Fenway Sports Group partner Linda Pizzuti Henry is part of a $75m (£55m) investment into the elite competition in American women's basketball, the WNBA.
Pizzuti Henry, the wife of FSG supremo and Liverpool principal owner John W Henry, is part of a group of investors who have provided a capital injection into the WNBA in a bid to grow the competition, with the $75m investment the largest capital raise in women's sports history.
The investment from Pizzuti Henry, who serves as CEO of the Boston Globe newspaper that her husband owns privately, has also been made privately and has not been done through FSG.
Also part of the investor list is former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice; Liverpool kit suppliers Nike; US Olympic hockey player and CEO of the Boston-based Sports Innovation Lab, Angela Ruggiero; Michael and Susan Dell of Dell Technologies; and NBA legend Baron Davis, among others.
READ MORE: 'Not a good deal' - ex-Porto star makes Luis Diaz claim after Liverpool transfer
Other investors include current NBA and WNBA owners such as Joe and Clara Tsai Iof the New York Liberty and Brooklyn Nets; Ted Leonsis of the Washington Mystics and Washington Wizards; and Micky and Nick Arison of the Miami Heat.
As with much of American sport right now, the WNBA had been seeking to bring in new money to accelerate their growth ambitions, and when they were identifying who would be a good fit for equity partners, Pizzuti Henry was on the list to approach.
"Supporting professional women’s sports is a way of celebrating strength and hard work, showing girls around the world what they are capable of," Henry, who had explored the possibility of acquiring a women's sports team in Boston, told the Boston Globe.
"My daughter, Sienna, grew up going to a lot of sporting events, and was around six years old when she asked me, ‘Are girls allowed to play baseball?'.
"I was confused — of course they are — but then I realized that she hadn’t seen women play professional sports. She didn’t know if it was possible for her, because she had only seen men do it. I sought out ways to show my daughter women’s sports, got some books on star female athletes, and I worked with the Red Sox to launch a sporty female mascot, Tessie.
"I am bullish on sports in general, and excited about how women’s sport leagues have been growing in the US."
While Pizzuti Henry's investment into the WNBA has been done away from FSG, it represents more confidence in the path of investing in sports in 2022.
FSG concluded a $900m deal to acquire the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL ice hockey team in November while the Reds owners are interested in the future acquisition of an NBA team to add to a sporting empire worth more than $9bn that includes Liverpool, the Boston Red Sox, the Penguins and the RFK Racing NASCAR team.
