The Chicago Sky Operating Chairman and Co-owner discussed with Boardroom plans for a new practice facility and the team’s ascent under her watch.
In just over 18 months as the Chicago Sky‘s Operating Chairman and Co-owner, Nadia Rawlinson oversaw a key capital investment, helped hire Teresa Weatherspoon as head coach, assembled an exciting new core led by rookie sensations Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, and announced plans to build a new $38 million practice facility in Chicago in time for the 2026 season.
After stints in leadership at Slack, Live Nation, Rakuten, Groupon, and others, Rawlinson, a Stanford graduate and Harvard MBA, was in a position to think about where she wanted to spend her time and energy long-term. The Sky enjoyed tremendous success on the court, winning the 2021 WNBA championship, but needed to optimize its business and take advantage of women’s basketball’s tremendous ascent. That meant maximizing revenue, providing the best experience for fans to generate loyalty, generating sponsorship opportunities, and the team finding its place and sweet spot in a passionate Chicagoland market.
Rawlinson knows how to raise capital and deal with a board of directors, two skills that paid off handsomely when the Sky raised $8.5 million from eight investors last year at an $85 million valuation. Sportico recently valued the franchise at $95 million, which should increase considering the Dallas Wings recently sold a tiny stake in their team at a league-record $208 million valuation. She called the 2023 funding round critical for the franchise and instrumental in putting the plans to build the team facility in motion.
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Having that performance center in Chicago rather than its outskirts ensures elite infrastructure will be in place for the team to support its players and staff in an optimal way for the long haul even when they’re not playing games.
“It’s a promise that we set forward for our players, our employees, and our fans,” Rawlinson told Boardroom. “The league has evolved to a place where we can sustain our own practice facility, a place where we don’t play games and generate revenue. This is where you’re honing your skills and building up your confidence in areas of opportunity. You’re bonding as a team. And for our employees, it’s having something that’s exciting, fresh, and representative of where we’re going, not where we’ve been, and to be proud of coming to work every day. It’s another exciting place to focus.”
After shocking the league and winning their first and only WNBA championship in 2021 behind a veteran team led by Candace Parker, Kahleah Copper, Courtney Vandersloot, Diamond DeShields, and Allie Quigley, the Sky pivoted into a new era under Rawlinson’s leadership. The team split the general manager and coach roles, which had been combined for a long time, with Weatherspoon as coach and Jeff Pagliocca as general manager. That signaled, Rawlinson believes, the franchise’s growth and evolution.
She was extremely praiseworthy of Weatherspoon’s leadership and how she’s positively impacted its young roster, which is holding onto the league’s final playoff spot as the W returns from its long All-Star and Olympic break. Last Halloween, 19 days after hiring Weatherspoon, Pagliocca came aboard as GM and quickly went to work transforming a roster that had no 2024 first-round picks. A blockbuster deal with Phoenix on Feb. 6 sent Copper to the Mercury and returned two players and two first-rounders, including Cardoso.
The night before the April 15 draft, Pagliocca acquired the pick from Minnesota that eventually became Reese, who’s become an instant sensation on and off the court, a double-double machine with marketability and an “it factor” that extends far beyond basketball.
Last year’s fundraising, Rawlinson acknowledged, helped provide the Sky more leeway to implement a longer-term outlook and plan for the franchise, which made it easier to adjust and build around Reese and Cardoso.
“It just gives us more freedom when you have millions of dollars in the bank, where you can invest ahead of the curve,” she said. “It allows you to think more expansively from a growth mindset. That’s where we are as a franchise and that’s part of the role that I play coming in, re-setting the standard where we are and what we can and should shoot for.”
Reese, Cardoso, and Chennedy Carter are all 25 or younger, generating a ton of excitement for the Sky, with national TV ratings skyrocketing and home attendance at Wintrust Arena up over 20% with ticket price increases kicking in. And showing who these players are as people through social and digital media, Rawlinson said, has resonated with the local fan base. How, then, has the team converted all this goodwill into generating more revenue?
“We’re more valuable assets and a more valuable team. And with that, prices are going up, and it takes more to see us,” she said. “It’s great for the city to say we have a WNBA team that’s selling out arenas. So we play what the market will bear from a pricing perspective, and reinvest the deserved revenue generated based on the product and experience we’re delivering into the franchise for the fan experience, the organization itself, the practice facility, and expanding options that would be appealing to our fans with marketing and branding around the team even during the offseason.”
The thesis behind Rawlinson joining the Sky as a co-owner and executive was that the WNBA was a property with upside still in a growth phase, as evidenced by the new 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal that kicks in for the 2026 season. She just never anticipated it would grow the way it has and doesn’t think the league will level off or mature in the next five to 10 years.
“It’s still going to be something that’s a rocket ship,” Rawlinson said. “I stand on the fact that I think we are a growth property and there’s still tremendous upside.”
She’s hopeful that as the league grows, it won’t lose its soul and underdog spirit and still fight, scratch, and claw its way to authenticity, community, and the outsider mentality of the folks who built the W from the ground up, like Michael Alter, still the majority stakeholder who brought the WNBA to Chicago 20 years ago.
Under Rawlinson’s leadership, the Sky are building a bright and prosperous present and future, on a positive trajectory matching the league’s surging momentum.
“We’re in this place where we are evolving, forming, and performing together,” she said. “And once that gels and comes together, I think we’ll be unstoppable.”
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