Serena Williams' husband Alexis Ohanian reveals 'sad' reasons behind underinvestment in women's sports beyond 'sexism and racism'

Serena Williams' husband and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian criticized systemic underinvestment in female athletics at the Forbes 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi. Ohanian claimed that a lack of investment in women's sports was not only a financial mistake but an obvious sign of bad decision-making by power elites.

The 41-year-old emphasized that women athletes have always had to perform at their best to gain opportunities, while male-dominated sports leadership has benefited from bad choices and underinvestment.

Ohanian contended that ignoring women's sports is not only sexism or racism but also bad business, damaging committed athletes and ignoring huge financial potential.

"If you spend any time with these professional athletes, what you know is that they don't have the privilege of being mediocre. The great irony, as we look back on the legacy of underinvestment in women's sports, is it won't just be sexism and racism, because that was there too. It'll also be just gross business negligence. And the women who played these sports for decades didn't have that privilege," Serena Williams' husband said.

"You're playing a zero-sum game in sports. Box score shows up at the end of every match. And if you don't do a good job, you gotta find something else to do. And again, the sad part is, we'll be able to look at the receipts, but you had predominantly men in positions of power in these leagues, across these things, who could get away with being mediocre for decades. And the ones who actually suffered were the athletes," he added.

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Serena Williams' husband Alexis Ohanian takes pride in his game-changing investments in women's sports

In Picture: Serena Williams' husband Alexis Ohanian (Source: Getty)

Alexis Ohanian has been a vocal supporter of women's sports, strategically investing to drive their development and financial value. In 2020, he became a lead investor of Angel City FC, making the NWSL team the most valuable women's sports franchise.

In 2024, he founded Athlos, a high-profile women's track meet in NYC, and made a game-changing gift to UVA's women's basketball program to empower female student-athletes at his alma mater.

Before his keynote session at Web Summit Qatar last month, Ohanian looked back on his significant impact on women's sports, stating:

"I stepped back from Reddit in 2020... And stepped into founding control owner to launch Angel City FC. Then produced Off Season reality show (100M views!). Then set records Athlos (3M viewers for our debut event; record-breaking prize). And still on the starting line."

In other news, Alexis Ohanian discussed the resistance he has faced in pursuing his billion-dollar vision for women's sports.