The WNBA’s Seattle Storm closed funding at a record-high valuation

Yesterday, the Seattle Storm announced the sale of more than a dozen minority stakes valuing the WNBA franchise at $151 million, an all-time record for a US women’s sports team. Quite fitting that a team named “the Storm” would be making it rain.

The team’s owners told the WSJ they sold the stakes to help finance a new $64 million, 50,000-square-foot practice facility and business office, which breaks ground later this month.

🏀 More details… The Storm’s latest valuation is more than 15x the price that several other WNBA teams have sold for in recent years – a discrepancy the team’s owners attributed to two main things:

1. The Storm’s track record of success. This includes four WNBA titles since 2004 – tied for the most all-time – and a league-leading attendance of 10,600 fans per game last season.
2. The increasing value of women’s sports properties in general.

📈 And speaking of: Women’s sports as a whole are on the upswing. One example: the WNBA raised $75 million last February at a $1 billion valuation, the largest funding deal for a women's sports property in history.

And here’s *DJ Khaled voice* anotha one: the fee to join the National Women’s Soccer League as an expansion team rose from between $2 million and $5 million in 2020, to $50 million last month (an increase of 900%).