Ottawa Rapid forward Delaney Baie Pridham, left, sizes up a shot against Calgary Wild FC in a Northern Super League match earlier this season.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Days after the Canadian men’s national soccer team battled on the biggest global stage, the country’s first professional women’s soccer league is set to announce that it, too, has attracted international interest.
On Tuesday, the Northern Super League will reveal that Apex Capital, a London- and Portugal-based private equity firm, is investing up to $30-million in its operation, which launched only last year.
As a wave of excitement over the economics of women’s sports takes over the globe, the move is a vote of confidence in the opportunities that investors believe can be found in the Canadian market, at a time when domestic interest in soccer is at perhaps its highest level ever.
“To the extent that there were any doubts that we’re going to be around for a while because of the scrappy way this athlete-led league started, I would hope this puts those to rest,” Christina Litz, the NSL’s president, said in an interview.
The league, co-founded by two-time Olympic bronze medalist Diana Matheson and business partner Thomas Gilbert, kicked off last year with six teams located from coast to coast.
The launch tapped into a desire, especially among girls and women who play the game recreationally, to see a professional league of their own. Soon after the season kicked off last year, supporter scarves, jerseys, toques and mittens with team logos could be seen on the streets of cities, from Vancouver Rise to AFC Toronto and Halifax Tides.
“After the first season, what they were able to do really confirmed our view of them,” Antonio Cacorino, founder and chief executive of Apex, said in an interview. “And we were very bullish on the particular opportunity within Canada, and within women’s sports.”
Northern Super League steps into Year 2 with explosive growth in mind
The league said it generated more than $30-million in commercial revenue across all team and league operations in its first season, including ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorships from partners such as Canadian Tire, Bank of Montreal, DoorDash, Coca-Cola and Toyota.
Its 80 matches in the first season attracted more than 275,000 fans, including more than 14,000 who turned out for the inaugural game at BC Place in Vancouver, and more than 12,400 for the final at Toronto’s BMO Field.
The league also repatriated a number of Canadian-born players who had been with international clubs because of a previous lack of professional opportunities at home.
Ms. Litz said the league, which operates with a lean head-office staff of about 15, will use the investment to scale up its fan growth and sponsor development operations. “This is our way of accelerating the sophistication of our league from startup to scale to compete alongside the tier-one professional sports teams faster,” she said. The league may also use some of the capital to launch its next expansion team.
Northern Super League president Christina Litz, right, and co-founder Diana Matheson pose with the league's championship trophy, the Diana B. Matheson Cup, before the inaugural NSL final last November.Neil Davidson/The Canadian Press
The NSL began talks with Apex last fall in hopes it would invest in the league’s next expansion team. Instead, the firm, which had just launched its $500-million Sports Growth Fund to invest in small and mid-cap enterprises, offered to take a significant minority interest in the league itself. It has previously taken minority positions in sports enterprises such as the NFL’s nascent flag-football league and the San Francisco franchise of the TGL golf competition.
Mr. Cacorino said the firm would invest an initial $20-million in the NSL, with the opportunity for the investment to increase to $30-million.
The deal gives the league a valuation of approximately $85-million.
It is Apex’s first investment in women’s sports. Though many women’s and men’s pro teams in North America and Europe have welcomed private equity, Apex said it is the first private equity investment in a women’s sports league anywhere in the world.
“Canada is one of the most obvious untapped sports women’s football opportunities, with a huge grassroots base of players,” said Mr. Cacorino. “They won the 2020 Olympics. The national team is one of the best in the world – but still no professional domestic league up to 2024. So, I think that made it obvious.”
I feel it’s my duty as a Canadian to support the NSL
Mr. Cacorino said Apex “would not be investing” if they didn’t believe Ms. Matheson’s aspiration – to make the NSL a top-five women’s league in the world – was realistic. While Europe has numerous women’s soccer leagues, there are only a few women’s leagues on this continent, including the U.S.-based National Women’s Soccer League.
“On the women’s side, North America has a first-mover advantage, right?” Mr. Cacorino said.
He said that while Apex will focus on helping grow the NSL in North America, he saw opportunities for the league to become “truly global” through the firm’s connections in Europe.
Ms. Litz said she and Ms. Matheson, who now serves as the league’s chief growth officer, had been beating the bushes within Canada in hopes of drumming up domestic investor interest.
“We would have loved to have seen more opportunity in Canada,” she said. “But I think what we were seeing is that, especially on the women’s football front, overall sophistication and interest around the investment opportunity was international.”
“Canada is doing a lot right now to show itself as the soccer country that we have had the ambitions for, for a while,” Ms. Litz said. “And it does feel like it’s coming together a bit more than it has in the past, at a really important time when we’re all watching.”