DEL MAR, Calif. — One year ago, after Alex Morgan announced to the world in a video that she was pregnant and retiring with almost immediate effect, she sat in her car alone and cried.
“I was like OK, it’s out there. Now I’m going to enjoy it,” she told ESPN in a sit-down interview.
Morgan’s 15-year career — which included two World Cup titles, an Olympic gold medal and multiple major club trophies — ended abruptly, but she’d already been working for years on her next chapter to come in the world of business.
Morgan was the face of the U.S. women’s national team and arguably the most famous female athlete globally for over a decade. She grew to such fame that she transcended the sport, signing deals with Coca-Cola and Nike, appearing in commercials with NBA star LeBron James and even receiving her own custom Barbie. Along the way, she observed how the business of sports operates, but also how it failed female athletes with minimal media coverage and low salaries ($6,000 was the minimum when the NWSL launched in 2013).
Now, Morgan is a minority investor in San Diego Wave FC, the last team she last played for, along with other investments including the new 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, Unrivaled. In 2019, in the prime of her career, she co-founded the content brand Togethxr with fellow athletes and Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird, Simone Manuel, and Chloe Kim.
“I just realized that there are so many ways for athletes to carry on their business far past their playing career and to make a business of it, of their brand, far past their playing days,” Morgan said. “That’s what I’ve tried to set up the last five to eight years.
“And I think that’s why I was so at peace with retiring from playing soccer, because I didn’t retire and wake up the next day going, ‘What’s next?’ I already had so many different things in motion — it wasn’t like figuring the next thing out as one door closed and the next door opened. I was juggling a lot of things at once and trying to learn a lot of new things off the field.”
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Morgan’s hands-on experience at the highest level of sport is why other businesswomen have invested in her. Olivia Walton, the founder of Ingeborg Investments — which focuses on women-led, early-stage startups — met Morgan at a conference for women in venture capital. The two shared a vision “from the beginning,” said Walton, who joined Togethxr as an investor earlier this year.
Morgan’s achievements as a player were part of the selling point to Walton.
“Alex approaches business the same way she approaches competition — with curiosity, intensity, and purpose,” Walton told ESPN via email. “She sees opportunities others miss because she’s lived the athlete’s journey, and she brings an authenticity that’s rare in this space.”
Togethxr’s primary business is branded studio content, including films focused on women athletes. The company said it was profitable last year and claimed it saw a large increase in revenue (to $30 million) and valuation.
“That 360-degree perspective is unmatched, and it makes her one of the most important voices shaping the future of the game,” Walton said. “Few people can walk into a room and be listened to equally by players, sponsors, and investors like Alex can.”
That is high praise for someone whose business experience has been, by Morgan’s own admission, learning as she goes. Morgan studied political economics at Cal-Berkeley, but she was becoming a household name with the USWNT before she even graduated college — where she “was very head down, driven to be the best soccer player I could possibly be.”
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Alex Morgan looks back on her first-ever USWNT goal
Alex Morgan reacts to her first goal for the USWNT in a friendly vs. China.
These days, Morgan is busy beyond Togethxr. For one, she is now a mom of two, telling ESPN that she tries to find balance in simple ways like stepping out to take a walk.
Through Trybe Ventures, the investment arm she has with her husband, Servando Carrasco, she also has a stake in roughly two dozen companies ranging from media to sports technology. Among their other investments are the Los Angeles Golf Club in The Golf League, and Classic Football Shirts, a company focused on nostalgic soccer kits.
Dan Levy, who has been Morgan’s agent since she first became a professional soccer player, said it’s rare to find an athlete who can successfully navigate business ventures in the prime of their career.
“A lot of athletes struggle with trying to figure out how to manage their career and be the best at what they do on the field, on the court, and at the same time, put in the time, effort, and work to build their business outside of it,” he told Variety recently.
Today, Morgan leans on those athlete experiences — and the expertise of partners like Walton — to sharpen herself as a businessperson.
