{"id":130245,"date":"2026-09-16T20:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T20:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/16\/why-cant-it-be-100-times-more-popular-ohanian-aims-high-with-womens-athlos-meeting-sean-ingle\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T20:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T20:45:19","slug":"why-cant-it-be-100-times-more-popular-ohanian-aims-high-with-womens-athlos-meeting-sean-ingle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/16\/why-cant-it-be-100-times-more-popular-ohanian-aims-high-with-womens-athlos-meeting-sean-ingle\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Why can\u2019t it be 100 times more popular?\u2019: Ohanian aims high with women\u2019s Athlos meeting | Sean Ingle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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T<\/span>he timing could hardly be better. After a week when the discourse around women\u2019s sport has been dominated by the actor Sydney Sweeney posing naked \u2013 and the intense backlash and counter-backlash<\/a> \u2013 London will stage a major all-female track\u2011and\u2011field event on Friday.<\/p>\n

A sell-out crowd at the Athlos meeting at the StoneX Stadium in Hendon will feature Britain\u2019s Keely Hodgkinson, along with the American stars Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall, competing for a prize fund of $1m (\u00a3750,000). There will be a red-carpet parade, celebrities galore and a celebration of the best of female sport.<\/p>\n

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The man behind it all, the US entrepreneur and investor Alexis Ohanian, believes this is just the start. Having made millions after cofounding the social media platform Reddit, and having set up the Angel City FC women\u2019s football team, he is betting that track and field will thrive because of to the running boom and the Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t go anywhere without seeing joggers, runners and run clubs,\u201d he says. \u201cLondon is a hotbed for it; the US, too. It is such an accessible sport. So why can\u2019t it be a hundred times more popular? Or even a thousand times more popular?\u201d<\/p>\n

We will talk more about that later, but Ohanian also has thoughts on Sweeney\u2019s controversial advert for the US sports prediction company Novig, and the reaction from hundreds of female athletes from around the globe. He is also aware that Sweeney then retaliated by sharing covers of semi\u2011nude athletes from ESPN magazine\u2019s Body Issue, including one of Ohanian\u2019s wife, Serena Williams \u2013 a post that many took to be implying hypocrisy among her critics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not even mad,\u201d Ohanian says. \u201cIf she wants to be naked for a commercial, that\u2019s great, fine. It\u2019s the false equivalence that I really support our athletes calling out about. The irony is my feed, at least, has been full of women athletes showing off, doing great women athlete stuff, which is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohanian also says that when an athlete poses for ESPN or Sports Illustrated it is very different. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to look very hard to find reasons to celebrate actual women athletes. There\u2019s a ton of them. They have massive followings. They have incredible stories. And, you know, them deciding to do an ESPN Body Issue is very obviously different from an actress just being naked for a commercial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are professional athletes who have devoted decades of their life towards a physical goal and their body is their r\u00e9sum\u00e9. So I have no problem understanding why it is totally OK for an athlete, man or woman, to pose naked tastefully. They are physically fit and showing it off because they grinded in the gym every morning to play football, ski, or whatever the hell they do.\u201d \u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Keely Hodgkinson is among the big names competing at the Athlos Meeting.<\/span> Photograph: D\u00e9nes Erd\u0151s\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ohanian makes for engaging company. But he is never more passionate than when making the case that women\u2019s sports will be far bigger in a decade. \u201cTen years from now, there will be multiple billion-dollar women\u2019s teams in basketball and soccer, and they will be doing at least a hundred million in revenue easily,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd Chelsea will be the first in England.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quality of play is also going to go up, because now there\u2019s a business behind women\u2019s sport,\u201d he says, pointing to how a young girl will get far better coaching and support than 10 or 20 years ago, as money and standards rise. \u201cWomen\u2019s tennis is an example of this because you can see the impact Serena and Venus made, where a decade later, the entire nature of women\u2019s tennis looks very different. Consciousness is warped by, or moulded by, excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohanian\u2019s journey into investing in women\u2019s sport began in March 2019 when he started tweeting about how women\u2019s football must be hugely undervalued given the USA women\u2019s soccer team was so successful and had millions of followers. \u201cI laid this all out in a rant and I finished it by saying: \u2018I\u2019m going to either start a team, or buy one, and who can help?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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