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Yet for Angel City’s players, creating a professional environment in which they can focus on soccer has not always seemed to be the club’s top priority. “If it’s just continuing to grow the brand, how is that going to change the sexist structure of athletics?” “To say, ‘We’re going to buy this team and therefore we’re empowering women’ - what are you empowering them to do? What are you empowering them for?” said Sarah Banet-Weiser, a communications professor at the Annenberg Schools at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. “What is this actually doing for anyone besides the investors themselves being able to say, ‘Look I own a team’?”įurther complicating the glowing reception that Angel City has received is the assumption that a club founded by women - Uhrman, the actress Natalie Portman and Kara Nortman, a venture capitalist - and majority-owned by women somehow guaranteed things would be better for its women’s players. Cox, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon who studies issues of labor, identity and technology in sports. “The shiny veneer, the incredible photo op, the great social media branding is one thing, but how will this actually affect the lived experience of these athletes?” said Dr. It’s a difficult line to walk, though, to be seen as both a charitable endeavor and a business opportunity dusted by celebrity - all while fielding a competitive team. Angel City players who allow the use of their likeness to promote the club, for example, will receive 1 percent of net ticket revenue this season. And showing that this is a real business, and investing in women and investing in women’s sports is actually a good investment.”Īngel City executives are eager to discuss the club’s goals, which include a focus on investing in Los Angeles - club sponsors are required to put 10 percent of the value of their sponsorships into local organizations - and equity for its players. “That we could lead with purpose but also have a goal of being profitable. “We wanted to show that we were different,” Uhrman, the team president, said.
If the league’s first momentum shift was one of collective action by its players, the second was the introduction of a club like Angel City, a team conceived, founded and run by women. Having said that, we have 24 players and a coaching staff of 20, and it’s not as easy for them,” said Julie Uhrman, Angel City’s president and one of its founders, adding, “Sometimes we fall short of delivering for the players, and it’s devastating.”
“Every start-up has to adjust and pivot: I’m comfortable with those last-minute changes. They canceled training, and the players were offered a spa day instead. But just as the players were to return to Cal Lutheran, team officials decided the school’s turf football field they had been given wasn’t adequate. team was on a Super Bowl run and still using them.Īdjusting on the fly, Angel City arranged to spend the first few weeks of its preseason at Pepperdine University. What it did not have, at least consistently, was a place to play soccer.Įarly this year, just as Angel City’s players began arriving in Los Angeles for the team’s inaugural season, an agreement the team had made to use the Los Angeles Rams’ practice fields at California Lutheran University was put on hold.
LOS ANGELES - Angel City F.C., one of two new franchises in the National Women’s Soccer League, arrived for its first season equipped with dozens of celebrity investors, sleek branding, copious media coverage and a well-choreographed social media campaign.