Alexis Ohanian’s investment in Chelsea Women has raised questions about how to arrive at accurate valuations for women’s football teams. City AM asked industry experts.
Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian was at Wembley last weekend for the Women’s FA Cup final, as the new investor in Chelsea Women saw his side complete a domestic treble with a 3-0 win over Manchester United.
It came just days after it was announced that the American had invested £20m in the Women’s Super League champions for what is reported to be an 8-10 per cent stake in the club.
This values Chelsea Women at £200m (or more) – the same figure the club used when the women’s side was sold to one of its sister companies.
The move has raised questions about how the club reached the £200m valuation, and how women’s football clubs are valued.
“Generally, women’s football clubs are valued in the same way as men’s football clubs, which is using revenue multiples.” says Dr Christina Philippou, Associate Professor in Accounting and Sport Finance at the University of Portsmouth.
“This is mainly because most of them are not profitable, so you can’t really use profit multiples. It’s quite hard to use anything that’s related to balance sheets because the balance sheet value does not reflect what is happening in terms of the players that you have.”
Chelsea valuation hard to justify
Chelsea Women had revenue of £11m in 2023-24, but the team was sold following a valuation of £200m. This puts the revenue multiple of the WSL champions at more than 18.
This is higher than the multiples seen across men’s football clubs, but Dr Philippou says other sports are also seeing bigger valuations due to their growth potential.
“If you look at it compared to men’s football, where we see multiples of four to six, it’s very high. But if you look at cricket and what happens in The Hundred, the revenue multiples are 40-plus. In terms of potential growth, there is quite a lot there. It’s a very different space, but it’s about potential growth.”
Dr Philippou adds that the lack of transaction data is one the challenges with valuing women’s football teams: “With men’s football, you have a lot of historical transactions that have happened in this space. There haven’t been many sales of women’s football clubs, so it’s very hard to get a gauge of what is reasonable.”
The sustained on-field success of Chelsea Women should also be considered in their valuation, says Danielle Sharkey, a Senior Associate at law firm Charles Russell Speechlys: “Driving up that figure is the fact that they are among the most successful teams in the Women’s Super League, having just attained a sixth league title in a row, and the general positive outlook for the growth of women’s sport.”
Football finance expert Dr Tom Markham is a leading authority on football club valuations, having created an influential multivariate model. He agrees that, while the growth potential in women’s football is there, there are challenges that come with the valuations.
“We’re seeing the valuations go up and up on the media side. From a brand perspective, it’s a no-brainer to be involved in this because there’s so many blue-chip brands and historical football brands that you can get involved at a much lower level, and you can have an incredible amount of engagement,” says Dr Markham. “That said, I think it’s very hard to justify some of the valuations that we’ve seen in recent weeks.”
Are NWSL teams a reliable comparison?
One concern, he says, is the length of the WSL’s media rights contracts with Sky and the BBC, signed last year.
“I think we should be looking at the growth trajectory of revenue. And the thing that worries me slightly, is you look at the value and the length of the latest TV deal,” he adds. “In the US, they tend to go down the route of signing up for very long term deals. We’ve seen 20-30 year deals, and they tend to be overvalued at the start and undervalued at the end.”
Dr Markham’s model is designed for valuing men’s teams but he says that by his ad-hoc calculations, made by adjusting the formula to strip out some costs, the highest valuation he could reach for Chelsea Women was just under £64m.
“To get to £200m, you’re treating it like almost a tech investment,” he says.
Chelsea is not the first women’s football team Ohanian has invested in. He was the largest shareholder in National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) side Angel City FC until the team was sold in 2024.
At the time, Angel City was valued at $250m (£186m) – the highest women’s football club valuation until Chelsea’s £200m price tag – although NWSL sides do not make for a reliable comparison.
“Given that US sports leagues are closed, with no relegation, and designed to make money, I would not recommend using them as a benchmark for Europe,” says Dr Markham.
