Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The Supreme Court is considering whether domestic abusers should own guns, moms in the U.K. say that their career development slowed after kids, and a football family buys into women’s soccer. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
– Game on. When Carolyn Tisch Blodgett was 6 years old, her grandfather, Loews Corporation cofounder Bob Tisch, bought a 50% stake in the New York Giants. The 1991 purchase turned out to be a formative one for Tisch Blodgett and her entire family; they began spending Sundays together watching football. Tisch Blodgett even wrote her college admissions essay about bonding through the sport with three generations of women in her family.
As Tisch Blodgett progressed in her own career, she stayed close to sports and fitness; she was Peloton’s head of global marketing between 2016 and 2020. After leaving the fitness company, last year she began working within the Giants representing her family’s ownership interest as a strategic advisor. (The team is co-owned by the Tisch and Mara families.) Spending more time in the sports world helped her identify opportunities outside the NFL, and she now also serves as founder and CEO for Next 3, an investment arm for the Tisch family backing innovation in sports.
Today, Next 3 is leading a minority stake investment in NJ/NY Gotham FC, the New York metropolitan area’s women’s soccer franchise. The size of the investment wasn’t disclosed. As Tisch Blodgett considered possible Next 3 investments, “all roads kept leading us back to women’s soccer,” she says.
New soccer teams have popped up across the country in recent years—from the celebrity-backed Los Angeles team Angel City to a forthcoming Bay Area franchise—but Tisch Blodgett followed her grandfather’s lead and stuck with the New York market. “He had the opportunity to invest in many other teams where he would be the controlling owner, but he said, ‘How could I invest 100% in another team when I have an opportunity to invest 50% in the New York Giants?’” she remembers. “That was really how we felt about Gotham.”
Gotham’s other co-owners and investors include New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Tammy Murphy as well as Sue Bird and Carli Lloyd.
Barnabas Crosby
As a co-owner, Tisch Blodgett wants to help Gotham reach new audiences. “Gotham can absolutely be one of the best women’s soccer teams in the country and in the world,” she says. “It can also be one of the best brands in the world.”
Tisch Blodgett’s Peloton experience informs her approach, too. She’d like to help more Gotham players grow into household names, just as Peloton instructors Cody Rigsby and Robin Arzón became stars in their own right. (The team’s roster includes Ali Krieger, who has announced her retirement, and forward Katie Stengel.) And she wants to build a community around the team similar to the following of devotees Peloton developed online.
The New York Liberty’s recent run in the WNBA finals showed Tisch Blodgett what could be possible. “All of a sudden people are walking down the street wearing Liberty shirts and they’re talking about the Liberty in a way that five years ago wouldn’t have happened,” she says.
At the Giants, much of Tisch Blodgett’s work is about modernizing the team. Gotham gives Tisch Blodgett opportunities to test new strategies on a smaller scale before trying them in the NFL. (Gotham plays at New Jersey’s Red Bull Arena, which holds 25,000 people to MetLife’s 82,500.) She and Next 3 are interested in changing patterns in sports media consumption, evolving behavior in the stadium—younger generations are less willing to miss key moments to get up and buy popcorn, for instance—and keeping fans connected with players 24/7, not just during games.
Tisch Blodgett wants Gotham to define her family’s legacy just as the Giants have. “When my family got involved in the Giants, that fundamentally changed our family,” she says. “When I look back, 30 years from now, I hope that for our family and so many other families Gotham will be a life-changing moment, because women’s soccer is part of their lives in a way it hadn’t been before.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
– Election night. Ohio voters voted in favor of protecting abortion rights in the state’s constitution. The success of the ballot measure suggests that abortion will continue to be a critical issue in the 2024 election. CNN
– Should abusers bear arms? The Supreme Court yesterday seemed to side with government lawyers who defended a law that banned people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns. “Access to a gun makes it five times more likely that a woman will die at the hands of her abuser,” Everytown for Gun Safety lawyers wrote in a brief to the court. CNN
– Career slump. Almost three-quarters of U.K. moms with preschool-aged children say that their career development slumped after having children, according to the Fawcett Society. Almost half said they turned down a promotion or opportunity because of concerns about childcare arrangements, though most of them reported being just as ambitious as they were before they had kids. Fortune
– A first in France. France could become the first country in the world to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution after French President Emmanuel Macron proposed the idea last week. Abortion is largely viewed positively throughout the country; the move is a response by French women to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Washington Post
– Across the airwaves. Female artists occupy all top 10 slots on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 thanks to the release of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Swift holds eight of the top 10 spots. The only other time women dominated the top 10 was after Swift released her album Midnights last year, which made her the first artist ever to hold all top 10 spots simultaneously. Rolling Stone
– Dusting off anti-trust. FTC chair Lina Khan’s campaigns against massive corporations aren’t just reinvigorating the long-weakened government agency, they’re drawing attention from young law students. Antitrust departments at law schools across the country are seeing renewed enthusiasm from students that are forming a potential antitrust revolution in Khan’s image. Politico
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Exxon added former Goldman Sachs exec Dina Powell McCormick to its board of directors.
ON MY RADAR
How Rebecca Yarros packed dragons, magic and steamy sex into a blockbuster fantasy New York Times
‘Are you sitting down?’ The windfall that transformed NPR 20 years ago Washington Post
Tory Burch, Birkenstock, Skims, and the great fashion IPO debate Puck
PARTING WORDS
“I don’t want to be known as the woman that really took it, played it safe, and was silent—that’s just giving them what they want. I know so many men are uncomfortable with what I’m doing, and I love it. I’m going to keep doing it.”
—Alex Cooper, host of the Call Her Daddy podcast, on being assertive about what she wants
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