Nasdaq’s CEO Predicts a Major Sports Deal Boom

All the attention being paid to women’s sports isn’t just about the exploding number of fans. More deals are coming, too. The New York Liberty captured its first WNBA championship Oct. 20 in front of a sold-out Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Earlier this month, the team’s owner said she expected her franchise to be the first women’s team worth $1 billion within the next 10 years.

“We’ve gone from having a moment to a movement,” Nasdaq Chief Executive Officer and Chair Adena Friedman says in the latest episode of The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly. “In the last few years, they finally had a moment of everyone realizing it’s a great product, it’s a great viewer experience. And now they have this movement of being able to escalate franchise values using social media and broad-based media.”