In 2025, the overall billing of women's sport of elite will exceed 2,000 million euros, which will mean 35% more compared to the previous year, when only football generated half of a business volume that does not stop growing. It is a market that is on their way to maturity that provide initiatives such as Mercury/13, investment group founded in 2023 by Mario Malavé and Victoire Cagevinatwo experienced entrepreneurs who decided to take a joint turn to their lives focusing on football practiced by women as the great opportunity for growth in the professional sport of the 21st century.
From the company's own name, Mercury/13 A purpose has been built, as it refers to a group of women who trained in the 60s to be astronauts in the US. They were excluded, but his name reflects the spirit of claim and rupture of barriers that he has accompanied to the first investment fund dedicated exclusively to women's football.
In a context of clubs-states and multipropiety, such as the one that flags the City Group or Red Bull, Mercury/13 has decided to revolutionize the industry for “half of the audience that has not been heard for a century.” And to convert the desire into reality, on March 4, 2024 they bought as Women of Italy, the first of a series of acquisitions that will carry out a group determined to change the rules of the game.
Where does Mario Malavé's passion begin for football? Because Mercury/13 is a very passionate bet, both in the background and shape.
As a good Latin American, football was not even a decision. My parents handed it to me. Simply, since I have memory, it has been my passion in life. First as a player and then in another role. I looked and found a way to reorient my career to continue enjoying this sport. My experience starts working for a team in the MLS, a league that, with the 'Messi effect', has changed a lot. In 2018 I had the opportunity to work in a team in Los Angeles, at the time where Carlos was playing there. But I am a football fan since I have reason.
In the end, you got a synergy between two worlds, that of the company, with your culture that comes from the world 'start-up' and football.
Indeed. Before starting my career as an entrepreneur, I started my career in investment benches and working in 'Venture Capital' as the founder of an entrepreneurship company. I did it very early, from the investor's side, not the entrepreneur. After doing so many transactions I realized that I really wanted to be on the other side of the negotiating table and to be an entrepreneur too. I made a two -year master in Harvard, specialized in business. There I incubated my first venture. I founded a company in the sports betting sector. This occurred at the same time that this sector became legal in the US. Obviously, it was a very old market in the rest of the world. It was not a great bettor, in fact I did not like the sector too much because of the harmful effects it can have for people. Then, we design a concept where people had a healthier relationship with bets, generating an exchange between friends. It ended up being bought by Yahoo Sports three years later.
I had an instantaneous connection with Victoire Cagevina. She was the one who opened my eyes to the potential of women's football. He told me: “Forget about the masculine, where everything is already done. The true 'start up' of football is the feminine.” And so everything started
There enters Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and the Angel City FC, a very disruptive female team, with shareholders such as Natalie Portman or Serena Williams, his wife.
Exact. Alexis led our first round. It was he who introduced me to Victire, my current partner. We had an instant connection, and she was the one who opened my eyes to the potential of women's football. He told me: “Forget about the masculine, where everything is already done. The true 'start up' of football is the feminine.” And so everything started. I had a coffee with Victoire that ended up extending two hours talking about pure football. He opened my eyes on the potential that Women's football had. Because I came with many ideas from the point of view of the business: how to manage a club, develop it and manage it in a more modern way. In short, to create more sources of income. This happened in 2020, when we were both very busy with our companies. Three years later, for reasons of chance, she sells her company and I mine. And there was born our venture. We join forces and found Mercury/13.
Women's football continues to be an incipient industry, but it is already a strategic commitment that until does nothing. Didn't you feel vertigo at the beginning?
Yes, completely. But that is why our profile of being entrepreneurs, what we say in English, 'Second Time Founders', in our first venture, was a bit to repeat the story. It was a bet to generate growth towards the future and create value in the future, not because one or the other clubs were generating income. So, just both we threw each other head, because it was not the first time in our races that we took great risk. When you are doing an entrepreneurship, one of the signs that you are at the right time is that there are not many people doing the same. Because if everyone is doing the same, you're going a little late, which is a bit what happens to us now, when women's football is already in fashion. Thanks to the fact that we start early, we are in a position where we can already have a well -developed club, how, and we are already looking for others. We are more advanced than other competitors who are now beginning to think that there is an opportunity in the 'Futfem'.
