Alexis Ohanian: US interest can make Chelsea first billion-dollar women’s team

Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian believes American interest will play a “huge factor” in transforming Chelsea’s women into a billion-dollar enterprise.

Ohanian, who is married to tennis great Serena Williams, bought a minority stake in the serial Women’s Super League champions in May and has joined the Blues’ board.

The 42-year-old entrepreneur, in an interview with the BBC at that month’s FA Cup final, predicted last season’s domestic treble-winners could grow into a “billion-dollar franchise” and become “America’s team”.

Speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, he said: “They should be the first women’s football team to be worth a billion dollars.

“I think (American interest) is not the only factor, but it’s a huge factor. And what I would like to point to is the number of Premier League teams that are easily worth billions of dollars that have tremendous American fanbases and global fanbases.

“That is a population of 300-plus million people who are obsessed with sports and spend a lot of money, right?

“So that is a valuable, valuable market for athletes. So whether that’s Chelsea women, yes, I absolutely want every American to have that one team in the WSL they cheer for, and I want it to be us.”

Ohanian was a founding investor in National Women’s Soccer League’s Angel City, and in 2024 launched Athlos, the all-female – at least “for now”, said Ohanian – athletics event boasting payouts of 60,000 US dollars for its top finishers, as well as several other financial incentives for its athletes.

Olympic 800 metres champion Keely Hodgkinson, who bids for a first world title at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo next week, has signed on for the second edition, taking place in New York this October.

From 2026, it will transform from a one-off annual event into a league format.

Athlos is one of several new athletics ventures that have launched in recent years, though one – Grand Slam Track, spearheaded by Michael Johnson, has already found itself mired in financial trouble after its curtailed first season.

In a statement last month, four-time Olympic champion Johnson said the company was “struggling with our ability to compensate” athletes due to not receiving promised funding.

Ohanian confirmed Athlos is committed to paying its athletes within three days, and provided assurance his business model was safe and sound.

“Look, I am an old-school business guy,” he said. “The only way you build a – I think Reddit’s a 40 billion-dollar company now – the only way you do that is if you generally do the thing you say you’re going to do.

“So it was really important we paid our athletes within three business days, and that’s something we’re going to continue to stick to.

“They deserve it. That’s sort of the bare minimum, right? You won’t catch me out here championing for these athletes, 10 toes down, and then not delivering.”