Portland is the Epicenter of Women’s Sports with Lisa Bhathal Merage

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0:42Welcome back to the DL. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. Coming up on the show, Lisa Bethel-Mirage. She is the owner of both The Fire in the WNBA and The Thorns in the NWSL. But first, I haven't seen you for a while, Alex. We're all over the place as usual. You're just back from Cannes. How was it? I saw the sun-drenched photos per usual, but this has turned into a massive thing, especially in the sports business world, right? Yeah, it really has. I mean, it very much has some of the characteristics of a milking conference in LA, except as in France, in Cannes. And, you know, I found it very productive.

1:24This year is my second year that I went. I just got back. And I found the adjustment that I made was instead of booking myself 80 to 90 percent, I only booked myself 30 percent and kept 70 percent fluid for meetings and like strategic, you know, showing up at places. It was so much more productive and impactful for me, but really, really productive. And is it like a party scene or a lot of business scene or sort of like combination of both? Like people just sort of like moving around and bumping into each other? What's it like? It's a bit of a combination. I think the first day or two, you kind of use it to wear off some of the jet lag.

2:00And then by day three and four, almost by the time you're ready to come back, you're good. But I would say what's really impressive is you're on the beach. It's a great scenery. You have great people showing up. You know, you had Tatum from the Celtics. You had Jalen Brown. You had KD, Kevin Durant. And then you have all the CMOs from the top Fortune 100 companies. And then you have representatives like, you know, you have Amazon, Prime, you have Netflix, you have Apple, Disney, and you get a lot of business done in a short time. You have the folks from LinkedIn. We went to one of their parties, but very productive.

2:37I highly recommend it. It's hard to get an invite. Yeah. Well, while you were doing that hard work, I was doing the hard work of playing golf with Steve Young last week in Utah. This is his annual Forever Young charity tournament that I've gotten to play in the past few years. He says hi, had the best time with him and his whole team. Obviously, for those listening who haven't heard our episode or watched our episode with Steve Young from earlier this year, it's one of our favorites. He just continues to kill it both on the private equity side, obviously the philanthropic side. Such a thoughtful guy and, you know, pulled together a really interesting collection of folks, you know, a lot of whom he has deep ties to, including the head coach from BYU, the athletic director from BYU.

3:26You know, they were all in attendance and playing golf. The BYU golf team, which was a little tough for us, you know, sort of competing in the tournament because I did not have any of them in my foursome. So not good for my scramble. Anyway, a really fun time. And God, I love golf. I love golf so much. As you know, I'm working this week out of Idaho, not too far from Sun Valley and Ketchum. And yeah, great golf here. And you know what's really good for someone like me? And, you know, less of an issue for you because you hit it a mile. Goes a little further in the altitude. I'll take it. Like, it's everything I need.

4:01It's good for the confidence. It's good. It's very good for the confidence. One quick follow up. How is Steve Young's game? What's his handicap? Yeah. I don't know what his handicap is. I will say this will not surprise you. And if I did, I probably wouldn't disclose it because I'm not sure he would want it. Except he's really good. He's I tell you the best thing about his golf game. He's a scrambler. So he plays golf like he played football. I mean, I've also heard that you play golf like you played baseball, which is you swing out of your shoes and, you know, and then hope for the best. You know what?

4:33Whether I have a seven or birdie, I have the same attitude. I'm going to go to the next one. Enjoy it. Exactly. All right. Coming up on the show, a little bit of a pivot. We're going to talk a lot about women's sports. Lisa Bethel-Mirage, such a fascinating figure in the sports world. She's got two teams in two leagues in the same city in Portland, Oregon, which is just a mecca for women's sports, as you know. The NWSL, she and her family bought sort of out of a troubled situation. The owner there was forced to sell. They picked it up. And then more recently, they've launched the Portland Fire in your league, the WNBA.

5:11And you've seen it up close and personal. This is a good team. It's a very good team. And she reminds me, Lisa, of a little bit of younger days with Jeannie Buss, where her father was obviously Dr. Buss. Lisa's father is obviously one of the co-owners of the Sacramento Kings. But what I like about her, Jason, when I sit in board meetings with her, is she's dynamic. This is a business for them. This is not a hobby. They run this as their principal business. And those owners that do that, you can see the benefits on the court or on the field, and you're seeing that with her. Totally, yeah. That's a really good point.

5:47She and her brother Alex are sort of the prime movers in this next generation. And you make a really good point, which is, you know, they went in, their family went in. Her father, Raj, is the alternate governor for the Sacramento Kings. And so they learned a lot about the NBA and sort of the basketball ecosystem that they're very much applying. So let's get into it with Lisa Bethel-Miraj coming up here on The Deal.