How would you convince other potential actors to be part of women's football?
It is a long -term opportunity. Truly, we see the value of being able to speak to an audience that has been broadly ignored by the most beautiful sport in the world for almost a century. That is the idea, that is, half of the world has never been the main audience for football. Yes they have enjoyed it; Obviously women have consumed football, but it has never been the main audience and from an economic business point of view it does not make much sense because women control much more expense and economic influence than men, but football has ignored them. We are already overcoming the empowerment vector. Obviously, it looks like step 0 to 1 and has a lot of merit. We celebrate it, but we really do not launch Mercury/13 as an NGO for trying to promote only gender equality. This is something that gives good faith of our work, of what we are proud, but really the next step is the viability of women's football and economic merits. You have to activate the entire other part of the world to consume this sport. Women's football will not be viable if you simply think about charity. We are already ready for the second step, which is the opposite. There are incredible stories for telling, like the ones we have met in how Women.
In March 2024, you decide, after several negotiations, with teams such as the Lewes FC English, convert to Mercury/13 owner of the Women. Why do you choose it as the first club to invest?
Because it is a team that brings together many of the things that excites us of women's football: a duality of commercial and sports project that had been very competitive with budgets lower than those of its competitors. That is something that for us has a lot of value, because the people who are in that club in the sports field have that know-how to know how to be competitive with teams such as Juventus, Inter, Milan, Fiorentina or Rome that are great clubs in the women's sector. However, he had always had a good performance. In addition, it is in a very attractive place, next to the famous lake such as, an ideal place to create and enhance an independent brand, not linked to a male club. We give a lot of value to that.
Most teams are not treating their women's section as these two examples. The problem is that two companies face each other, a male, with a future, and a female, which is rather entrepreneurship. It grows, but spends. It demands an investment plan, perhaps, projected in a decade. But it is a pity, because if these teams separate and become part of someone who really interested them, they would be enhanced
Most women's teams, especially in Spain, are linked to male structures. Yours no. What virtues and defects do each of the models have?
I love the question. It is something that we think a lot, because obviously when we see the world of investment there are these two types of clubs: independents or integrated. In this second route, there are teams, such as Barça, who have taken it very seriously. The same is doing the arsenal. It is no accident that both have seen each other in the Champions League final. Although it is true that most teams are not treating their women's section as these two examples. The problem is that two companies face each other, a male, with a future, and a female, which is rather entrepreneurship. It grows, but spends. It demands an investment plan, perhaps, projected in a decade. But it is a pity, because if these teams separate and become part of someone who really interested them, they would be enhanced. It is what we are looking for. When an owner of a women's club is not interested, he gives me sadness. Mercury/13 expands the strategic value.
How is the women's football ecosystem in Italy? What differences are there with Spain?
Still behind Spain, which has been a pioneer. But Italy has a great strength: a very high concentration of historical brands. Juve, Milan, Inter, Roma, Fiorentina … half of the competers against giants. It is a very competitive, tactical league, with less possession than the Spanish, but with the potential for the development and export of talent.
You already have as settled. What are the next steps of Mercury/13? Are there plans for Spain?
We want to become multiclub. Today we only have one, but we are actively looking for. We evaluate teams in the United Kingdom and Spain, and later perhaps in France and Germany. We are going very fast, and sometimes I lose the perspective, but we have been just a long and a lot of just a year and a half. Of course, each operation takes time and complexity. But the road is clear.
Without a doubt, a broad challenge for women's football. How do you imagine the future?
His future is in commercial development. Unlike the male, here television rights cover nothing. Survival goes through sponsorships, brand, visibility. We invest, yes, but we do not want to subsidize eternally: we want to demonstrate that this can be a viable business. In the next five years we will see an explosion of commercial agreements, sponsorships, activations … that will then improve the fan experience, the stadiums, the retransmissions. But first: income. So my prediction is that the next five years will be a cycle where with many more sponsors. Not of investors, but of companies that want visibility and return. They want to support a movement that is obviously much more symbolic and goes beyond sport, because it entails many other things that you can offer a sponsor. That will be the next chapter and there we will be to write it.
