Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros

“What would happen if we started with a blank sheet of paper?” So began the genesis of a revolutionary new approach to professional women’s sports leagues. Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros sought to put the power in the hands of athletes by building an innovative platform for women’s sports when they co-founded Athletes Unlimited (AU). Tossing the traditional sports model aside, these bold business disruptors have built an extraordinary partnership with pro athletes that puts individual players in control of the game – taking head coaches, club owners and locked rosters out of the equation. From player-led executive committees to creating unprecedented pathways for long-term equity and ways to give back to athletes’ chosen nonprofits, Patricof and Soros have truly created something transformative. For their unwavering commitment to elevating the voices of women athletes by building a more equitable and inclusive model for professional sports, they are the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 2023 Champion for Equality Award recipients.

Patricof and Soros launched AU’s cutting-edge model with softball in 2020, adding volleyball and lacrosse in 2021, and basketball in 2022. The leagues consist of a never-before-seen competition format, scoring system, and a player-led organizational structure. Forgoing bouncing back and forth between cities and stadiums, players compete in one place throughout a five-week season. At the beginning of each season, four captains are appointed to draft the first week’s teams and the one-of-a-kind scoring system rewards players for peak performance where they can earn points (and monetary bonuses) for winning as a team, their individual stats and being voted MVPs of the game. At the end of each week, the top four players become the new captains and draft a team from scratch for the next week. This model is tailored towards sports fans who follow athletes and not teams, providing a unique experience for them each week.

From Patricof’s experience growing the Disney, ESPN and ABC brands across emerging channels, leading the Tribeca Film Festival then the NYC Football Club to Soros’ experience founding JS Capital, co-founding Give Lively LLC, and sitting on the boards of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and GivingTuesday; these co-founders have demonstrated a visionary approach throughout their careers. AU’s game-changing model was built on this solid foundation and from day one, Patricof and Soros were prepared to dive in and disrupt the women’s sports ecosystem and it is paying off. In just three years, AU has had 13 seasons across 4 sports involving over 350 world class athletes and announced it had secured more than $30 million in new capital from investors both inside and outside of the sports ecosystem. Other notable milestones include becoming the first ever pro sports league to organize as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) and becoming carbon neutral in the United States. These are a few of the reasons why Fast Company recognized AU as one of the ‘world’s most innovative companies’ in 2023, making them the first women’s sports organization to receive the tribute.

Through AU, Patricof and Soros are out to prove that women’s sports, which have historically been undervalued in our society, can be successful by doing things differently. By striking deals with consumer brand powerhouses like Nike, Gatorade, and ESPN, they are helping give some of the world’s best athletes a platform to thrive like never before. It is their hope that AU’s model provides a roadmap for the future of all sports and shows what is possible when we upend conventional power structures and center athletes as decision-makers and stakeholders, ultimately reshaping attitudes and expectations around women as professional athletes and establishing new norms for how businesses show up in the world.

Read more about our Awards >>

Alexis Ohanian

Founder of Seven Seven Six; Co-Founder of Reddit; lead founding investor in the professional women’s soccer team Angel City FC; outspoken advocate for paid family leave

Alexis Ohanian is amplifying women’s sports for what it is, “damn good business.” As co-founder and lead founding investor in Angel City FC, he issued a call-to-action for society to follow his lead and invest in women’s sports, confidently challenging all to “check the receipts in a decade.” A visionary entrepreneur, he invests in the future of girls and women through sports, venture capital and family leave advocacy. For his unwavering commitment to level the playing field – on the pitch, in the boardroom and in the halls of Congress – and inspiring a whole new generation of male leaders to become allies and take the smart bet on women, he is the 2022 Champion for Equality Award recipient.

Ohanian was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, M.D. He is an entrepreneur and investor widely known for knocking his business deals out of the park. He co-founded Reddit, one of the largest websites in the United States, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2005 and sold to Conde Nast in 2006. He returned as executive chairman in 2014 to help lead the turnaround of the now independent company that today is valued at over $10B. In 2016, he left Reddit to run the venture capital firm he co-founded, Initialized Capital, and built it to $100B in market value through early investments in companies like Coinbase, Opendoor, Instacart, Patreon, and Ro. 

He is a husband and has become one of the most recognized ‘girl dads’ – roles that encourage him to use his entrepreneurial skills to build a better world for all. After the murder of George Floyd, he considered a future conversation he’d have with his daughter, Olympia, about what he did to create a more equitable world online and offline for her. He resigned from the board of Reddit in June of 2020 in protest – relieved that Reddit fulfilled his wish to have his seat filled by a Black director and started taking steps to curb hate on the platform. 

In 2020, Ohanian also left Initialized Capital to launch Seven Seven Six, a firm built like a technology company that deploys venture capital. Since its inception, Seven Seven Six has already grown to oversee $769 million in assets. Fast forward to this year, he has officially launched the 776 Foundation to support marginalized individuals and announced a $20M commitment to climate action through his new 776 Fellowship Program. 

