Number 114
Image source: Kelly Defina/Getty Images
Malala Drives Global Sports Equity:
New Fund Invests in Women's Sports
Featured Focus:
Access/Inclusion/Equality, Youth Development,
Global Development
Scope of Impact: Global
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai launched Recess in an attempt to change women's sports investment and participation globally. This strategic move leverages her powerful voice and a keen understanding of systemic barriers. Here’s what you should know:
Strategic Investment for Growth: Co-founded with her husband Asser Malik, Recess operates as an investment firm explicitly designed to treat women's sports as a robust business opportunity. The goal is to attract significant capital to a historically underinvested sector. This includes targeting major leagues like the NWSL and WNBA, proving their commercial viability while simultaneously advancing their mission of gender equity.
Empowering the Next Generation: Inspired by Malala's own childhood experience of exclusion from sports, Recess seeks to dismantle systemic barriers that lead to girls dropping out of sports at double the rate of boys by age 14. The initiative focuses on increasing grassroots participation and fostering environments where girls are empowered.
Sports as a Catalyst for Global Justice: Beyond athletic development, Malala views sports as a powerful instrument for unity and peace. Her advocacy extends to championing exiled Afghan female athletes, framing their continued participation as a vital form of resistance against oppression and a testament to courage.
While some are targeting women, Malala continues to speak up and to aim for gender equity in society. Recess is Malala’s, and her husband's, first foray in sports. It is powerful because it does not position women's sports as a cause for charity but as a viable, growing business sector ripe for strategic capital injection.
We love the initiative's comprehensive approach, addressing both grassroots participation and professional league investment (NWSL and WNBA to start), in order to dismantle systemic barriers at both ends of the funnel. It also proves that purpose and profitability can indeed converge.
The initiative's resonance is amplified by Malala's global stature and her deeply personal narrative of overcoming adversity. Her vision depicts sports as a potent force for global unity and a form of resistance against oppression. It’s something that the WIN | WIN team believes in wholeheartedly, and this is why Recess will become a WIN | WIN for all involved.
We are so inspired by Malala’s initiative! We have not yet mentioned the strategic launch announcement of Recess at Billie Jean King Power of Women’s Sport Summit in London a couple of weeks ago. Bilie Jean King and her wife Ilana Kloss are advisors to Malala.
This is where we see some additional potential for this initiative as a global force for investment and education for women’s sports. Imagine a global summit or multiple events worldwide to encourage capital investment in women’s sport leagues, and infrastructure in different countries.
Imagine a Recess grant program to encourage the development of youth girls in marginalized communities throughout the world. Imagine the potential for brand partnerships to make this even bigger.
At WIN | WIN, we champion women’s sports as much as we can and this new initiative gets us even more fired up to do our part locally. And you can do the same! Start in your market, at the grass roots level to ensure girls can participate in sports.
