In latest sign of ambitions, KC Current hires Los Angeles Lakers exec as president
Since Angie and Chris Long and Brittany Matthews (now Mahomes) founded their club in the National Women’s Soccer League in December 2020, they’ve appealed to the imagination in countless ways:
Consider the inspired branding after their first season to morph into the Kansas City Current. They unveiled plans to fund and build a $15 million practice facility in Riverside set to open next month. And they enhanced their roster with dramatic offseason changes.
Most strikingly, they announced a virtually unprecedented ambition in the world of women’s sports to privately finance an 11,000-seat, $70 million stadium that will be the first women’s soccer-specific venue in the NWSL … and among the first in the world built for a professional women’s team. Groundbreaking in the Berkley Park riverfront on the south bank of the Missouri River is expected to be later this year.
(As their vision for the project has grown, including increased amenities for broader use and an 11,500-seat capacity, the price tag has since ballooned to $117 million with ownership’s private investment plans increasing to about $112 million as it now seeks $6 million in state tax incentives).
Now the Current is engaging another phase of the operation to effectively catalyze all this and more … and once again remind us of how boundless the club’s thinking is.
On Tuesday, the Current will announce the hiring of its first president: Allison Howard, who had been vice president of corporate partnerships for the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most popular and recognizable sports brands on Earth, the last five years.
“We are off to a really good start, but to take it to the next level it’s really helpful to have people who’ve been at that level,” Angie Long said in a phone interview.
Noting Howard’s “fantastic” credentials for brand-building and revenue generation, Long added: “I think it’s important to bring DNA and expertise into the club that we didn’t have. So we looked beyond just the NWSL, beyond just soccer and beyond just women’s sports and really focused (on) the best talent across the country for what we’re trying to do knowing that our mission is to raise the bar and take it to the next level.
“If you continue to just do things the same way you’ve always done them, then not a lot changes, and Allison just fit everything culturally that we’re trying to build.”
In a phone interview Friday, Howard said the move “really is a very natural next step for somebody like me” in no small part because of a passion for women’s sports that Long called understanding “what women’s sports should be.”
But Howard, who will oversee all business operations and report directly to ownership, also gushed about the commitment she has seen even beyond the context of women’s sports. The Current’s community priorities and players-first concept, she said, “is really going to be testament to how all sports franchises should be run.”
With the Lakers, according to the Current, she was vital in closing their most successful partnerships and led a corporate strategy that reaped more than $250 million in revenue through some 35 partners.
“The Lakers are a very established brand, and I’ve been there 10 years,” she said, laughing and adding, “I’ve got the playbook, and I’m going to use it.”
Just the same, she knows there are many distinctions between that climate and this one — including the difference between working for one of the most visible sports brands there is and one growing rapidly but still in its infancy.
But that’s part of what makes this enterprise so enticing for Howard, a University of Dayton graduate who grew up in Michigan and also has sought to return to this region of the country with her Midwest-native husband and two children.
“The interest in the momentum around the NWSL and women’s sports is at an all-time high, and there is no end in sight,” said Howard, who considers revenue generation her “sweet spot” and will prioritize local partnerships but also will work toward national and potentially even global connections. “A lot of companies are getting a lot smarter about the (return on investment) that is delivered from investing in women’s sports.”
Perhaps all the more so with an ownership group already investing so much, including in a women’s soccer stadium that she believes will create a ripple effect around the NWSL.
“We’re going to provide a blueprint,” Howard said, “for how things should be done.”
Stoking the imagination further yet for what the Current could do for Kansas City, the NWSL and women’s sports in general.
“I think the tailwinds right now in women’s sport are incredible, and momentum begets momentum and everyone is kind of seeing the possibilities,” Long said. “Everyone loves the game, right? But it’s about creating the right infrastructure and ecosystem for the players and the fans and all of our constituencies in the right way.
“And as that’s happening in Kansas City and with other teams within our league and other teams and leagues around the world, you can’t really go back.”