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6:50Welcome back to The Deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. So excited to have with us Lisa Bethel-Mirage. She joins us from Portland where she and her family have sort of taken over the city in terms of sports. Lisa, it's really good to have you with us. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, coming in live here from the Global Epicenter of Women's Sports, Portland, Oregon. Exactly. So tell us about how did this all come about? How did you, I believe grew up in Southern California. Here you are, literally, as we speak to you, towering over Portland, Oregon. How does this happen? Oh, gosh.

7:27It's a long story, but I'll start with my dad is originally from India, came to the United States, fell in love with sports, met my mom, who's a Southern California beach girl and grew up in Newport Beach. But she was a lifelong athlete and they ended up starting a business in the fashion industry. Our family business when I was growing up was actually women's swimwear. And I came on board after college graduation, graduation from USC with my brother, Alex. And we worked in the family business, started at the bottom, worked our ways up. And we were there for about 20 years. We took the company global, we took it digital, and then we ended up selling the business to private equity.

8:09And at that time, as a family, we knew we wanted to make an investment in sports. So we looked into different opportunities and we eventually landed on an opportunity with the Sacramento Kings with the Vivek Ranadeve-led group. And my dad, Raj, came in as alternate governor and vice chair. and my brother Alex sat on the executive board and that was about 14 years ago. So at that time, after we sold the business, we were invested in Kings. My brother and I, we have a hard time sitting still. So we decided to launch another business called Revitate, which is an investment platform focused on real estate and the sports ecosystem.

8:55And I think as any of us being in the sports world. See, when you're in that world, a lot of opportunity comes across your desk and you look at different deals. And at that time, it was, we'd been hearing a lot about women's sports. And I kind of think that being in the fashion industry, my husband calls my superpower the fact that I could smell trends before they happen, smell things before they happen. And, you know, people were calling it a moment in women's sports, and we thought of it as the rise of women's sports. So long story short, this Portland Thorns deck came across our desk in the NWSL, and I came out to Portland to check it out.

9:39And as we started looking into it, and I came for a game, and it was shocking and mesmerizing. It was what I call the magic of Portland. The fan base here is incredible. They're insatiable. They love their sports. The women's sports rival the men's sports in this city. So we absolutely fell in love with this city and the fan base and the fact that the Thorns had three NWSL championships and were winning, you know, basically on and off the pitch. And that became kind of our first opportunity in Portland. So, Lisa, I want to take you back and disclaimer here. Raj and I are partners and we sit on the same board with the NBA.

10:23And I sit on the board with you in the WNBA. Your father's lovely and a really charming man. But take me back to Newport Beach. You're sitting there with your family. You're sitting there with your mom, who's from Newport. And you buy this team in 2013 with Vivek. How is the conversation around dinner? Is it like, this is exciting, Dad, or we put all our marbles in one? Hey, could you ever forecasted that 2026, the league has grown to where it has today as a global media platform? With regard to the NBA. Correct, NBA. Yeah. I mean, for us, we looked at a few different opportunities. We kind of landed on the NBA as the league that we wanted to invest in at that time.

11:04And that was for a few reasons. we saw the growth trajectory in the NBA have a huge opportunity, especially with media deals and a lot of things happening in the NBA. So we thought it was the right investment for us. We had a couple stop starts with other teams, and we actually came very close to investing in the New Orleans Pelicans, but it didn't work out. And then David Stern said to my dad, Raj, wait, I have something for you. I have something that I know is going to be a good fit for you. And that was how we wound up in Sacramento, which is really nice. I have to say, it's only an hour flight from Orange County, California, where we live.

11:44So we joked that we could fly to a Kings game faster than we could drive to LA to see the Clippers or the Lakers. And so there is this, you know, the other sort of big decision you make is around women's sports specifically. I want to come back to the Thorns in a second, but since we're talking about basketball, the expansion, the growth of the W has been unbelievable. You know, take us through that deal and how that transaction happens because expansion has been all the rage, but this happened very quickly as I understand it. Yes, it did. You know, we were working on closing our Portland Thorns deal.

12:23And then we frankly read in the newspaper and we saw that The WNBA was about to give Portland an expansion franchise, and something happened with the potential owner there. And the league didn't know that we were in Portland. So we let them know, hey, you know, it hasn't closed yet, but we're investing in the Thorns. We're going to be building a performance center here. We're investing in the city. And, yes, we went through a process. And I think the stars aligned because we are the only ownership group to have both teams with the Portland Thorns in the NWSL and the Portland Fire in the WNBA. And with regard to the WNBA, that was another, you know, the WNBA has been around for 30 years.

