From newcomer to tycoon: How Michele Kang’s investments have shaped the world of women’s football

When the United States women’s national team won the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2019, businesswoman Michele Kang was so uninformed of the world of football that she didn’t even know who Lionel Messi was. That idea seems inconceivable today as the women’s football tycoon owns and is closely involved in three clubs across the globe. How did she get here and what impact has her investment had on the sport?

A serendipitous encounter

Kang, then the founder of Cognosante, a health IT solutions company, was invited to the United States women’s national team’s World Cup celebration by a board member at her company. There, she was introduced to Steve Baldwin, who was at the time the managing owner of the Washington Spirit of the NWSL. From there, the rest was history. Kang joined the club’s ownership group in December 2020, with her 35 percent stake equalling that of Baldwin. Less than two years later in March 2022, Kang became the majority owner, in an acquisition that was dubbed the Sports Business Journal’s 2023 Deal of the Year.

In a Washington Spirit press release from when Kang initially joined the ownership group, the businesswoman commented, “I believe it is essential for successful women to take the lead in advancing other women, and I look forward to doing so for the women of the Washington Spirit.” Since she joined, the club has reached three out of five possible championship games, resulting in one title win and one Challenge Cup win, and has made Trinity Rodman the highest-paid female football player in the world. 

Continuing to grow her empire

In May 2023, Kang and OL Groupe, then the owners of the men’s and women’s sides of Olympique Lyonnais, reached an agreement to form a global women’s football organization. Kang quickly fulfilled this promise, acquiring FA WSL2 club London City Lionesses in December 2023 and completing her purchase of Olympique Lyonnais Féminin in February 2024. 

When Kang bought London City Lionesses, it was the only independent women’s side competing in the Women’s Super League or second-tier FA Women’s Championship (now Barclay’s Women’s Super League 2) without a men’s counterpart. At the time of the acquisition, Kang’s goal was to get the club promoted, and she achieved just that within a year and a half. In the club’s first year in the first tier Women’s Super League, their sixth place final table position was the highest achieved by a newly promoted club in WSL history since Manchester United in the 2019/20 season. 

Michele Kang acquired Olympique Lyonnais Féminin with the goal of independently developing the women’s side of the longtime French club. This purchase was very different from that of the London City Lionesses, as the French side had won a record eight Champions League titles by the time Kang became majority owner. Despite an established history of success, Kang aimed to set an even higher standard for the team. Since taking over, Kang has overseen the club making Parc Olympique Lyonnais their permanent home ground, building a new training center exclusively for the women’s team, and rebranding to OL Lyonnes to establish the club as an entity independent of its men’s counterpart.

Contributions outside of club ownership

In July 2024, Michele Kang announced Kynisca, a London-based company serving as the ownership group for all of the teams under her umbrella as well as sports science initiatives. As a part of this same announcement, Kang invested $50 million in the Kynisca Innovation hub, a non-profit research initiative specialized in female sports training. 

In October of that same year, Kynisca donated $2 million in seed funding for IDA Sports, a company developing cleats and turf shoes specifically for female athletes. The next month, she pledged $30 million to U.S. Soccer over the next five years, specifically towards their women’s and girls’ programming, making it the largest philanthropic investment in those programs in history. 

In December of 2025, Kang launched the Kang Women’s Institute and partnered with U.S. Soccer’s Soccer Forward foundation to study the needs of female athletes in collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. She donated $55 million to this project, to be used for both managing the institute and youth and coaching development. 

What this means for the future

While Kang is the first businessperson to be described as a “tycoon of women’s football,” she certainly won’t be the last. Kang’s efforts to improve the working conditions and on-field product of various clubs around the world have been an important step in advancing women’s football globally and improving the lives of players. As more and more people become aware of what she’s done for the world of women’s football, hopefully others with the same platform will become inspired to uplift the game the way that she has.