Episode summary
ALTSLA 2026: Jason Wright Spoke to Courtney McQuade
Summary
Jason Wright argued that women’s sports are still early in their monetization cycle, with opportunity across the whole ecosystem rather than only at the league or team level. He said his fund is focused on high-participation sports like basketball, soccer, volleyball, track and field, lacrosse, flag football, golf, and tennis, plus youth sports, analytics, and service businesses that support athletes and venues.
He framed women’s sports as a “small caps of sports” opportunity: undervalued, underresearched, and growing faster than the market has priced in. Wright pointed to the WNBA’s average team valuation of $250 million versus the NHL’s $2.2 billion average, alongside 970,000 regular-season viewers per WNBA game compared with 450,000 for NHL games, as evidence that media rights and valuations have not caught up.
Wright also said the fund is targeting private-equity-style returns through a diversified portfolio, including more cash-generating businesses with shorter hold periods. He tied that investing approach to his background as an NFL player, McKinsey partner, and sports executive, and said women mentors, including Melody Hobson, helped shape his outlook. His core message was that now is the moment for women’s sports to reward athletes and build a broader generation of fans.
Key takeaways
- Wright said women’s sports are an “arbitrage moment” because valuations have not caught up to audience demand or revenue growth.
- He expects the biggest upside across the whole ecosystem, including teams, leagues, analytics, youth sports, staffing, and venue-related services.
- Wright said the WNBA’s average team valuation is $250 million, versus $2.2 billion for the NHL, despite stronger WNBA regular-season viewership per game.
- He argued that the fund can seek private-equity-style returns by mixing long-duration team and league assets with faster-returning service businesses.
- Wright said the opportunity is now because the commercial ecosystem is finally ready to monetize women’s sports and serve a new generation of fans.
Notable quotes
“Women's sports revenue have gone up 300% in the last three years”
“It's the whole ecosystem and that's sort of the plan for our fund”
“women's sports is a small caps of sports”
“That WNBA valuation at 250 million, they have about 970,000 viewers per regular season game, which is remarkable”
“the commercial ecosystem around women's sports is finally ready to do right by these amazing athletes”
How the episode opens
Women's sports revenue have gone up 300% in the last three years. Where's the biggest opportunity right now? I'm here with Jason Wright, managing partner and head of investments at the aerial project level. Jason, can you tell us where the biggest opportunities are right now?
Um, we're excited about the whole ecosystem. I don't think anything is untapped at this stage. It is still early days.
Um, but we believe in the high participation women's sports, basketball obviously in the WNBA, football or soccer where we're invested in the NWSL and the Denver Summit, volleyball, track and field, lacrosse, flag football, and many others on down the chain to golf to tennis and many others. Every sport has real momentum right now globally and it's exciting moment and not just at the professional level. youth sports and all the businesses that support them that are providing better health outcomes for female athletes or analytics to make sure those businesses are as profitable as they should be so that both the women and everyone associated with get compensated the right ways.
It's the whole ecosystem and that's sort of the plan for our fund.
Fantastic. And how do you think how would you convince the institutional investors that are here that women's sports is something that is a great opportunity to invest in? I I'd call them to what Aerial Investments and John Rogers and Melody Hobson, my colleagues have done now for over 40 years, and that's find overlooked, undervalued, underressearched aspects of the market that may be a smaller base like the small and midcap stocks that Ariel has historically found with a very fast growth rate if we're discerning with attention to detail and support those companies in the right way with a full ecosystem approach.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- women's sports investment
- sports team valuations
- private equity-style returns
- sports analytics
- youth sports ecosystem
Watch the episode
Watch “ALTSLA 2026: Jason Wright Spoke to Courtney McQuade” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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