13:10This is obviously the 30-year anniversary. But it was another sport that we saw. And, you know, we saw it back when Caitlin Clark was in college and this bubble was starting to rise. And I think, you know, social media really became the opportunity for a lot of these female athletes to have their platform and to grow. And so we were seeing this uprising and we were very, very excited about the opportunity to invest in a WNBA franchise. Sticking with the sort of like fast timetable, you also had to turn that pretty fast to get them onto the court, right? It wasn't, you know, because now we're seeing with the W, and keep me honest here, both of you, you know, it's like you have two, three, you know, in some cases like a little more years to sort of get it all up and running.

13:55You guys had less than two, right? Like 14, 15 months? Yes. I think it was 15 months exactly that we had. And, you know, we had a team three weeks before we went on to the court. Yeah, I mean, starting with the Thorns, when we closed the sale of the Thorns on January 4th, 2024, we had a coach, we had players, we had technical staff, and that was it. And we did a transition agreement with the Timbers, who previously owned the Thorns, the Timbers and the MLS, slowly transitioning different departments over. So first thing we did on that side was we hired a president of business operations. And then through the course of the next nine months, we built out the ticketing department, the sponsorship department, the marketing department, HR, IT, legal.

14:43And then with a fire, we had a little bit of a head start with some of the back office, whether it's like finance or HR, legal, but we had to do the same thing. So we started with a president of operations. We actually had a VP of people in culture who is over both organizations and she is amazing. But we hired a president of business operations. And then we started again. We started building out the departments and hired Vanya, our GM on the fire side, and took the time that we needed to kind of build out the technical staff on the fire basketball operations side. So, Lisa, when you think about your sports portfolio, there's a lot of chat in the marketplace.

15:28And Jason and I have heard it from different guests about is there a bubble in sports? I guess my question to you is, do these teams continue to rise in value? What are your thoughts? I think the teams will continue to rise in value. I think women's sports is still very young and is growing. We're so excited and happy that the Valkyries just hit the billion-dollar valuation. And as you've seen, the acceleration and growth in valuations is incredible. But there's a lot of work to do. And, I mean, Alex, you know from your involvement with the Lynx, but women's sports is not the same as men's sports.

16:05And of course, there's the topic of pay, but there's also the topic of revenue streams and how we have to, I still feel like we have to work harder, faster, longer, better, and stronger to have kind of the same output that the men's major leagues have. I specifically have covered the NWSL pretty closely. It has been a fascinating journey to say the least and candidly. And you guys were a force for good on the back end of some really difficult times for the NWSL. Part of the reason that the team came for sale was some bad behavior and bad things that happened with that franchise that was reflective of things going on across the league.

16:48Like, you know, the NWSL has had its own journey. The WNBA had a separate one, you know, sort of a slow burn to your earlier point over now 30 years. What do you take from each that you apply to the other? Because, yes, they're women's sports, but these are obviously very different sports, different leagues, different setups in the sense that is very long, very long prologue. Sorry. But just sort of setting the stage here, you know, the NWSL is completely independent of the MLS, whereas the WNBA is part of the NBA or, you know, partially owned by the NBA. Take us through sort of how you toggle back and forth and what you take from each that informs the other.

17:34Well, I think for us, we're still newer with the WNBA. So we're still learning kind of the governance around how WNBA interacts with the NBA. But the WNBA has been around for 30 years and the NWSL will celebrate 15 years next year. So they both are not emerging sports leagues. They're still both, I think, in the growth phase. I would say WNBA is starting to transition out of that growth phase. But for us down at kind of the team operations level, we keep things separate, but we think that having both teams under one umbrella is our superpower. We are going to be opening in just a couple months the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center in Hillsborough, a suburb of Portland.

18:20And that will be the first and only professional dual women's sport performance center in the world. It will be just under 100 ,000 square feet. And we were very thoughtful with how we built this out. Each team has completely their separate areas with regard to their dressing rooms, their recovery areas. However, we were thoughtful in having two areas that are kind of cross-pollinated. One of them is the fitness center, the gym, where we have about 6 ,000 square feet between indoor and outdoor space, and then the dining room. And we purposely wanted the players to be able to interact, to learn from each other, to build bonds, to support each other.

19:02but what we have found is that our like our gms uh vanya on the fire side and jeff on the thorn side they talk daily there you know it goes back to sometimes it's lonely at the top but they have this dialogue where they're like did you deal with this yes what did you how did you solve this i actually have a meeting with them this week where we're going through recovery modalities and we're trying to figure out what can we do to kind of cross pollinate and learn from each other Even though they're different sports, we're still dealing with female athletes and there's only 6 % of medical research done on women.

