‘A Change Needed To Happen’: Spirit Investor On Michele Kang’s Takeover

Grazioli-Venier also said there had been some discussion of having Kang team up with Todd Boehly—who co-owns Chelsea, the Dodgers, and the Lakers—but in the end, backing Kang’s solo play proved to be the right call.

After Kang successfully wrested control of the team, Grazioli-Venier remembers seeing a stray comment on Twitter that Kang “Succession’d the shit out of this deal,” referring to the HBO series “Succession.” She told FOS the comparison was accurate: “It had the same kind of ups and downs.”

Kang has a lot of fans in the sports world, but also some vocal critics.

Baldwin, the former Spirit owner, offered a similar assessment to Grazioli-Venier of Kang’s early experience, but with a far less charitable spin.

“She didn’t know a hockey puck from a soccer ball,” Baldwin told FOS in March.

Separately, multiclub owner John Textor—whose Eagle Football Holdings owns stakes in clubs like Olympique Lyonnais in France and Botafogo in Brazil— has publicly accused Kang of consolidating power behind the scenes.

Last summer, Textor stepped down from leading Lyon and handed operational control of the team to Kang. Eagle Football Holdings was recently placed under the control of a U.K. restructuring administrator after lender Ares Management cited “events of default,” which Textor disputes. He claims the issues stemmed from Ares, and has alleged that Kang “secretly took control” of Lyon through what he described as a “shadow board,” telling FOS her maneuver was “one hell of a power play.”

Controversy aside, surging NWSL team valuations show no sign of slowing. In January of 2025, the Denver Summit expansion team fetched a then-record $110 million fee. Late last year, Falcons owner Arthur Blank paid $165 million to bring a team to Atlanta. And last month, Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam paid $205 million to launch a team in Columbus.

Less than five years after Angel City paid a $2 million expansion fee in 2020, NWSL alum Leslie Osborne and her co-investors launched Bay FC ahead of the 2024 season for $53 million.

“We were prepared going into that expansion bid for around $10 million, and we paid $53 [million],” she told FOS in a February episode of Portfolio Players. “And then guess what, Boston got in too for $53. So they took both of us. And Boston had two more years of runway, we had nine months. So when I think about Denver $115 [million], I think about Atlanta $165 [million], I’m like, well, we see where this is trending.”

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