Lauren Holiday: USA legend wants to change women's sport 'from the top down'
2025-01-24
Category: sports

When Lauren Holiday retired from playing football, a move into club ownership could not have been further from her thoughts.The midfielder, one of the finest players of her generation, had just helped the United States win the 2015 World Cup. Within a year, Holiday was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She was six months pregnant.The tumour was successfully removed after she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but they were tough times for her and her husband, NBA point guard Jrue Holiday,"I had no interest truly in being seen, or in anything," Holiday told BBC Sport."Then a couple of years passed and I thought 'You know what? I'm passionate about women, I'm passionate about injustice, I'm passionate about equal pay and I'm passionate about my daughter'."A career in coaching or management did not interest the two-time Olympic gold medallist, who wanted to have a wider impact in shaping the game."I want women's sports to be seen differently from the top down, and I want the investment in women's sports to be astronomically higher and better than it's ever been seen before," she said."That was what was attractive to me - how can I make an impact from the top so it trickles down?"Alongside several other former USA players, Holiday invested in Angel City FC in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The club was sold last year for Â£192m, making it the most valuable women's sports team in the world.In her latest move the 37-year-old has joined the board of Mercury/13, a prospective multi-club ownership group focused exclusively on the women's game.  The group currently owns only one club, FC Como Women in Italy, but plans to expand across Europe. Holiday's involvement comes after a "significant" investment into Mercury/13 by Avenue Sports, the global private equity fund she advises.
Holiday believes a player's perspective in club ownership is vital if the game is to grow in the right way."My expertise is in the treatment of the players and what's in their best interests," said Holiday."That is why I love Mercury/13 because they come at it as a sense of 'how do we treat the players and how do we get to the next level?' I think that's rare in business for investors to put people first."Mercury/13 was co-founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Victoire Cogevina Reynal and Mario Malave.Former England striker Eni Aluko is among the group's investors. Since taking over FC Como Women they have rebranded the club, brought in new sponsors and updated facilities. They say their next step will be to buy a club in the UK - something they call a "strategic priority".
When asked to compare the Women's Super League (WSL) with the elite level of the game in the USA, Holiday thinks the standard is higher in the NWSL, for now."I think the NWSL [has the edge] right now because of how close all the teams are and how they compete," she said."There's more disparity in the WSL, but other than that I think it's a highly respected and coveted league and there's a lot of attraction for USA players to want to play there."Since the WSL's inception in 2013, it has become one of the best leagues in the world, attracting some of the game's top talents.In the past few years some of the most high-profile stars in US soccer have turned out for English clubs, including Holiday's former national team-mate Carli Lloyd at Manchester City, and Alex Morgan at Tottenham Hotspur.This week, USA defender Naomi Girma has agreed terms to join Chelsea on a long-term deal for a world-record transfer fee.All a far cry from Holiday's early playing days, when the path to success for top female footballers was through the United States and few, if any, went in the opposite direction.It is partly why Holiday spent her entire career in the US, where she helped FC Kansas City to two league titles before retiring in 2015. In 2023 she was inducted into the NWSL Hall of Fame.As our conversation draws to a close Holiday ponders what the future could look like for women's football. "I think the sky's the limit," she said."I believe people care about women's sports, and now they have seen the value and what it looks like when we properly invest in women's sports. "It was never that we were not equal. It was never that we were incapable of what the men did.  It was that we didn't have the marketing dollars, we weren't shown on prime-time television. There were so many factors to it."Now people are saying 'Hey, we need to invest in women!' I think that's going to continue to grow. I don't think that we're going to let anyone down."