By Assia Grazioli-Venier
Recently, a stat comparison went viral:
On the surface, it’s hard to argue with those numbers. If we’re comparing per-game viewership, it is clear the numbers don’t line up. NWSL average viewership per game is higher than that of the MLS, yet the MLS is making more than 4x as much as the NWSL in broadcast deals.
But this isn’t just about math. It’s about leverage, legacy and the business models we’ve inherited.
To close this gap, we have to understand why it exists.
Mind the gap
When Apple signed its $2.5 billion, 10-year deal with MLS, it wasn’t simply buying eyeballs — it was strategically acquiring content IP. The deal secured global exclusivity, in-house production control, a subscription engine (MLS Season Pass), and category ownership within its platform.
By contrast, the NWSL’s $60 million per year deal — split across CBS, Prime Video, ESPN and ION — is monumental for a 12-year-old league. But it’s structured around traditional advertising, linear windows and shared production responsibilities. With fewer monetizable layers, the resulting deal was a lower headline number.
That $60 million per year figure includes production costs, marketing and value-in-kind contributions. Industry insiders estimate the actual cash to the league is closer to $35 million or $40 million.
Digging beyond the headline numbers reveals a key consideration: MLS has 30 teams each playing 34 regular-season matches, while the NWSL has 14 teams each playing 26. So even with the NWSL’s higher per-game viewership, the MLS produces nearly 3x the total amount of content hours.
Many buyers are still conditioned to value volume over engagement. Therein lie the conditions contributing to the conundrum.
Outdated valuation models
We need to shift our focus to the fact that the audience has moved, and the valuation models haven’t.
The NWSL’s 189,000 average viewership in 2024-2025 reflects explosive growth. Just a few years ago, viewership hovered under 100,000. And unlike legacy leagues, 36% of NWSL’s audience is male, proving broader crossover appeal.
Yet, buyers are still pricing women’s sports like it’s 2012.
In 2007, a 13-team MLS was in its 12th year and averaged just 96,000 viewers per game, nearly half of where NWSL is today at the same point in its life cycle.
Somehow, media buyers are anchoring to MLS’ 2007 risk profile when assessing NWSL’s 2025 opportunity. That is a blatant mistake that, unfortunately, suggests a lack of awareness of the full potential of women’s sports as an asset class. They are entirely different from the men’s model and cannot be compared to old men’s figures from a bygone era.
The NBA-WNBA deal tells a similar story. The new NBA media deal, reportedly worth $76 billion over 11 years, allocates just $2.2 billion to the WNBA. That’s less than 3%, despite WNBA viewership surging 96% year over year on ESPN and triple digits on ABC.
Again, this isn’t about performance. It’s about who had leverage, how risk was priced, and what decision-makers were conditioned to value.
It’s a misconception that the rise of women’s leagues threatens legacy properties. In actuality, they expand the total addressable audience. There’s no need to treat them as a zero-sum game; Caitlin Clark’s arrival didn’t stop the 2025 Super Bowl from setting a new U.S. TV record with 127.7 million viewers.
The real risk is underpricing growth just because it doesn’t fit the old template. So, where does that leave us?
Missed opportunities
If we keep pricing based on history instead of momentum, we’ll continue to miss the biggest upside of this era. The market is failing to recognize what’s actually happening on the ground, from viewership to fan engagement, and continuing to look for easy comps against old metrics that aren’t truly comparable.
As an investor and operator, I’ve seen what happens when you bet on markets others deem “niche.” Years ago, women’s health companies like Sequel, Eli Health, Midi Health and Cofertility began as “edge case” investments and are now redefining categories. The need was always there. The system just hadn’t caught up.
Women’s sports are following the same arc. The difference is that this time, the world is watching and demanding more. We just have to catch the attention of those making these deals to ensure they hear our demands or forge ahead with breaking into those spaces and making our own decisions.
This moment where many are realizing the math isn’t adding up is a signal to those bold enough to build and brave enough to change how we define value to seize the biggest opportunity in sports today. Don’t miss it.
Assia Grazioli-Venier is the co-founder and managing partner of Muse Capital and Muse Sport, as well as the chair of the Women’s Professional Baseball League and owner of SailGP Italia. Muse Capital is a consumer technology fund investing in companies that should exist, especially those transforming how we care, live and play. Muse Sport is an advisory business that provides strategic capital, operational support and commercial partnerships to emerging sports properties and infrastructure opportunities. A recognized force in sports, women’s healthcare and tech-enabled consumer innovation, Grazioli-Venier’s investment philosophy bridges purpose and performance, focusing on underserved markets with global scale potential.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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