What Serena Williams Told Husband Alexis Ohanian That Made Him Want to Invest in Women's Sports

📅 Aug 19, 2025 We Need To Talk 8 MIN 1339 VIEWS 13 SEGMENTS · 5 SPEAKERS

Alexis Ohanian stops by We Need To Talk to discuss the future of women's sports, why he's such a believer in it as an investment, new track venture Athlos and more. #WNBA #WomensSports #NWSL #Investing #CBSSports #WeNeedToTalk #Tennis 🎥 WATCH • Subscribe to this channel: youtube.com/channel/@WNTT • Watch CBS Sports HQ: https://cbssports.com/live • Watch CBS Sports Network on your TV or the CBS Sports App with your cable provider ▶︎ Notable interviews: • We Need To Talk Now I Interviews 🎧 LISTEN • Stream and follow & leave a 5⭐️ rating on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3OsfY4R • Download...

Questions asked in this interview

0:32Can you share your motivation behind that?
1:49What did she tell you about women's professional sports that might have given you a little bit of a pause or encouraged you to invest?
4:14And where have you seen the true value of investing in these two franchises in particular where others don't offer?
5:40Looking at the landscape of women's sports in college, if you could fund or figure out a way to fund women's collegiate sports, what would that vision be?

Alexis Ohanian 0:00 ↗

Women's sports is not a charity and it is not a corporate DEI project. It is on its own an incredible entertainment product.

Unknown 0:08 ↗

One of our superpowers is the competitiveness of our league and we have the best women's soccer league in the world.

We just want the game to grow as much as it can. We just want the best competition in the world. We're growing our audience. We're attracting new fans.

The viewership just doubled, but I think numbers will prove that this is an incredible opportunity and the time is now. And if you miss it, you're going to regret.

Host 0:32 ↗

And joining us now is someone who knows a little bit about the growth of the NWSL. A man of many talents, entrepreneur, investor, girl dad, and the first gentleman of tennis royalty, the one and only Alexis Ohanian. Alexis, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate the time. We just heard Michelle Kang talk that women's sports is not a charity, and that's a sentiment that you've echoed numerous times. Can you share your motivation behind that?

Alexis Ohanian 0:59 ↗

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you can still find my rage tweet from March of 2019 where I broke down and went viral for saying how insane it was that women's professional sports and American soccer football in particular was yet to produce billion-dollar teams because of how popular the US women's national team was, how addictive the women's world cup was, especially here in the United States. It made no sense to me. And at the end of my tweet storm, I said, 'Look, I'm either going to start or buy an NWSL team. Can anyone help?' And actually, Alex Morgan, to her credit, and I have her jersey signed back here to honor it, Alex Morgan responded and took time out of her schedule. I learned a ton from her, and that's obviously what led me to become the founding control owner of Angel City. And, you know, it all started with a rage tweet, but it's been amazing to see the growth ever since.

Dara Torres 1:49 ↗

Alexis, Dara Torres here. When I was doing research for this interview, there was something that I really wanted to know more about. Initially, when you were thinking about investing in women's soccer, you got a little bit of push back from a certain individual, your wife Serena. What did she tell you about women's professional sports that might have given you a little bit of a pause or encouraged you to invest?

6 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Ohanian, A. (2025, August 19). What Serena Williams Told Husband Alexis Ohanian That Made Him Want to Invest in Women's Sports [Interview transcript]. We Need To Talk. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/831991/

MLA

Alexis Ohanian. "What Serena Williams Told Husband Alexis Ohanian That Made Him Want to Invest in Women's Sports." We Need To Talk, 19 Aug. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/831991/.

BibTeX

@misc{ohanian2025_831991,
  author       = {Alexis Ohanian},
  title        = {What Serena Williams Told Husband Alexis Ohanian That Made Him Want to Invest in Women's Sports},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, We Need To Talk. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2025},
  month        = {aug},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/831991/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (3)

“Women's sports is not a charity and it is not a corporate DEI project. It is on its own uh incredible entertainment product.”

POLICY

“Listen guys, I don't get out of bed unless I'm trying to build billion-dollar companies. If you're not willing to invest to generate that kind of a return, you should probably step aside because I think when we look back on the legacy of underinvestment in women's sports, sadly, it will be this story of not just sexism and not just racism, but also just business incompetence and mediocrity.”

▶ 3:44 CONTROVERSIAL POLICY

“When you see the dollars, right, the dollars that are assigned in value to the attention that these athletes generate, like ball don't lie. Like, when you have the ability to show that the free market wants to invest literally millions of dollars in some of these athletes, yeah, you'd better be giving them a good weight room. They're you'd better be promoting them. Like, they are an asset. they ar”

▶ 6:51 POLICY

Newsletters that week

Seed Investing in the Age of AI, Crypto & Space Tech with Brett Gibson of Initialized CapitalTank Talks with Matt Cohen · Ripple Ventures · Aug 21, 2025

More interviews with Alexis Ohanian

Alexis Ohanian on Investing in Chelsea Women, Building Athlos, & The Power of Sport in a Social EraSep 22, 2026 · Business of Sport · 56 min
#425: Books I've Loved — Cindy Eckert and Alexis OhanianJul 27, 2026 · BlackNova Productions · 27 min
Apple vs OpenAI, Mustard Controversy, Mark Gurman, Alexis Ohanian, & Morgan Housel JoinJul 13, 2026 · TBPN · 158 min
Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking WinnersJul 06, 2026 · BlackNova Productions · 103 min
SpaceX IPO Feels Like Milestone Moment Says 766's OhanianJun 11, 2026 · Bloomberg Technology · 9 min
Alexis Ohanian on investing BIG into women's sports + Serena Williams' tennis return | SportsCenterMay 19, 2026 · ESPN · 9 min

All Alexis Ohanian transcripts →

About Alexis Ohanian

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and a venture investor, has been active in women's sports, particularly through Athlos, a track and field league he founded. In September 2026 appearances, he discussed the league's growth, noting record-breaking prize money, a sellout crowd in New York, and millions of viewers for its first meet. He also mentioned adding field events, such as a long jump competition in Times Square, and increasing prize money in subsequent years. Ohanian described Athlos as a business investment, comparing it to other ventures like rocket companies or media projects, and said he aims to treat it like any other market opportunity rather than framing it primarily as charity or inspiration. Ohanian also spoke about his role as co-owner of Chelsea Women and his broader investment thesis in women's sports. He attributed the potential for growth in part to the success of athletes like Serena and Venus Williams, and he noted that in the U.S., soccer is often perceived as a women's sport due to the national team's achievements. He said he had considered buying a league in 2019 instead of an NWSL expansion team, and he described Athlos as a "second chance" to build something new. In a separate interview, he shared that he and his wife, Serena Williams, have one rule for their daughters: they can pursue any career as long as they do their best and aim for something useful. He also mentioned that his daughter Olympia was interviewing athletes at the Athlos event.

All Alexis Ohanian appearances → We Need To Talk on YouTube →