Heather Millstone calls herself an evangelist for women’s sports — and she backs that commitment up with investments in several women’s teams, including the Portland Thorns of the National Women’s Soccer League and the Calgary Wild, part of a new Canadian women’s soccer league.
But Millstone — who with her sister, Jessica Millstone, is co-owner of their family office Millstone Investments — has also branched out to invest in areas adjacent to women’s sports teams. These investments are part of her efforts to support the broader ecosystem around women’s sports, making it more likely that the sports leagues will succeed.
“It was quite organic, how this started to spiral as I started realizing the pillars that are necessary for women’s sports to survive,” Millstone says.
One area of focus has been the media that covers women’s sports.
“The business of women’s sports is actually pretty exciting,” Millstone says. “The sector is reinventing new ways to build, brand, and story tell. It has to be creative to not fall into the same staleness that traditional leagues find themselves trapped in with a rapidly changing media and consumption landscape.”
Millstone had an opportunity to get involved in a new women’s media company, Allez! Sports.
“Instead of trying to work on television where traditional media focuses, they are going straight to YouTube,” Millstone says. “I invested in them to get it up and running, and then Jessica and I invested together.”
Millstone has also made solo investments. One is in RE, a media company started by two former U.S. women’s national team players.
“They are working to change the whole ecosystem of the way we talk about women’s sports,” Millstone says, from stories to history. “Language and nuance matter in storytelling.”
Changing the media ecosystem is particularly important to Millstone.
“Think about the gym: The gym is always going to have ESPN on — and EPSN will basically dedicate 99% of their entire programming to men’s sports. Generally, you can only cut through some of that noise if it’s bad news, like a massive abuse scandal, or hot takes that fuel political divisions,” Millstone says.
She remembers searching a newspaper sports section for the previous night’s women’s soccer game score — only to have to scroll through articles on out-of-season football, basketball, ice hockey and high school football before finding a mention of the women’s game. The push to use AI for some forms of journalism will likely make the coverage even less personal and compelling, she says.
“For women’s sports to really take hold, you need personalities — the way we love the Olympics or World Cup athletes,” Millstone says. “Narratives have just started to really break through for some of these athletes, especially in the WNBA, because they have had to market themselves — and they get the brunt of the media divisiveness.”
Women in professional sports leagues have become adept at using social media to get their names and images into the public dialogue, Millstone says. And elevating those storylines will help athletes get attention from brands that could sponsor them — which will lead to more publicity for the individual athletes and for their teams.
“If the teams start to get more attention, eventually maybe retailers will take the one Angel City shirt they have had in the back of the store and move it to the front — so kids who are getting their new soccer cleats will see that it’s not just men’s sports teams,” Millstone says. “That has to happen through media attention. And these athletes are the best ones to tell their own stories.”