Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Walmart heiress Alice Walton takes L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers's spot as the richest woman in the world, the gender pay gap at large companies in Japan is not improving, and a Goldman Sachs exec is an innovator in sports. The Broadsheet will be off on Monday for Labor Day in the U.S.—we'll be back in your inbox on Tuesday.
- In the crowd. Much of the most exciting activity in sports right now is happening on the women's side, but they can't claim all the innovation. Consider Stacy Sonnenberg, a Goldman Sachs executive who has quietly revolutionized sports team's stadiums and revenue models across men's soccer, Major League Baseball, and the NFL.
Sonnenberg is Goldman's global head of sports finance, and my colleague Michael del Castillo explores her impact in a new feature for Fortune. In her role, she has financed projects from Yankee Stadium to an especially notable effort: the new stadium for FC Barcelona, a $5.6 billion franchise nevertheless troubled by mismanagement. The team is part-owned by 150,000 dues-paying fans who wouldn't approve a mortgage for a $1.6 billion expansion, worried that the stadium could close if it missed payments.
To overcome that hurdle, Sonnenberg came up with the idea to securitize "extraordinary revenue" or future sales of food, beverage, and tickets, Michael reports. "That has not been done before," Sonnenberg says. An ex-New York City Department of Parks and Recreation executive, she discovered a model similar to cities' strategy of selling bonds securities backed by future revenue from parking or tolls.
The firm is now shopping the model wherever it's permitted, including another deal in Lyon, France, Michael reports.
The executive finds purpose in her work helping multibillion-dollar sports franchises get even bigger. “Stadiums are fundamental to our humanity, and there’s a reason we’ve been building them for thousands of years. We crave that shared experience.”
Read Michael's full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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