Why Smart Money Is Centering Women in Sports Investment

Three critical takeaways that should inform LP and GP decision-making from a conversation with Tuti Scott and Fielding Kidd Jamieson

Everyone asks: 'Am I too late?' Fielding Kidd Jamieson's answer might surprise you.

Women's sports has entered a structural reallocation phase driven by $124 trillion in wealth transfer to women, institutional capital commitments, and a massive gap between current valuations ($2.5B) and market potential ($75B+). The gap between current valuation and future potential represents one of the most compelling opportunities in alternative assets today.

In a recent LinkedIn Live conversation, Fielding Kidd Jamieson, co-founder of Tipt Ventures, alongside Tuti Scott of Changemaker Strategies, outlined a framework for deploying capital that transcends the buzz-driven ownership model dominating media coverage.

1. Tipt’s Mustang Strategy: Unit Economics Over Unicorn Bets

Venture capital orthodoxy has long centered on the "unicorn hunt". This portfolio strategy accepts a 90% loss ratio on investments in hopes that a single billion-dollar exit returns the entire fund with multiples. Tipt Ventures takes a fundamentally different approach.

"We're looking for mustangs, not unicorns," Jamieson explained. "We want companies building really great products with solid understanding of unit economics from day one. We don't need those companies to get to a billion dollars."

This distinction carries material implications for institutional investors, particularly those managing endowments or family offices. The traditional venture model introduces binary risk that many LPs find misaligned with their fiduciary mandate. Women's sports companies, by contrast, are not constrained by the "grow at all costs" playbook that defined early-stage tech. They have clear unit economics, defensible margins, and pathways to profitability that don't require $500 million Series Rounds.

Consider IDA Sports, a Trailblazer Ventures (and now Tipt Ventures) portfolio company. The company manufactures soccer cleats engineered specifically for the female foot's biomechanics rather than scaled-down men's designs. It addresses a genuine market failure: female athletes forced to wear ill-fitting equipment. The product drives measurable health and participation outcomes.

2. Beyond Team Ownership

One of Jamieson's most incisive observations concerns structural economics in women's sports today. "Everyone asks about team ownership," she noted. "Where we are more focused is looking at who is building the invisible backbone that makes those teams functional." The infrastructure layer Jamieson is referring to encompass the focus areas of her fund: media and content distribution, athlete and fan experience platforms, data and analytics, performance science, and pre-collegiate and collegiate sports pipelines.. These categories are unglamorous by design. They generate neither headlines nor the social media cachet of owning a "piece" of a professional team. Yet they are precisely where inefficiency persists and where new entrants create leverage for new suppliers.

A concern often brought up about women’s team ownership is: Is this market still early enough for meaningful returns, or has the hockey stick already inflected?

While Jamieson still thinks there is plenty of growth on the team ownership side(maybe insert quote), that is a main reason her fund is focused on what has to come next in order for those team investments to be successful. Seed-to-Series B companies in women's sports infrastructure remain undervalued relative to their growth potential. The professional league layer (WNBA, NWSL) has indeed seen valuations spike, but the broader ecosystem—the companies building the systems that power these leagues—is still in early innings. Sponsorship ROI in women's sports is delivering measurable returns, and new leagues actively seek partners willing to pilot innovative solutions.

3. Institutional Capital Is Finally Showing Up

A persistent concern among cautious LPs is valuation euphoria: the notion that women's sports franchises are overvalued relative to their cash flows. Jamieson's counterargument is grounded in corporate behavior, not sentiment.

"The market's telling us what the market's telling us," she said. "These valuations continue to hold. They're going up. These media rights deals are signing seven-to-ten-year commitments."

The WNBA's 2024 media rights deal ($2.2 billion over 11 years) and the NWSL's four-partner broadcast agreements represent commitments by Disney, Amazon, NBC, and Apple to multi-year content strategies. These corporations would not undertake such commitments—or lock in decade-long terms with embedded price escalators and renegotiation triggers—if short-term ROI was uncertain. Media companies have invested heavily in women's sports infrastructure (production capabilities, talent development, marketing spend) and have aligned their incentives accordingly.

The critical insight:

Valuations are not irrational exuberance. They reflect the first time major media and private equity players have genuinely committed long-term capital to women's sports as a revenue line, not a CSR initiative.

The macro tailwind:

By 2048, women will be primary beneficiaries of a $124 trillion wealth transfer. Simultaneously, women now hold nearly 20% of decision-making roles in investment management and are stepping into ownership of their wealth at accelerating rates. The economy is responding: institutional capital is redeploying toward women-focused asset classes at scale.

For team-focused investors, shorter renegotiation cycles in women's sports (compared to the NBA's decade-long commitments) create more frequent revaluation moments. For infrastructure and tech investors, the alignment of demographic capital flows and institutional conviction creates a rare window of opportunity.

Hear more from Fielding Jamieson and Tutti Scott at the Investing in Women's Sports Symposium.

On February 19, 2025, in New York City, Tuti Scott and How Women Invest are convening the Investing in Women's Sports Symposium designed specifically to bring LPs, GPs, athletes, and emerging founders into a single room to align on capital flows in women's sports.

You can expect:

• An understanding of the women’s sports ecosystem and pipeline opportunities and challenges

• A scan of the investment landscape across teams, leagues, infrastructure, and innovation

• Investor conversations on risk, return, and structures

• A curated pitch showcase of companies at the intersection of women, sports, and technology

• Peer-to-peer networking with LPs and others building mandates in this space

  
  

If you’re ready to explore how women’s sports can fit into your portfolio construction, from impact-aligned mandates to pure alpha-seeking strategies, this is your entry point.

Join Us Feb 19