At the buzzer

The GIST: Winter is upon us, and so is the second season of the PWHL. After scoring serious business wins in year one, the pro women’s hockey league is gearing up for expansion, from adding two new teams by next year to signing multiple partnerships before Saturday’s puck dropped — including one in October with yours truly. Betting on women.

💰 PWHL signs FanDuel for extensive betting and streaming partnership. On Friday, FanDuel became the PWHL’s official sportsbook partner and its exclusive in-app U.S. streaming partner, meaning it will show up to 90 regular-season and playoff games.

• North of the border, FanDuel Canada is also in on the action as a sportsbook partner, but not as a streamer as the PWHL already has significant media partnerships in the country, including a recent deal with Prime Video.

🇨🇦 Canadian insurance firm Intact inks with the PWHL. Last Wednesday, Intact was announced as the league’s official home and auto insurance partner in Canada, with the firm sponsoring all three Canadian PWHL teams and funding opportunities for girls to join the game. If she can see her…

📺 There’s plenty of room to grow, especially for media partners. The PWHL signed over 40 sponsors last season, which saw historic viewership and attendance that could be surpassed with venue upgrades. The two cities lucky enough to land new PWHL teams will also create more local deal opportunities — and if any are in the U.S., a major American broadcast partner could step in.

• Women’s Sports Network is the PWHL’s lone national U.S. media partner, but if NHL media deals with ESPN and Turner can deliver on hockey’s surging hype, these networks could do the same in the PWHL. Now’s the time.

The GIST: Per Sportico, billionaire sports investor Marc Lasry and his sports-focused private equity (PE) firm Avenue Sports Fund are no longer pursuing the purchase of the NC Courage, citing “NWSL restrictions for private equity investment as a control[ling] owner in teams.” With the NWSL being a sports league that uniquely allows PE investment, let’s dive into what we know.

The context: The NWSL has uniquely opened the door for widespread PE investment, but it does have rules, which were finalized in February. The NWSL is the only U.S. sports league that allows PE firms to own controlling stakes of a single team, like Sixth Street Partners’ ownership of Bay FC — the league’s fourth-highest valued team at $121M.

• But if a PE fund wants to own stakes in multiple teams, things can get complicated. A firm can’t own passive minority stakes in more than three NWSL franchises, and one fund can only hold between 5% to 20% of a club’s equity as a minority owner. Plus, clubs can only have 30% of their total equity owned by multiple PE funds.

The firm: Lasry is a billionaire investor who previously owned the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks before selling his stake in 2023. Shortly after, Lasry launched his Avenue Sports Fund, which has a dedicated effort to invest in women’s sports and international leagues, like 3v3 pro women’s basketball league Unrivaled.

The issue: In September, Avenue Sports signed a letter of intent to buy 60% of the Courage at a $108M team valuation. Lasry and NC Courage owner Steve Malik were very interested in crossing the finish line, but the two parties and the NWSL couldn’t agree on the deal structure, according to Sportico.

Lingering questions: Lasry’s citation of the NWSL’s PE rules as a dealbreaker begs the question: Are the NWSL’s rules helping or hurting investment in the league? And does the NWSL need to update its requirements to accommodate PE interest, or is it critical that the league protects itself from overly-powerful sports firms? Watch this space.

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Looking for more of The GIST? Hit play on our twice-weekly podcast, The GIST of It. Hosts Ellen Hyslop and Stephanie Rotz are sports fans, feminists and childhood besties. Their fresh, female perspective on trending sports news feels like listening to your friends. Join the conversation by tuning into The GIST of It wherever you listen to podcasts.