Sa Natalie Portman as co-founder and great promoter, Angel City FC will start next week on its journey to National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) with a firm conviction to change women’s football from offices to the playing field, where they played their matches with a 4-3-3 scheme.
“Angel City is not another football team. We are building a different kind of organization where mission and capital go hand in hand.”
That’s the powerful goal declaration on its website by this new team from Los Angeles (USA) who, after playing the Challenge Cup in the preseason, will play its first official regular season match against North America on Friday, April 29. Caroline Courage.
Angel City’s journey began here in July 2020 where Portman led the founding group.
“Sport is a very fun way to bring people together and it also has the power to make tangible change for athletes in our community and in the professional field,” the actress wrote when announcing the team.
The fight against machismo and the search for equality was the root of Angel City in the beginning, as there were so many women on its board of directors and in its group of owners.
It also noticed the well -known profile of the names behind the set.
As a result, the group led by Portman accepted Hollywood stars as investors (Eva Longoria, Jennifer Garner, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Chastain, Sophia Bush, Becky G, Uzo Aduba or Gabrielle Union) at to talented sports figures (Serena Williams, Lindsey Vonn, Mia Hamm, Candace Parker or Abby Wambach).
However, one of the most important challenges for Angel City is to bring its good intentions into its business model.
FROM SPONSORS TO ALLIES
With experience in the NHL (Columbus Blue Jackets), MLB (Oakland Athletics) and MLS (San Jose Earthquakes), Jess Smith, Angel City’s head of revenue, explained in an interview with Efe that all of his board’s decisions is based on “values”.
For this, they defined “three pillars of Angel City: equity, essentials and education”.
“Those are the three pillars that we are responsible for in all our things. That’s the heart of our club,” he said.
From the moment they started looking for “entrance lanes” and thinking about how they could “go to the market, find sponsors and ask fans to buy season tickets,” Smith said they were very clear about one aspect. : “The whole point of Angel City is we exist to fight for fairness.”
“That doesn’t mean we can fix it right now, but at least we can talk it over with our clients, with brands, with teams, with athletes,” he exemplifies by emphasizing commitment. of the club to the LGBTQ community, racial minorities and people with disabilities. .
By “essentials”, the group refers for example to providing facilities and equipment so that young women can play football in their communities, while “education” includes all kinds of “honest discussion” in different sectors of the population.
Smith, who designed Angel City’s sponsorship model, pointed out that in their search for “allies” they developed a formula that served the club and its sponsors.
“10 percent of each sponsorship goes to a shared cause within three pillars,” he said.
For example, DoorDash has promised Angel City to provide a million meals to Angelenos in need while Sprouts has a school community garden program underway.
“With every brand and person we’ve worked with, there’s a reason behind it,” said Smith, who admits that the laudable intentions on paper aren’t enough and “resources” are needed to tackle these projects.
“But make no mistake: our goal is to make money. We don’t see these two things (the three pillars and team benefits) as mutually exclusive,” he said.
COMMUNITY SUCCESS AND WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP
One of the most impressive aspects of Angel City is the massive echo it already has in Los Angeles, so in March the club announced that they had sold nearly 15,000 season tickets for their first season in the NWSL (the Banc of California stadium where their matches will play has a capacity for 22,000 people).
Smith said his community approach is “layered” and includes both street and neighborhood outreach events as well as backing from his “incredible investment group.”
“There you have people like Natalie Portman, Sophia Bush, Lindsey Vonn, Billie Jean King, Alexis Ohanian … What’s really nice about Angel City is that even before we have a brand, we had the support of those investors.” he explained.
In this sense, Smith recalled a meeting where his interlocutor admitted he knew nothing about sports but said he knew about the Angel City project because he saw it on Sophia Bush’s Instagram (4 million followers).
“You can’t underestimate the power and influence that (these investors) have in their own ecosystems,” Smith said. Finally, Smith noted the uniqueness of Angel City as a group of women and having a large majority of women in offices.
“For someone like me, to work for and with other women, both at the ownership and board level, is unfortunately something that didn’t exist before,” she said.
Smith said they feel a “responsibility” to do well as a leadership experience in American football and stressed the importance of “see it and be it”, that is, that girls can be a role model. for their own future.
“Seeing sponsors and fans proving what we do, and also making it real and successful, is something incredible,” he concludes.
Source: La Verdad
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
