The Pitch Deck the WNBA’s Seattle Storm Used to Raise $21 Million

Since 2008, the WNBA’s Seattle Storm has been owned by three local businesswomen: Lisa Brummel, Ginny Gilder, and Dawn Trudeau.

The trio of season-ticket holders and one other since-departed owner banded together to keep the basketball team in Seattle when the franchise considered following their NBA counterparts, the SuperSonics, to Oklahoma City.

Their first decade owning the Storm was about learning how to run the business, Brummel told Insider. But after muscling through the renovation of their home arena and the hardships of winning the championship in the WNBA’s 2020 pandemic bubble — the “wubble” to fans — the three decided it was time to make a big investment in their players.

They landed on a dedicated practice facility — not a temporary fix or a college gym — something no WNBA team had at the time.

The problem?

“We did a quick back of the napkin calculation, and it’s like, ‘Well, we’re not going to be able to pay for this,'” Brummel said.

The solution?

The trio hand-picked 12 investor groups — mostly made up of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ — who had previously expressed interest and pitched them on buying small portions of the team. The ownership group closed in February 2023 a $21 million raise, Brummel said, which will go toward the new $64 million facility and working capital.

The team was valued in the sale at $151 million, the highest valuation in the league. The next highest-valued team, the Chicago Sky, is worth $85 million.

“It’s not your average sports story,” Brummel said. “It’s not, ‘The billionaire throws a bunch of money and buys it for $6 billion and then spends a hundred million on this, that, and the other.’ This is like, ‘You buy it, you build it, you build it again, you keep building it.’ That’s just what we do.”

A major step forward for ‘The W’

The kind of facility the Storm is building is typical for major men’s professional sports leagues, but it’s still new for the WNBA.

The Las Vegas Aces opened a dedicated space earlier this year, but several teams still practice on college campuses or otherwise share facilities.

The Seattle Storm currently practice in the basement gym of Seattle Pacific University, where Brummel said they get four hours of access per day. The players clean out their lockers when they head home for the day. The team’s championship trophies aren’t housed in a display case but rather sit in a store room.

The Storm’s new home, set to open in March 2024, will house players, marketers, ownership, caterers, championship trophies, and art installations representing the team’s legacy — primarily created by Black artists — all under one roof.

Brummel said the players have had a say in what furniture and tech goes into the building. The center will be located downtown near the Storm’s arena and players’ apartments.

“You own it, 24/7, it’s yours and yours alone,” Brummel said of the players. “It’s built for you.”

Landing a key investor over breakfast

Brummel, Gilder, and Trudeau weren’t targeting typical sports investors to finance their new project — only a couple of their investors have stakes in other professional teams, Brummel said.

Investing in the WNBA wasn’t the most obvious choice for Michelle Cardinal.

“I don’t know anything about basketball,” Cardinal told Insider,” full disclosure.”

But the media executive noticed the rapid growth of women’s sports as a key business area, led by booming viewership and attendance, and decided to hop on board.

“This thing is just going to take off and I want to be a part of it,” Cardinal said. “I don’t have to be an expert in basketball to understand that this is a massive trend happening right before my eyes, and it’s affecting my business.”

A mutual friend introduced her to Gilder for a Zoom call, during which the Storm owner mentioned a potential future investment round that piqued Cardinal’s interest.

During a different phone call, Brummel realized Cardinal lived around the corner from her daughter. Cardinal invited Brummel over for breakfast and talked for hours about the raise.

Cardinal decided she was in and became the lead investor of the raise.

“What we’ve actually done is curated a list of people who really care about the team,” Brummel said. “They care about the evolution of the WNBA. They care about women’s sports.”

The owners prepared a 28-page pitch deck for investors about the Storm’s success on and off the court, the growth of women’s sports, and their goals for the new practice facility.

Here are 14 key slides from the original deck that convinced investors to join the Storm:

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