LOS ANGELES — Michele Kang is used to people not seeing her vision. She doesn’t mind their initial reactions either, the way they might think she has overstepped or gotten it wrong. She tries not to pay much attention, though she doesn’t always have a choice.
Sometimes friends will send her the best posts they’ve spotted on social media after she has made a move with one of her teams. She takes a spin through fan reactions on rare occasions, but generally, the owner of three women’s soccer clubs around the world relies on her staff. She talks to players for their input, too. She has built a thick skin over the years from her time as a CEO and founder in her pre-soccer life.
But Kang focuses mostly on what she is trying to accomplish, which these days is a lot in the women’s soccer world.
“If you believe in it, and if you’re trying to do something for the first time, it’s not necessarily people thinking you’re wrong or bad or whatever, but people haven’t seen it,” she told The Athletic on Saturday before the U.S. women’s national team’s 2-0 win over Brazil. “It’s only natural that they’re skeptical.”
People were doubtful when she took over the Washington Spirit in 2022 after a contentious battle with previous ownership in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), bidding $35 million for a team at a time when most clubs ranged from $3 million to $5 million in expansion fees and valuations.
Michele Kang took over the Spirit in 2022, shortly after they won the NWSL championship. (Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
“I’m not the first one who did this,” Kang said, pointing to various start-up investments across Silicon Valley. “It’s not any different. If we think the NWSL is a valuable product and we don’t value it, who’s going to value it for us?”
The average NWSL team is valued at $104 million, with the Spirit valued at $95 million (fifth overall across the league), per Sportico’s rankings as of September 2024.
People were again skeptical when Kang took over Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, finalized in February last year (the purchase was completed last August). She turned the perennial French powerhouse into a standalone club separate from the men’s side. “Everyone was like, ‘She’s crazy; that shouldn’t be allowed. This is against European culture,’” she said. “Now teams are copying because they saw the benefit.”
Chelsea followed suit a few months later, announcing the women’s team would be “repositioned” alongside the men’s team, with the women getting their own standalone business. However, the sale to a sister company is still being assessed by the Premier League from a fair market value standpoint.
Lyon was the third team Kang added to her ownership portfolio, having acquired the London City Lionesses in England in 2023. That team is leading the FA Women’s Championship, 2 points ahead in the race for promotion to the top-tier Women’s Super League (WSL). Kang folded all three teams under her Kynisca Sports International, a multi-team global women’s soccer organization. It’s something that has not been done on the women’s side but has been widely criticized among men’s clubs.
While widening her sphere of influence beyond professional clubs in the U.S. and Europe, she has found a significant partner in U.S. Soccer.
Last November, Kang became one of the federation’s largest donors, with $30 million earmarked over five years for women’s youth national team camps, talent identification and scouting, and female coach and referee education and mentorship. Friday, she doubled down with another $25 million investment as U.S. Soccer integrates Kang’s Kynisca Innovation Hub into its Soccer Forward Foundation. The sides will work together to perform much-needed research on the health of athletes and establish best practices across the women’s soccer landscape for performance and player health.
“Our objective was not just, ‘We’ll do some research and publish and say here’s a standard,’” Kang told The Athletic on Saturday. She launched the innovation hub alongside the multi-club umbrella organization last year. “I’d really rather make it a living and breathing document and get teams to implement it. When you start thinking about that, there were some limitations as a private foundation and private effort.”
She found out U.S. Soccer had plans of its own along the same lines, and the federation had much greater reach when it came to conducting research and implementing standards across teams.
“This partnership is key in accelerating our in-service to soccer strategy,” U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson said in the partnership announcement. “Kynisca Innovation Hub and Soccer Forward share a mission to advance women’s soccer, and by combining efforts, we’re creating an unmatched platform for research, innovation and long-term impact.”
When Kang made her donation to U.S. Soccer last year, she set clear terms with U.S. Soccer. It wasn’t created for U.S. Soccer to avoid spending its own money. It would allocate its budget, and her donation would provide the boost.
“Over time, I saw their vision and how they’re executing against their vision,” she said.
She shared a lot of the skepticism that was already around the federation, based on its track record with the women’s national team, but she saw potential — especially after she started talking with Batson. “They’re getting things done,” she said. “Look at the coaches they brought in for both the men and women, the training center, the Soccer Forward Foundation.”
Though she immediately found something of a kindred spirit in Batson — their first meeting at the Paris Olympics was scheduled for 45 minutes, but instead they “geeked out for a few hours” discussing the big-picture needs of the women’s game — the addition of USWNT head coach Emma Hayes helped tremendously.
Emma Hayes took charge of the USWNT last year after over a decade with Chelsea Women. (Jeremy Chen / Getty Images)
Kang and Hayes spent some time together in London and the United States.
“She’s not just a head coach focused on winning; she has a bigger vision. She wants to make an impact, really move the needle,” Kang said. “U.S. Soccer creating the Soccer Forward Foundation, Emma coming in and having that vision, me separately having that vision, we’re all coming together. Why wouldn’t we work together? This was sort of like love at first sight.”
As exciting as the partnership is for Kang, there’s still a lot on her mind.
“For something like women’s soccer to move forward, where your vision, my vision and 5,000 other visions come to fruition, there are so many elements that need to move together,” she said.
It’s not just building a training center and hiring the right technical staff; it’s the referees, it’s the youth development, it’s coaching education. She’s thinking about how the whole landscape becomes sustainable.
And she knows she can’t do everything, nor should she. Kang has picked her critical areas to keep the whole thing moving. After her donation last November, she has already seen some results: more under-23 camps for the USWNT, and people are talking about referees and women’s health.
“It’s a very, very critical moment for all of us, and we need to work together to make sure that everything is moving in the same direction and everyone can be successful,” Kang said.
For her, it has never been a zero-sum game. However, she’s worried that sometimes the best efforts get undermined without better coordination.
In her eyes, this is actually a good problem, especially when comparing where the NWSL was when she first took over the Spirit to now.
Kang has repeated one line over the past couple of years as she makes waves across the sport: She wants a critical mass, for more people to come in.
“No one can do this by himself or herself,” she said. “If I can bring attention and show how this could work, and more people join in, the tipping point happens. I’d be very grateful if I could see that in my lifetime.” She paused, then laughed before adding, “In my soccer lifetime.”
(Top photo: Mike Lawrence / Getty Images for USSF)