Interview: The Olympique Lyon-strategy behind the purchase of a US women's team

It is hard to argue with Vincent Berthillot when he says Olympique Lyon is the best women's football team in Europe.

In August, the club secured a fifth successive Champions League title, the club's seventh overall. They have also won the French title for 14 consecutive seasons.

Now OL Groupe, the listed parent company that includes the Lyon men's and women's teams, wants to replicate the team's success in arguably the world's biggest market for women's football.

At the end of last year, OL Groupe confirmed it had taken over National Women’s Soccer League side Reign FC, in a $3.51 million deal (€2.96m). OL Group own 89.5 per cent of the Washington state-based club – since renamed OL Reign – and previous owner Bill Predmore retained 7.5 per cent. Predmore remains chief executive.

Pelé Academia

Berthillot, who moved from France to became chief operating officer at OL Reign, tells offthepitch.com there were sporting and business reasons for the deal.

"We thought that if we are able to build a very strong team here, which is able to win the NWSL championship pretty much each year, that would be really incredible for us," he says.

"To be able to say that we have the two best women's teams in the world – one in the US and one in Europe."

A US presence is part of the company's strategy to take the Olympique Lyon brand to international markets. Working with Chinese private equity firm IDG Capital, which owns 20 per cent of OL Groupe, businesses focused on football academies and esports are being developed in China. In Brazil, the group has a partnership with Pelé Academia "which will train, we hope, the best Brazilian players in the future".

"We really wanted to enter the US market and we felt that entering this market through women's soccer, which is one of our areas of expertise in France, was a really good way to do so," Berthillot says.

A desire to be competitive from their first season under new ownership led the group to target the takeover of an existing club, rather than building an expansion team. The new owners showed they meant business by securing the NWSL playing rights for US Women's national team regular, Rose Lavelle. The unusual deal for the Women's World Cup winner, currently contracted to Manchester City, means when she returns to play in the US, she will either be an OL Reign player or theirs to trade.

"Acquiring her rights is part of the strategy we have to build a really strong team with young players for the future. The ambition is to have the same dominant position in the US as in France," Berthillot says.

"In terms of investment, there are some special rules here in the US because there is a salary cap. So you cannot put as much money as you want in the team for the wages of the players, you have to deal with this rule. But clearly, the ambition is to build the strongest team in the US."

As well as the "shared values" with previous owner Predmore, Reign was appealing for its geographic location. The club is based in Tacoma, about 34 miles south of Seattle.

"We were really interested by the Seattle market because this is a really dynamic market with lots of huge companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia and so on," Berthillot says.

"From a business perspective, that's really interesting to be in that kind of area where there is potential to get big sponsors and to bring more people into the stadium."

Houllier is technical director

The team was renamed and given a new logo to align it with Lyon and there are further plans to raise awareness of the French club's brand in the US. Common content between the two clubs will be created, especially for social media channels, and they will play one another in friendly matches in France and the US. Former French-American NBA star Tony Parker, who owns three per cent of OL Reign, is also expected to help boost the OL brand in America.

In building the brand, the group hopes to attract global sponsors interested in having visibility in both France and the US. There is also a plan to "build as many synergies as possible between the two clubs, both on the playing side and the business side."

One decision was to appoint Farid Benstiti, a former Lyon head coach, as head coach of OL Reign. And Gerard Houllier, the former manager of Liverpool's men's team, has been named technical director of both Lyon's women's team and OL Reign. There is a strategy to share coaches where possible, as well as knowledge from academies, data analysis and commercial and marketing departments.

"We want to bring here the knowledge we have in France regarding the training of young players," Berthillot says.

"We have really expanded in France, the club is really big. So we need to capitalise on everything we know in France to help the club here to grow."

Match day income is the revenue driver

Like all football clubs, OL Reign's first season has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The NWSL regular season was cancelled and replaced with two tournaments, including the Challenge Cup, which was played "in a bubble" without fans. Berthillot says ticketing revenue is "the most important source of revenue" for women's teams in the US, accounting for between one third and half of OL Reign's income.

However, the Challenge Cup, held in June and July, drew record TV audiences, becoming the most viewed matches in the history of the NWSL. In total, domestic TV viewership of the NWSL was up nearly 500 per cent compared to last year.

It is a trend that follows a spike in interest in women's football in recent years, with last year's Women's World Cup in France attracting record audiences. The average live match TV audience was 17.27 million viewers, according to FIFA, more than double the average for the 2015 competition.

The OL Groupe had already made the decision to acquire a team in the US before the most-recent Women's World Cup, which had its final in Lyon. Though Berthillot says the success of the tournament "reinforced our willingness to move forward with the project".

"That was proof that people are ready to see more women's soccer. And I think that women's soccer also conveys great values, such as gender equality, which are more and more important for people today. In terms of sponsorship, I think women's soccer will be a great platform for brands to communicate in the future," he says.

No short-term plan to acquire other clubs

"We think there's definitely room for growth in sponsorship revenue. And for ticketing and broadcasting, if we increase the awareness of women's soccer, more people will want to see soccer either in the stadium or on TV."

Turning OL Groupe into a City Football Group or Red Bull-style operation for women's football is not on the agenda, Berthillot says, with "no short-term plan to acquire other clubs". But growing interest in the women's game means other investors will likely appear. In July, Angel City FC was unveiled as a planned NWSL expansion team for 2022. The LA-based club has several celebrity founding investors, including actress Natalie Portman.

"We hope that some clubs and big investors could do the same (invest in women's football clubs)," Berthillot says.

"Because having strong investors, really committed to the development of women's football in the US, would be incredible for the league. That would help the league to grow and to have more visibility in the US and abroad."