Serena Williams’ husband and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is once again making waves in women’s sports. With a portfolio rooted in empowering women athletes, his latest move, buying a 10% stake in Chelsea FC Women, cements his status as one of the most vocal and financially committed champions of women’s sports today.
Serena Williams’ Husband, Alexis Ohanian, Shared a Message Highlighting His Commitment to Women’s Sports
With a net investment totaling well over £20 million (approximately $25 million), he has just acquired a 10% stake in Chelsea FC Women, an established powerhouse in England’s Barclays Women’s Super League.
Prior to his Chelsea FC Women investment, Ohanian held a majority stake in Angel City FC, one of the National Women’s Soccer League’s most high-profile teams. In early 2024, he exited that role after the club was sold for a record $250 million to the CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
Around the same time, he founded the Los Angeles Golf Club, part of the TGL league, co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. That wasn’t all. Ohanian made headlines again in 2024 for launching Athlos, an elite women’s track meet hosted in New York City. He also donated $1 million to the University of Virginia’s women’s basketball program, his alma mater, with the goal of fostering long-term growth for female student-athletes.
Announcing his latest investment via X (formerly Twitter), Ohanian made his vision clear:
“I’ve bet big on women’s sports before—and I’m doing it again. I’m proud to announce that I’m joining @ChelseaFCW as an investor and board member,” he wrote. “I’m honored for the chance to help this iconic club become America’s favorite @BarclaysWSL team and much, much more.”
Ohanian also took to his Instagram stories to share a post that highlighted his various sports investments. He captioned his stories: “More to do.”
Serena Williams’ Husband Alexis Ohanian Discussed Reasons Behind Underinvestment in Women’s Sports
At the Forbes 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi, Serena Williams’ husband, Alexis Ohanian, called out the chronic underinvestment in women’s sports, labeling it a moral and business failure. He said female athletes must overperform to get chances, while male-led leadership often thrives despite poor decisions.
“If you spend any time with these professional athletes, what you know is that they don’t have the privilege of being mediocre. The great irony, as we look back on the legacy of underinvestment in women’s sports, is it won’t just be sexism and racism, because that was there too. It’ll also be just gross business negligence. And the women who played these sports for decades didn’t have that privilege,” Serena Williams’ husband said.
“You’re playing a zero-sum game in sports. Box score shows up at the end of every match. And if you don’t do a good job, you gotta find something else to do. And again, the sad part is, we’ll be able to look at the receipts, but you had predominantly men in positions of power in these leagues, across these things, who could get away with being mediocre for decades. And the ones who actually suffered were the athletes,” he added.
