In August, the Carolina Ascent FC professional women’s soccer team announced that Martina Navratilova had become a minority owner. The team plays in the top level of U.S. women’s soccer, and its majority owner is former Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco.
That’s cool but kind of expected, your correspondent thought. I assumed it was one of many investments in sports by Navratilova, who ranks with Serena Williams and Steffi Graf as the greatest women’s tennis players in history.
You know what they say about assumptions.
Navratilova, 68, visited Charlotte this weekend to attend the Ascent’s game Sunday vs Sporting Jax. (Sadly, a 4-3 loss for the locals.)
Baby boomers will recall how the Czech national was portrayed by the media early in her career as a threat to beloved American tennis star Chris Evert. Navratilova defected from Czechoslovakia and became a U.S. citizen in 1981. The Evert-Navratilova rivalry was one of sports’ biggest stories during that era. The two are now close friends.
I interviewed the tennis icon during her stop by the new headquarters of Dress for Success in west Charlotte. The nonprofit is best known for providing unemployed or underemployed women with clothes for corporate interviews. Now, its fastest-growing effort involves career coaching and counseling.
Navratilova joined several Ascent players in helping paint the new offices, which Executive Director Emily Wheeler says will enable the group to have a much bigger impact. The winner of the World Tennis Association seven times between 1979 and 1986 actually did some taping and painting, dressed in black pants and a T-shirt.
When she put down her brush, Navratilova shared some surprising comments:
- The Ascent is her first investment in a sports team.
- She’s never been on a corporate board.
- Her first visit to North Carolina was for a 1973 U.S. Tennis Association professional tennis tournament in Charlotte, staying with a local family and learning how to drive a Chevrolet Nova. Her main memory is her difficulty understanding locals because of their thick Southern accents.
- Empowering women, whether it’s Ascent soccer players or young women affiliated with Dress for Success, is one of her key motivators.
When her agent connected her with DiMicco through the Octagon sports management group, Navratilova agreed to make an undisclosed investment in the team. A distant family member played for the Czech national team, though she doesn’t consider herself a rabid soccer fan.
The DiMicco-Navratilova connection isn’t the Odd Couple, but it has its ironies. He is a staunch conservative who was a key trade adviser to Donald Trump during the president’s first term. He says Trump has held strong views on the destructive impact of “free trade” for decades.
Navratilova is an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ rights. More recently, she’s made news for opposing transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports.
Despite years of effort by her agency, she hasn’t gained entry to corporate boardrooms.
“As a gay woman, the sponsorships weren’t there,” she says. “And even to this day, when it comes to getting on boards of companies, everyone wants a freebie. The charities love me. There’s a proven track record where professional athletes are really good at business, because all of the lessons we learned to succeed in sports apply to real life. Of course, they apply to business as well.”
Women athletes rarely appear on commercials compared with their male peers, she notes.
“We’re an afterthought,” she adds. “I know I could contribute because I have such a vast wealth of experience.”
She says her main joy now are the two young boys she adopted last year with her wife Julia Lemigova, who is on the cast of the “Real Housewives of Miami” reality TV show.
Now, she also enjoys the opportunity to support the Ascent, whose stated goals are to grow the women’s soccer game, elevate the community, and support a more sustainable future for area residents. Other owners include Jim and Kelly McPhilliamy, and the Empower HER Fund, which is supported by local female investors.
The team recently formed a five-year partnership with Dress for Success, and DiMicco is helping the group raise money
“It’s not just about soccer, it’s about impacting the community. The exponential effect this team will have on this town and particularly women and girls, you can’t buy that,” Navratilova says.
David Mildenberg is editor of Business North Carolina. Reach him at dmildenberg@businessnc.com.