Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and supermodel Karlie Kloss are among a “who’s who” of new investors that have bought a limited partnership stake in the New York Liberty.
Last week, team owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai sold the stake at a reported $450 million valuation, a record for a women’s professional sports franchise. The equity raise was expected to be between 10% and 20%, though the exact price tag was not announced.
Ma and Joe Tsai’s relationship goes back to the late 1990s, when Tsai joined Ma in launching Alibaba. Tsai serves as chairman of the Chinese ecommerce giant and is the second-biggest stakeholder.
The 60-year-old Ma had not been seen in public since 2020 until a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping and several business leaders in February. Speculation on his whereabouts had been rampant since he criticized banks in China about their supposed “lack of innovation.”
A greatly diminished public profile has not impacted his wealth, however. Ma’s net worth is reported to be $26.7 billion, making him the 74th-richest person in the world.
Another new investor into the team, Metropolitan Capital Advisors co-founder and CEO Karen Finerman, is already an investor in the W. Finerman is part of the consortium that invested $75 million into the league back in 2022, a group that includes Nike, Michael Dell, Linda Henry, Dee Haslam, Condoleezza Rice, Micky Arison and Laurene Powell Jobs. This group, which also includes Tsai and Washington Mystics owner Ted Leonsis, owns 16% of the league.
In March, Sportico reported that the 2022 consortium’s shares in equity and revenue will not be impacted by the ongoing league expansion, but the WNBA owners’ shares would be diluted by the addition of new franchises.
Another member of the investor group, Gabrielle Rubenstein, is the co-founder and managing partner of Manna Tree, a health-focused private equity firm. She also has major sports ties; her father is private equity magnate David Rubenstein, who purchased full control of the Orioles in March 2024 after the death of founding owner Peter Angelos.
Philanthropist Samantha Lasry is another new Liberty investor. The daughter of former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, Samantha worked in the Africa bureau of the State Department under former presidential candidate and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Marc Lasry sold his stake in the Bucks in 2023 and pulled out of a deal to buy the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage last year. His fund remains invested in SailGP, golf’s TGL and Professional Bull Riders.
Kloss, a supermodel and television host, is married to Thrive Capital managing partner Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former advisor Jared Kushner. Joshua is a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies.
The sixth member of the group is Thasunda Brown Duckett, the president and CEO of TIAA, the retirement services provider. A former athlete, Brown Duckett has held the post since May 2021 when she became just the fourth Black woman to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She is also a member of Nike’s board of directors.
The new capital will be focused on the development of the Liberty’s new practice facility, as the champs were the latest WNBA team to join the training facility arms race. The new digs, which will be in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, are projected to open ahead of the 2027 WNBA season.
The latest capital raise comes almost a year after the Tsais sold a 15% stake in Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment Global (BSE Global)—the holding company of the Liberty, the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center—to Julia Koch. That stake was sold at a $6 billion valuation, with the Liberty being valued at nearly $250 million in the deal.
The Liberty ranked third in last year’s Sportico WNBA franchise valuations list at $130 million, and they drew $18 million in revenue in 2023, the last full season available. The Tsais bought the founding franchise from Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan for between $10 and $14 million in 2019.
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