Natalie Portman Part of Majority Woman-Founded Group Bringing New Women's Soccer Team to LA

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There is a new soccer women's team that will make its home in Los Angeles in the next few years.

“Los Angeles is the ultimate stage: where fans fill our stadiums, players become iconic and teams become champions. Today, I’m very proud to welcome the Angel City women’s soccer team to the best sports town in America, and when they take the field in 2022, a generation of young girls and women from our community will be able to see themselves playing at the highest level of their sport. I can’t wait to put on my jersey and cheer on our newest team as they write their chapter in L.A.’s long history of sports excellence,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to a press release from the National Women's Soccer League website, the team is being brought to Los Angeles in spring 2022 by "...a majority woman-founded group led by Academy Award-winning actress and activist Natalie Portman, technology venture capitalist Kara Nortman, media and gaming entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Alexis Ohanian."

The National Women's Soccer League website says "While the team’s official name and venue partner will be announced before the end of the year, the group has formally coined itself “Angel City” in honor of its planned home in Los Angeles."

The founding investor group, which is majority woman-owned, is a who's who in the sports, Hollywood and soccer worlds.

They include Serena Williams and daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr., actors Uzo Aduba, Jessica Chastain, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, and Eva Longoria, late-night talk show host Lilly Singh, former US Women’s National Team players including twelve representing Southern California including Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Rachel Buehler, Shannon Boxx, Amanda Cromwell, Lorrie Fair Allen, Ronnie Fair Sullins, Joy Fawcett, Angela Hucles, Shannon MacMillan, Tisha Venturini Hoch, and Saskia Webber, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and FIFA World Cup Champions Lauren Cheney Holiday and Abby Wambach.

There's also the author and activist Glennon Doyle and more.

“I am proud to be a part of this wonderful group working to bring a women’s professional football club to Los Angeles, ” Lead Founding Investor Alexis Ohanian said in a press release. “Chiefly, because I’m a fan of the game, but also because I believe there is massive potential for the sport and it’s been undervalued by too many people for far too long. As someone who spends hours kicking around a football with my two-year-old daughter, I want her to have a front row seat to this revolution. I’m personally investing on behalf of my family because creating more opportunities in women’s sports is important to my wife and me, and we want to be a part of making a better future for our daughter.”

The time has come to reshape expectations on & off the soccer field.This is the place. The time is now. Welcome to the beginning. #WeAreAngelCity pic.twitter.com/M3bvsmiAfm

— We Are Angel City (@weareangelcity) July 21, 2020

Welcome to the @NWSL, Angel City! Been 10 years since the last professional women's team in Los Angeles, 10 long years. It's about time! https://t.co/Ie51iArIfd

— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) July 21, 2020