Spanish basketball icon Pau Gasol has completed a €55 million ($62.7 million) investment in the country’s top-flight women’s soccer competition, the Liga F, despite not all the clubs in the competition opting into the move.
Gasol’s investment fund, Gasol16 Ventures, supported by Fortified Partners, has acquired between 35% and 49% of the future commercial revenue rights of the Liga F clubs for 25 years, ending with the 2050-51 campaign.
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Of the €55 million sum, the participating Liga F clubs will receive €40 million, with the organization itself gaining a further €12 million, and the remaining €3 million is reserved for the acquisition of the image rights of certain high-profile players for future commercialization
Real Madrid, the global soccer giants, revealed these details in a statement published yesterday, which came alongside the revelation that the club would be opting out of the investment.
The club is one of four to have opted out, the statement says, 25% of the 16-team league in total.
Although the identity of the other holdouts has not been revealed, it is likely that reigning champions FC Barcelona have also opted out, given that both Real Madrid and Barcelona are two of the three clubs that opted out of CVC Capital Partners’ investment in the men’s LaLiga.
Perhaps ironically, Gasol's storied basketball career included two spells at FC Barcelona's men's basketball department.
Real Madrid said that the investment offer “does not reflect the growth model for women's football based on sustainability, transparency, and full autonomy for clubs,” adding that it fails to take into account those future teams that may enter the league through promotion.
Funding will be disbursed over the next four seasons, Liga F says, while the investment, it added, will be centered around “strengthening the clubs” (from a commercial perspective), enhancing the profile and visibility of participating players as a core commercial asset, and “developing” the capabilities of the Liga F organization.
On the logic behind the investment, Gasol said: “Women's football in Spain has made a spectacular leap in recent years: audiences have almost doubled in two seasons, and stadiums are increasingly full. Therefore, this is not a sentimental commitment to women's sport. It is an investment decision based on data, market trends, and the conviction that women's football represents a growth opportunity with enormous potential for value creation.”
Indeed, the Liga F claims that, across the 2024-25 fiscal year, it distributed €17 million to its member clubs, and closed the year with €25.8 million in revenue overall, having “almost doubled” its cumulative TV audience across the two seasons prior.
Gasol continued: “There is an extraordinary opportunity to consolidate our own model for the development of women's football: connecting with new audiences, creating role models, building more innovative relationships with partners, and generating a sustainable growth model that favors talent retention, as we have already seen in some of the major international women's leagues."
Among Gasol16 Ventures’ wide-ranging sports portfolio includes investment in US women’s basketball’s WNBA, content creation business Overtime, and smart ring technology firm Oura (which is growing rapidly in the sports sponsorship space).
Since even before the Liga F rebrand, which took place ahead of the 2022-23 campaign, the league (formerly known as the Primera Division) has been dominated by FC Barcelona, the record 11-time champions, who have won seven consecutive titles.
