Transcript

Women's sports are on a winning streak, and next season, Boston is hoping to join in. Why Boston? You can't have professional sports leagues without having Boston In that league. We have unequivocally the most rabid, passionate, incredible fans. Boston Legacy FC president Jennifer Van **** hopes the city sports DNA adds to the surging popularity of the NWSL. I'm one of those rabid Boston friends. But there are a lot of different choices. How are you gonna compete with that? The goal is not to compete for fans. The goal is to expand the the pool of people who would consider themselves sports fans. This year, the NWSL saw its most attended game ever, averaged more than 10,000 fans per match and increased TV viewership by 22% to boot. But building a franchise from scratch isn't cheap. Just renovating Legacy FC's future home stadium is costing the team over 100. $25 million, most NWSL teams are losing money, correct? How does this financially work? So we're not going to get it back all in one day. Increasingly, what you see in women's soccer especially is that it's really sponsorship and merchandise that end up being some of the biggest revenue streams. And we have tremendous opportunities in that. The opportunity has attracted big name investors like actress Elizabeth Banks and pro athletes Caleb Williams and Aliyah Boston. I love a challenge and there's probably no bigger challenge than studying something at the top level from zero in Boston. General manager Domain Guasp left the successful FC Barcelona to build Boston Legacy from the ground up. How do you navigate that challenge and preventing players from leaving Boston Legacy and going elsewhere? It is a challenge, but it is also because woman's football is growing globally, right? And and that is ultimately a good thing. More players down the line will pop up. Not only about those pro club, but they are they're development systems that they're developing anywhere. For now, the team's first season will be played at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. It is truly hallowed ground in all of sports and incredibly meaningful venue for Boston fans especially to welcome the newest addition to the Boston sports world and a new legacy.