FORBES: Michele Kang Named One of America’s 2025 Most Powerful Women in Sports
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During September’s U.S. Open tennis tournament, ESPN cut away from a marquee match between two-time champion Naomi Osaka and the 2023 title-holder Coco Gauff to air an ad for other sports coverage on the channel. The athletes in the spot? Caitlin Clark and several of her WNBA peers.
The moment served as a powerful reminder that women’s influence in American sports has gotten too big to ignore.
The money has been flowing into the sector for the past few years now. In 2024, revenue for all of women’s sports surpassed $1 billion for the first time, and it is projected to hit $2.5 billion by 2030. According to a recent report by McKinsey, revenue from women’s sports is growing at more than four times the rate of men’s sports. Meanwhile, the WNBA’s 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal will begin next year, quadrupling the value of the league’s previous contracts and virtually ensuring that viewership records will continue to be broken.
And women are leading the way—in women’s and men’s leagues, as well as in the owners’ box, in the front office, in the media and of course on the playing fields. The 25 women on Forbes’ 2025 ranking of America’s Most Powerful Women In Sports have unprecedented influence on the country’s most popular sport, professional football (including No. 1 on the list, New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson), and are among the highest-earning athletes (including No. 13, Gauff) and coaches (South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley is No. 20). They also oversee billions of dollars’ worth of sports betting (No. 2, FanDuel CEO Amy Howe) and are responsible for some of the most lucrative and highest-profile endorsement deals (No. 3, Nike Brand president Amy Montagne).
What distinguishes the women on this list from their peers is not just their current power, but the ways they’re leveraging that influence to shape the future of sports. “I have, I hope, a few years left here,” tennis icon Billie Jean King, who is No. 23 on the list and famously fought for equal pay for male and female tennis players, tells Forbes. “What do you think I should try to do?”
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Billionaire Michele Kang, who built her fortune in healthcare IT, is now channeling her attention—and wealth—into women’s sports. Kang is the owner of three women’s soccer teams across two continents: the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, OL Lyonnes of France’s Première Ligue and the London City Lionesses, promoted to the Women’s Super League in May. She is out to grow her empire, too, with plans to add clubs from Asia, South America and Africa to her portfolio under Kynisca Sports International, the holding company she created in 2024. Kang sees women’s sports as good business but is reserving some of her funds for philanthropy, with $55 million pledged to U.S. Soccer for the development and research of women’s and girls’ soccer.
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