Angel Reese has always moved differently.
By the age of 23, her basketball career already includes a college national championship, back-to-back WNBA rebounding titles, and a championship in the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league. This alone proves that Reese is built differently. Most young athletes are happy to simply cash endorsement checks while waiting for their respective leagues to pay them their market value. Reese is literally taking over the boardroom while unapologetically building her own empire.
Historically, athletes have used their professional contracts to validate their marketability; however, Reese didn't wait for the WNBA to legitimize her. Before she ever set foot on a professional court, she had already built a corporate foundation with brands such as Beats by Dre, Airbnb, and Reebok, and an NIL valuation of $1.8 million at LSU that signaled she wasn't just a basketball player. She was a brand. By the time she reached the WNBA, she already had a baseline of financial stability that allowed her to move differently than her peers. Rather than settling for a standard WNBA rookie scale contract that tops out around $73,000, Reese leveraged the newly formed Unrivaled league which offered players guaranteed six-figure minimums and, crucially, an equity stake in the league itself. She effectively made more in a single, condensed 3-on-3 season than she would have earned over the entire lifespan of her WNBA rookie contract under the old CBA.
At just 23, Reese paid cash for a 5% stake in the DC Power FC professional soccer team and joined the ownership group of Togethxr, a media company founded by icons such as Sue Bird and Alex Morgan. Most recently, she joined a prospective ownership group spearheaded by U.S. sports investor Jason Levien to secure the 10th WNBL franchise in Brisbane, Australia. She executed the move while touring Australia to unveil new colorways of her Reebok signature shoe while Reebok announced that it has secured an official footwear partnership with the WNBL set to begin in the 2027 season.
And the timing of that Brisbane investment? It is not a coincidence. Right now, the same WNBA labor fight that Reese is waging is quietly threatening to drain Australian women's basketball of its top talent. If WNBA players win the salary increases they are demanding, international stars who currently play in the WNBL just to make ends meet will finally be able to afford to stay home and rest. Reese is placing her chips on a new franchise at the exact moment that franchise needs someone to believe in it most.
That is not just ownership. That is vision.
Reese is proving that a female athlete can use her prime not just to dominate on the court, but to build a self-sustaining business, a legacy, and a product that will sustain her for decades. As she told the brand platform Sport Beach during her 2025 Reebok shoe rollout in Australia: "This year was about ownership, not just participation. I wanted to show that an athlete, especially a woman, can build a business, a legacy, and a product that lives beyond the game."
Who does this? Besides Angel Reese, of course.