19:35So it's truly an opportunity for us in the future. And I know this is something that Alex Rodriguez thinks a lot about, not to be confused with her brother. But the idea of the fans, and one of the things that I hear consistently as I talk to your fellow owners, especially across the NWSL, is there are two fan bases that consistently rise above the NWSL. Washington Spirit is one, and Portland is the other. That it is like the atmosphere, the commitment. What is that? What is that about? And then how do you sustain it? And how do you how do you feed that knowing that it's there? Yeah, I think it's interesting on the thorn side because it's an established fan base and we have traditionally led the league.

20:27I think we have 10 seasons under our belt of leading the league with season attendance. Even this year, I think we're over 19000 as our average attendance, which is just incredible if you think of women's sports. So we've kind of looked into it and we think a few things, and this is probably why we go back to saying that we're just cementing Portland as the Global Epicenter of Women's Sports. Women's sports are authentic to the community. When I started researching, it was in the 1970s that the first LPGA tournament was here in Portland. And maybe it's the counterculture that happens here, but it's a very, very passionate sports fan base, especially for women.

21:09The other thing is that we're in the global headquarters for Nike and the North American headquarters for Adidas. So people that live in Portland and the surrounding areas, they live and breathe sports. And I think they see things. They're very forward thinking as well. So, you know, with women's sports rising, it's been this way for many years here. And, you know, heck, we just had our Portland Fire season opener with over 19 ,000. I think it was like 19 ,335 attendees completely sold out for opening game. And going into the night, we thought we were going to have about 17 ,000 and we were like sold out.

21:49It was incredible. It was packed. It was rocking. I think we've just learned that for us, we really take the standpoint of hiring the best people for the job and letting them do that. We don't claim to be experts. I say that any day. You know, I love soccer. I love basketball, but we're hiring people who are really good at what they do. And we believe in giving them the space in the room to really run with what they do. On the fire side, we hired Vanya and she was very passionate about hiring our coach, Alex Sarama, who is a leader in CLA. And it is just fascinating to watch what goes on in practice.

22:30The other day I was there and he had players shooting free throws in socks, just all kinds of creative things. And they're laughing and they're smiling and they're having a great time. You talked about some of the experience that you guys had with the family business in terms of digitizing it and globalizing it. Where are you spending your time, especially as you get deeper and deeper into this broadening portfolio as we've talked about? There are two areas where I'm really spending my time. I think the first is maybe it's coming from the fashion industry, but I am very focused on creating lifestyle brands out of both the fire and the thorns.

23:06And I think you could see that with our branding for the fire. It's very different than what you see in sports. And, you know, our goal there is to have people who are wearing the Portland Fire merch. And maybe it doesn't even say Portland Fire, but people know what the icon is and it creates a lifestyle brand. I think as women, we are very multifaceted. And I think, you know, a lot of our players also like art and music and fashion and food and culture. So it's how can we integrate that all into creating lifestyle brands here in Portland for both the fire and the thorns. And the other area is my work and my service on the board of governors.

23:44As Alex knows, you know, just getting started on the WNBA side, but on the NWSL side, then I chair our commercial committee and I'm also on the strategic planning committee. So I spend a lot of time on that. On the NWSL side, we're going to be kicking off work for our 2028 media deal shortly. And it is fun and exciting to have a seat at the table and help shape the future of women's sports. I frankly call it my purpose. You know, I'm here for a reason and it's to do what I can to help move women's sports forward. and I can do that by having a seat at the table.

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25:02So let's talk about, you brought up something really interesting and important about, you know, sort of media deals. So let's talk about the NWSL because it was massive, historic, 40x what it was in the previous deal. Lots of different platforms, more visibility. The next one is arguably even more important because it has to sort of cement this viewership, this fandom, et cetera, and really exposure. You've seen what's happened with the W. What does the NWSL need to do? What's on your mind as you think about this next leg of media, especially given how topsy-turvy the overall media world is. Yeah, I mean, I think for us, I think we were one of the first leagues that had an assortment, we'll say, of media platforms where the streaming is.

25:53But I frankly think that's the future. I think we're going to see more of that because people don't just watch one channel anymore. They get their information from everything from different streaming to their phone. With regard to the NWSL, the 40 times was a little bit of an anomaly. I know the WNBA had closer to six and we'll see what the best that the league can do. But it is really important because as you know, that number relates to everything from if we could provide charters for our players, which we may or may not be able to do, to, you know, where salaries come in in the next CBA negotiations.

26:29As you think about that, and I know we have to be careful about talking about numbers and all of that because you're both governors. But I mean, I know you've thought a lot about this, Alex, in terms of like, how are you, how do you maximize the revenue side of the, in your case, the Lynx versus the, versus the Wolves and sort of taking advantage of all the elements that are there. I know you're thinking about media all the time. I just wondered your thoughts there. What I will say is our situations are a little bit different. Like, unlike the Timberwolves, the Lynx, we walked into an incredible franchise that has a Hall of Fame coach.