His advocacy on behalf of paid family leave demonstrates that his commitment to gender equity goes beyond women’s sports. Ohanian has lobbied for federal legislation that mandates quality paid family leave for all – birth parents, adoptive parents, and caregivers. As he penned in a 2019 New York Times opinion article, “All people deserve fulfilling work and close family ties.” He is especially focused on normalizing paternal paid time off, challenging a generation of dads to take the full opportunity if they get the chance. It’s an issue he dives into on his podcast, “Business Dad,” where he interviews other fathers about what it means to be a dad in today’s world and how they balance their careers and families.

Whether he is catching an Angel City home game at Banc of California Stadium or advocating for change on Capitol Hill, this savvy start-up investor strives to devote his time and skills to build a more equitable world, not only for women in sports but for families and the communities they live in.

Read more about our Awards >>

April 2 – Equal Pay Day – marks the day U.S. women have finally earned the same amount of money as the average man did in 2018. Sports have long mirrored society, and the gender pay gap has persisted in athletics just as it has in the professional realm. And in sport, just as in society, women are fighting back, working towards the day when pay equality is achieved.

Here are five athletes, teams and leagues that are leading the charge:

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT)

The USWNT has long been associated with leading the way in the fight for gender equity in soccer. Most recently, in advance of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France, the United States women’s squad took a stand against “institutionalized gender discrimination” against the team. Twenty-eight members of the current national team pool announced in March that they are suing U.S. Soccer, seeking equitable pay and treatment, including damages for back pay.

The women’s team has far exceeded the success of their male counterparts, who failed to even qualify for the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2018. Meanwhile, the women have placed in the top three teams in every Women’s World Cup since 1991 (when the women’s tournament began) and has three titles. In the six Olympic Games that have included women’s soccer, the U.S. has captured four golds and a silver.

“It’s a heavy responsibility, but it’s one that we gladly take on,” Becky Sauerbraunn told ESPN following the 2019 SheBelieves Cup. “And it’s something we’re going to keep trying to push and push and push until we feel that everything is equal. That’s far away from here, but that’s what we’re fighting toward.”

At the same time, The Guardian recently reported that in the 2018 fiscal year, USWNT head coach Jill Ellis was paid less than several U.S. Soccer men’s coaches, including U-20 coach Tab Ramos.

The U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team

Before winning a historic gold medal in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games, the U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team was battling off the ice for equal pay. In 2017, the team threatened to boycott the 2017 IIHF World Championships if a settlement was not made with USA Hockey for equal treatment to the men’s team. Per The New York Times, the women’s players were barely making living wages and were left out of pre-Olympic marketing plans despite their success on the ice.

Ahead of the 2017 IIHF World Championships, after a yearlong battle, USA Hockey conceded to many of the players demands. The team went on to earn the gold at the world championships, then captured its first Olympic gold in 20 years by defeating Team Canada in PyeongChang.

Of her team’s fight for equal treatment, star forward Hilary Knight said: “We’re passionately pursuing something for the greater good.”

WNBA Players

WNBA stars including A’ja Wilson, Brittney Griner, Liz Cambage and Skylar Diggins-Smith have all spoken out about WNBA salaries compared to their NBA counterparts. In order to make a living playing basketball, most WNBA players compete overseas during the offseason to supplement their WNBA income.

It is important to note that the WNBA athletes are not asking for the multimillion dollar contracts that are prevalent in the NBA; they are simply asking for equity. Where the NBA pays its players between 49-51 percent of the league’s revenue, WNBA players take home a maximum of 22.8 percent.

“As athletes, we have to fight. As women, we have to fight,” Diggins-Smith told Bleacher Report. “And we need more people at our table to fight with us,” she told Wealthsimple. “There need to be more women and more people of color hired so we can curate our own sports stories. And we need men speaking out about these things.”

Big Wave Surfers

In 2016, six female big wave surfers – Andrea Moller, Bianca Valenti, Keala Kennelly, Paige Alms, Karen Tynan and Sabrina Brennan – founded the Commission for Equity in Women’s Surfing (CEWS). The organization exists to increase “the number of events and the number of awards for women, as well as offering equal prize money … to achieve meaningful equity in competitive surfing.”

In 2018, much of CEWS’ work paid off, as the World Surf League announced equal prize money for all WSL-controlled events in 2019 and beyond, a huge step for what has been a traditionally male-dominated sport.

“”We feel strongly that if it hadn’t been for our consistent advocacy, the WSL would not have made that announcement,” Brennan told ESPN. “But we are so glad they did, and we’re thankful because they could have done less … But they did the right thing and did it across all of their events.”

Venus and Serena Williams

While all four of the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments have awarded men and women equal prize money since 2007 when Wimbledon finally evened its pay gap, the game’s biggest female stars have not held back when it comes to speaking out about equal pay.

As with so many other female athletes – and despite being two of the highest paid women athletes in the world – Venus and Serena recognize that they are fighting not only for themselves, but for the generations of women to come.

“We might not get it today, but we want a future better for maybe my daughter, or her daughter, and so that’s what we really are fighting for,” Serena told CNBC. “I feel like we’re getting there.”

Photo credit (from L to R):

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Julian Finney/Getty Images

Frederick Breedon/Getty Images

Pierre Tostee/Getty Images