USA legend Holiday wants to change women’s sport ‘from the top down’

A move into club ownership was beyond her power to contemplate when Lauren Holiday stopped playing football.

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.

After giving birth to a healthy girl, she and her husband, NBA point guard Jrue Holiday, went through difficult times.

“I had no interest truly in being seen, or in anything”, Holiday told BBC Sport.

“A few years later, I said, “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'”.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist wanted to have a bigger influence on how the game was shaped, so she did not want to pursue a career in coaching or management.

“I want the investment in women’s sports to be astronomically higher and better than it’s ever been seen before,” she said, “and I want women’s sports to be seen differently from the top down.”

How can I make an impact from the top down so it trickles down? “That was what attracted me,” I thought.

Holiday and a number of other former US professional players also made investments in Angel City FC in the NWSL (NWSL). The club became the world’s most valuable women’s sports team after being sold for £192 million last year.

If the game is to continue to grow in the right way, a player’s perspective in club ownership is crucial, according to Holiday.

“My expertise is in the treatment of the players and what’s in their best interests”, said Holiday.

“How do we treat the players and how do we get to the next level” is how I love Mercury/13, because they approach it in this way. It’s unusual for investors to prioritize people in a business, I believe.

Mercury/13 was co-founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Victoire Cogevina Reynal and Mario Malave.

Holiday believes that the NWSL’s standard is currently higher than the elite level of play in the WSL.

“I think the NWSL]has the edge] right now because of how close all the teams are and how they compete”, she said.

The WSL is more diverse than that, but I believe it to be a highly regarded and highly sought-after league with a lot of interest in playing 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.

Some of the most well-known US soccer players have signed for English clubs recently, including Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd, who was previously with Holiday’s national team at Manchester City.

Naomi Girma, a US defender, has agreed to a long-term deal with Chelsea for a record-breaking transfer fee.

All a long way from Holiday’s early playing days, when few, if any, of the top female footballers chose to succeed in the opposite direction.

Before retiring in 2015, Holiday helped FC Kansas City win two league titles while spending her entire career there. She was inducted into the NWSL Hall of Fame in 2023.

Holiday considers what the future might hold for women’s football as our conversation comes to an end. “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. Never did it seem like we were incapable of the men’s actions. It was that we didn’t have the marketing dollars, we weren’t shown on prime-time television. There were a lot of factors involved.