NWSL salary cap. CEO Julie Uhrman and general manager Angela Hucles were suspended from player transactions for the rest of that year.

The 2026 season started with three straight wins, the best start in club history. Then it fell apart. Coach Alexander Straus was dismissed on June 17, when, the team had won just one of its final eight games under him and sat 12th in the 16-team table. Assistant Leif Smerud took over.

When Chris recorded the episode, 2023 was still the club's only playoff appearance. That has changed. Angel City clinched a 2026 playoff spot in October, its first postseason appearance since 2023. It finished fifth after a 4-1 win over Boston Legacy, and it travels to Kansas City to meet the Current on a league-best 10-game unbeaten run. The quarterfinals are played November 6-8.

So the club has now twice reached the playoffs, still without a major trophy. Whether that makes the $335 million look smart or early depends on what happens next.

Where does Angel City's rivalry with San Diego fit in?

San Diego is the nearest thing Angel City has to a rival. Both clubs joined in 2022 and both paid the same $2 million. They compete for players, attention and bragging rights in Southern California. Chris describes the meetings as geographic hostility plus excellent weather. San Diego is also fourth on Sportico's list, at $200 million, so the argument over who is worth more is a real one.

On July 11, Angel City beat San Diego 2-0 during the league's rivalry week. It was the first of three straight 2-0 wins, and it started the run that dragged the season back into shape.

The final standings hint that the fortress is still going up. Angel City went 6-5-3 at BMO Stadium, the worst home record of any NWSL playoff team, and 9-3-4 everywhere else. Four of the five home losses came under the coach who got fired. Smerud's line was that the team is good both home and away, which the numbers only half back. The club's own playoff page says a home playoff match would be a first. Think about that. The stadium that sold out before a ball was kicked, the one the whole valuation story leans on, has never hosted a playoff game.