So, in any event, it took a lot of conversations, a lot of thought.” “There aren’t a lot of opportunities for people who aren’t billionaires to invest in professional sports. “It’s not a liquid asset, it’s an unusual one,” Ricketts said. The NWSL and WNBA have increased those opportunities, but it’s not the right call for everyone. “We have our own celebrities here.”Īs Ricketts pointed out, the opportunities for women to invest in professional sports are slim. “I think that was super exciting and very attractive, but not really something that’s very Midwestern Chicago,” she said with a laugh. She was very familiar with how Angel City FC assembled their ownership group but felt it wasn’t the right choice for the Red Stars. “It was very important to me right from the get-go that this be woman-led and that it’d be a diverse women-led investment group,” Ricketts said. Who were the obvious people to talk to? Who would be interested in investing in the NWSL? She said she started brainstorming with her wife and her brother Thomas. She knew she needed to assemble a deep roster to help. “Pun intended.”ĭifferent from her stake in the local WNBA team, in the NWSL, Ricketts would be the one leading the ownership group. “All the stars kind of aligned,” Ricketts said. Ricketts had started considering the Red Stars before the opportunity with the Sky opened, but in the end, the two announcements happened only a couple of months apart. In June, Laura Ricketts was one of eight new investors in the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, with 10% of the team sold at a $85 million valuation. Senator for Nebraska, Laura Ricketts has served as a major Democratic fundraiser for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. While much of her family identify as Republicans, including her brother Pete who is a U.S. Ricketts and her brother, Thomas, have been the majority owners of the Cubs for over a decade along with their other siblings through a family trust. “There’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Ricketts said. The purchase price was $35.5 million, and another $25.5 million has been earmarked to go directly into the club. But in the end, it got across the line and was approved by the NWSL board of governors at the start of the month. While Ricketts danced around the details, the sale process was a long, frustrating journey. It just feels like, ‘Gosh, it’s one thing after the other that these players have had to endure.” “Especially given some of the events from earlier this summer, even. “One of the things that has weighed on me so much over the past several months as we’ve tried to bring this deal to a close is the limbo that the players have been left in,” Ricketts said. The Red Stars have been without a general manager since May following the dismissal of Michelle Lomnicki, a former Red Stars player, after “a lapse of judgment” involving a youth affiliate club she helped lead hiring a suspended former NWSL coach, as detailed in this report from The Athletic. Off the field, things weren’t looking much better as the sale process dragged on. Currently, Chicago is in 11th place, with six wins, two draws and 10 losses - and the worst goal differential in the league at -17. Though completely out of their control, Mallory Swanson’s torn patellar tendon in April was another major blow to this season. The Red Stars struggled in the offseason to retain its free agents, losing franchise players like Danny Colaprico, Vanessa DiBernardo and Morgan Gautrat - essentially their entire starting midfield. The months between the club going on the market and the closing at the start of the month have not been easy ones. The players said the report showed the “extent of (Whisler’s) dishonesty” concerning the team’s culture and his knowledge of the actions of former head coach Rory Dames. That players’ open letter, sent in the immediate aftermath of the release of the Sally Yates report, following her investigation into misconduct across the NWSL, made clear at the time that there was no path forward for the Red Stars as they existed under Whisler. “(I) started thinking about, ‘Okay, maybe this is something that really makes sense.’” “Looking at it, just given my experience, having been an owner and operator of the (Chicago) Cubs for the last 13 or so years, and just everything that I’ve learned, all the expertise that I can leverage to put towards this really distressed asset,” Laura Ricketts told The Athletic ahead of the closing of the team’s sale.
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