November 8, 2025
USC girls’s basketball star Juju Watkins is making historical past together with her minority stake in a sports activities franchise.
College of Southern California girls’s basketball star Juju Watkins is making historical past as one of many first faculty athletes to safe possession of a sports activities crew.
Introduced on Nov. 6, Watkins scored a minority stake in NWSL’s Boston Legacy FC, Bloomberg studies. Whereas particulars of the deal stay underneath wraps, Watkins sees the partnership as a step past the huge NIL offers faculty athletes are utilizing to kickstart their wealth portfolios.
“If you’re speaking about fairness, these alternatives don’t come round as usually as endorsements, so this raised my eyebrows and piqued my curiosity much more,” Watkins mentioned.
Watkins joins Boston FC C’s traders alongside Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams, Indiana Fever star Aliyah Boston, and actress Elizabeth Banks. Workforce President Jennifer van Dijk highlighted that the varied roster is a strategic transfer to faucet into the traders’ experience throughout the membership’s operations.
Since faculty athletes have been allowed to revenue from their identify, picture, and likeness (NIL), prime gamers have gained important wealth from offers that have been as soon as prohibited. Watkins has capitalized on this, incomes an estimated $750,000 to $1 million by way of endorsements with Gatorade, AT&T, State Farm, Unmatched, and a multi-year Nike deal.
Boston Unity Soccer Companions, the holding firm for Boston Legacy FC, is led by controlling proprietor Jennifer Epstein, the daughter of former Celtics co-owner Robert Epstein. Monarch Sports activities Collective, a non-public fairness fund targeted on girls’s sports activities, can also be an investor. The group paid a $53 million enlargement payment and secured financing of over $100 million for stadium development.
Together with her franchise funding, Watkins additionally backed OffBall, a sports activities media model based in 2024 by business veterans Michaela Hammond, Adam Mendelsohn, and Chris Stone. She joins LeBron James and Naomi Osaka amongst its traders.
“Working with JuJu and what that presents is being relentless in our mission and persevering with to attempt to create participating content material throughout the spectrum, whether or not that be vertical video, IP-driven, by way of partnerships, activations, nothing is off the desk,” Hammond mentioned.
RELATED CONTENT: Nike Hosts 12 Feminine Sports activities Figures For 4th Athlete Assume Tank