“I’m learning in this new space every single day,” Morgan said. “It’s very humbling and it’s also really challenging in a lot of ways — in a good way, in the way that I was challenged on the soccer field every day. I feel like I rely on a lot of the skills that I learned in soccer, a lot of the personal character-building skills that I can apply to business.”
Morgan made a quick transition from player to team owner for the Wave, retiring last September and joining the team as an investor in May.
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Morgan reflects on ‘impossible’ dream playing soccer
Alex Morgan says never in her “wildest dreams” would she see San Diego Wave retire her. No. 13 jersey.
Last year, amid turmoil for the Wave on and off the field that included allegations from former employees of a toxic work environment, Morgan prominently spoke as an active player, tweeting “it is clear that there is so much work to be done.” Since then, the team has fully transitioned ownership to the Levine Leichtman family and turned over its front office, including the December departure of former team president Jill Ellis, who along with the club denied allegations made by previous employees. (Ellis filed a defamation lawsuit, while the employees are suing the Wave and the NWSL.)
Asked what has changed with the club in just over a year and why she invested, Morgan said that one of the reasons she wanted to invest is to provide feedback from the perspective of a former player. She said she wants to provide mentorship to young players, several of whom on the Wave are teenagers. Twenty-four-year-old defender Kennedy Wesley said after the Wave retired Morgan’s No. 13 jersey on Sept. 7 that she grew up with a poster of Morgan on her wall.
Morgan was more than just a great player who scored 123 international goals. She was a central figure in the USWNT’s fight against the U.S. Soccer Federation for equal pay, which it achieved via settlement in 2022 after a six-year fight. She was also an active participant in the NWSL’s collective bargaining negotiations, and one of the prominent voices in the fight against the NWSL’s previous inaction against abuses.
Her public statements contributed to the firing of Paul Riley from the North Carolina Courage for alleged previous sexual misconduct with players, and to the ousting of former NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird for her handling of the complaints.
Morgan said the NWSL has significantly improved from “the leanest years” when it launched with her as a player in 2013, and from the league’s recent overhaul following what multiple investigations revealed as “systemic” abuse.
Players have obtained more agency and workplace protection through the new CBA. One specific new policy Morgan pointed to is the ability to take paid mental health leave, as multiple players in the NWSL have done this year.
“That just didn’t exist a couple of years ago,” Morgan said. “I attempted to do that with the national team and then I was not called back in for six or seven months because of it, because of raising my hand and saying I need a break, I just had a baby, and I need to step away for this next camp. And then I wasn’t invited back for six or seven months.
“Players now can do that without repercussion. Everyone needs a break at some point or another, whether it’s in their second year or 15th year playing soccer, playing sports, in their job. The ability to be able to do that is something that’s new and I feel like I’ve advocated for players to be able to be able to be the driving force of this league.
“There is no league without players, so let’s treat them right, let’s give them all the resources we could possibly do like with financial literacy, with mental stability, with family planning, whatever it may be. I have fought for those things both as a player and now as an owner.”
Morgan has long known she has a large platform. Her voice has directly driven change in the NWSL and U.S. Soccer, and that hands-on approach remains. “She’s not just lending her name — she’s in the meetings, driving ideas forward, and shaping the vision,” Walton said. “That level of commitment is rare.”
Morgan’s commitment to growth is embodied by the slogan made famous by Togethxr: “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.” It’s a campaign increasingly plastered across apparel, but it’s also statistically backed (even if slightly exaggerated) by rising media deals, attendance, and valuations across women’s sports. Women’s sports have become big business.
NWSL teams have increased from $2 million sales five years ago to a $250 million sale of Angel City FC last year. Transfer fees crossed the $1 million mark for the first time in January and the world record fell on multiple occasions since as teams invest more in players.
Morgan teased another forthcoming investment in women’s sports “soon” when she spoke with ESPN. This is her new life, one that traded her boots for the boardroom and her foundation for equity in sports.
Morgan is learning day to day on the fly, but she knows one thing firsthand: “Listen, anyone who’s smart is getting into investing in women’s sports.”
