How Angel City FC Became Hollywood’s Home Team

Willow Bay admits that the pink isn’t quite the right shade on her custom Angel City Football Club Nikes as she walks through the team’s Thousand Oaks training facility.

The massive athletic center opened earlier this year with a 5,400-square-foot gym, three locker rooms and a studio for filming social media content with star players of Los Angeles’ women’s soccer team like Ali Riley, Christen Press and Alyssa Thompson. The space is a testament to the level of investment the team has earned. Bay, the dean of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication, and her husband, Disney CEO Bob Iger, took over controlling ownership of the club last summer with the promise of an additional $50 million in cash to fuel the club’s growth, so she likely will be forgiven for the minor footwear infraction.

“We want to build the most passionate fan base of any team in Los Angeles,” Bay says of further ambitions. “Not any women’s team, any team in Los Angeles.”

Since kicking off in 2022, Angel City quickly built a following in the entertainment industry, especially among Hollywood’s rank and file. The club’s black and pink now pierce through the seas of Dodger blue and Lakers purple and yellow. Angel City is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon of Los Angeles sports teams. Once attuned, you’ll see the gear everywhere, from the Universal lot to the smoothie line at Erewhon. When interviewing director Josh Greenbaum about his Emmy-nominated doc Will & Harper, I offhandedly mention this article and he tells me his family has had season tickets for several years and then excitedly talks about forward Thompson’s recent four-goal game in a friendly against Ireland’s national team.

Announced in 2020 and launched two years later, Angel City swiftly attained a following in a notoriously hard-to-impress city thanks to a deep bench of celebrity co-owners like Jennifer Garner and Eva Longoria. Four seasons in, Angel City has become Hollywood’s true home team, ingratiating itself due in part to a potent combination of entertainment-inflected branding and an in-stadium experience that is both affordable and inclusive.

Says film editor Brad McLaughlin, a day-one season-ticket holder, “When you see Jack Nicholson courtside at the Lakers, that will be me — but for Angel City.”

When Angel City’s co-founders — entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, actress Natalie Portman and investor Kara Nortman — tried to launch a women’s soccer team in L.A, they went to the usual sources of investment: private equity, venture capital and billionaires. They got nowhere. “Part of it was because it was three women who had no experience in sports, and, as amazing as Natalie Portman is, it’s not like she’s run a football club before,” says Uhrman. Another part of the problem was that the club, outside of the gameplay, would focus on fighting for pay equity in women’s sports. Additionally, a percentage of all sponsorship revenue would be reallocated to local initiatives. Investors seemed unsure if they would be pumping money into a sports team or a charity.

Their first yes came from Longoria. “That was the aha moment of: We are talking to the wrong people — we need to talk to people who understand that you can be more than one thing,” says Uhrman. “Celebrities and athletes, at least in the women’s space, recognize that to be truly successful, they also have to be a brand. They have to leverage themselves to generate the revenue that they believe they deserve.” And after all, women in Hollywood are no strangers to the fight for equal pay.

More industry investors followed, including actresses like America Ferrera, Gabrielle Union and Uzo Aduba and executives like Paramount’s Cindy Holland. “I know there’s trapped value in women’s endeavors,” says Sarah Harden, an early Angel City investor and CEO of Reese Witherspoon’s well-funded production outfit Hello Sunshine. (In 2025, the global revenue for women’s sports will reach $2.35 billion, according to a study from Deloitte, up from $692 million just three years ago.)

When you are trying to fill the 20,000-plus seats of BMO Stadium in Exposition Park, where the team plays, it helps if some of those seats are occupied with an Oscar nominee or two. But keeping people coming back is another challenge altogether. Says Harden, “We’re in the show-not-tell business. You’ve got to show with the product on the field, getting good media coverage, and then also being able to get people emotionally connected. When you start a team, you don’t have 20 years of history. You’ve got to build that.”

After the team’s inaugural season came an eponymous HBO docuseries that amounted to a gorgeously produced for-your-consideration ad, a promotional vehicle to potential fans. Hollywood is filled with expats who remain loyal to their hometown teams. Angel City offers the chance to root for a new Los Angeles squad without switching allegiances. And the team is thankful for and devoted to its entertainment industry fans: Uhrman and other front office staff walked the picket lines in solidarity with actors and writers during the 2023 strikes.

Angel City further solidified its Hollywood bona fides in July 2024, when Bay and Iger acquired a controlling stake. The move left the team with a $250 million valuation, the highest of any franchise in the history of U.S. women’s sports.

Before considering ownership, Bay was in the stands at BMO with her granddaughters. She noticed that her offices at USC would clear out on game day, with university staffers making the short trek across the street to the stadium. As a part of a sports immersion class taught at Annenberg, Bay and her students would make an annual pilgrimage to BMO, where she “would get a snapshot of the business, year-by-year.”

The team, Bay says, is “a precious young thing in our community.” This is the kind of statement you’d expect from an owner and one that is easy to dismiss unless you’ve been to an Angel City game.

The fandom skews heavily female and queer. Says actress and comedian Lilly Singh, an early investor in the team: “It’s the gay Met Gala, every game. My friends come and ask, ‘Oh, is this a Pride game?’ I’m like, ‘No this is all the time.’ ” The game-day crowd is also remarkably young. You can easily find yourself sitting behind an entire recreational soccer team of 10-year-olds, all mainlining cotton candy. Says Laughlin, the editor, “You get to see the people of Los Angeles that you don’t normally get to see going to a movie or a Dodger game. You actually see families.”

Then there is cost. A seat in the last row of the nosebleed section for an upcoming Monday night Dodger game against Cincinnati is running over $50 as of press time. The same price will get a spot in the fifth row behind the goal at Angel City’s match. A seat in Angel City’s Supporter section will set you back less than a price of an Imax movie ticket. Adds Bay, “Affordability is directly linked to building a new audience, and particularly a young audience.”

Earlier this summer, as ICE raids were just beginning to wreak havoc in Los Angeles, Angel City became the first of the city’s major sports clubs to make a statement in support of L.A.’s immigrant community. Two months on, it is one of only three of the city’s 12 major sports teams to do so.

Says Uhrman of the choice to speak out, “We recognize that support is more than just 90 minutes once a week. And ultimately, to build that connection, it’s about showing up.”

When asked what they would like to see from Angel City in the future, fans, players and ownership unanimously answer: wins. In its three seasons of play, Angel City has made it to the playoffs only once. Currently, they are 4-7, and the team’s new head coach, Alexander Straus, just started midseason, all of which makes another trip to the playoffs a long shot.

Luckily, this town loves a comeback story.

This story appeared in the Aug. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.