Most people still frame women's sports as a movement. Jason Wright runs a fund built on the opposite premise — that it's one of the most under-researched and undervalued asset classes in sports. In this episode, Caroline and Adam trace Wright's path from seven years as an NFL running back, through a labor lockout that became his first lesson in sports business, to McKinsey, the President's chair of the Washington Commanders, and now Project Level, the women's sports fund he launched with Melody Hobson at Ariel Investments.

The conversation lands squarely where ROAR lives: the intersection of sports, real estate, and revenue. Wright breaks down the thesis driving Project Level — the modernization of men's sports that women's leagues can now draft on, two decades of family spending on girls' youth sports, and the "net-new fan" who never bought a men's ticket. From there the group digs into the economics of purpose-built women's stadiums, using naming rights to lower the cost of capital, and mixed-use districts that can out-earn the team next door.

• 00:00 Cold open & a special two-grad format 
• 01:15 From NFL running back to franchise president 
• 04:15 What Northwestern athletics taught them 
• 09:13 NIL, the transfer portal & the leadership question 
• 15:30 Why women's sports: the Ariel model & Melody Hobson 
• 18:00 The thesis: three tailwinds & the "net-new fan" 
• 25:46 Data, AI & closing the capability gap 33:08 Inside the LP base & diversifying the asset class 
• 38:45 Purpose-built women's stadiums: the value case 
• 43:08 Mixed-use districts & when real estate out-earns the team 
• 47:33 The public-funding case for women's venues
• 48:11 What's next: leagues, youth sports & sleeper bets

Guest Bio

Jason Wright is a managing partner at Project Level, a women's sports investment fund and wholly owned subsidiary of Ariel Investments that he launched alongside Melody Hobson. A Southern California native, Wright played running back at Northwestern before a seven-year NFL career with the Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, and Arizona Cardinals, where he served as a team captain and NFLPA representative. He earned an MBA from the University of Chicago and became a partner at McKinsey & Company in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, leading a global practice. In 2020 he was named President of the Washington Commanders, where he reset the organization's revenue strategy, rebuilt its season-ticket base, helped oversee the sale of the team, and worked to return the franchise to the RFK site before joining Project Level.