Korean American entrepreneur Michelle Kang (67; Korean name Kang Yong-mi), who built the world's first women's soccer-only multi-club system and has reshaped standards for investment and operations in the women's game, has again been named a key sponsor in the US Soccer National Sport initiative.

US Soccer CEO JT Batson revealed in an interview with the UK Guardian on the 7th that, starting with the World Cup hosted at home this summer, the goal is to make the men's and women's national teams the most popular teams in the United States. In YouGov's rankings of sports team popularity in the United States, the women's national team is 14th and the men's is 43rd. US Soccer plans to use a run of major events - the 2026 World Cup, the 2028 LA Olympics, and a bid to host the 2031 Women's World Cup - to reverse that gap.

Named as major sponsors of the project were Arthur Blank, owner of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons ($50 million), and Michelle Kang ($30 million; about 44.1 billion won). Kang's donation is the largest single gift to the women's soccer sector in US Soccer's history.

US Soccer will use these funds to expand grassroots soccer. CEO Batson stated, “We want soccer to become the most played sport in every part of the United States. We will introduce soccer to every school.” Kang's contribution will be focused on expanding access to women's soccer and opportunities for girls. Over the next five years, the plan is to provide soccer education opportunities to more than 100,000 girls and to double the number of female coaches and referees.

With the Korean name Kang Yong-mi, she was born and raised in Seoul. In 1980, after entering Sogang University's business administration program, she witnessed the instability of Korean society as the Gwangju Democratization Movement unfolded and moved to the United States in search of greater opportunity. After studies at the University of Chicago and Yale, she became self-made in IT and healthcare. Forbes estimates her assets at about $1.2 billion (about 1.7674 trillion won).

The trigger that turned her toward soccer was unexpected. Invited to a celebration for the U.S. women's national team's 2019 World Cup victory at the U.S. Capitol, she encountered for the first time the harsh realities facing the women's game. Michelle Kang herself recalled, “I did not even know who Messi was,” showing how distant she had been from soccer, yet her entrepreneur's eye for potential was exact. She said, “I became captivated by the play and the potential. I wanted to be a catalyst to kindle the spark.”

In 2020, she took a minority stake in the NWSL club Washington Spirit, and in 2022 she became the controlling owner. She was the NWSL's first woman of color to become a controlling owner. From immediately after the acquisition, she raised league standards by providing women players with training facilities and medical support on par with those for male professionals.

The following year, she expanded into Europe. After acquiring France's Olympique Lyonnais, the most decorated club in the UEFA Women's Champions League, and England's London City Lionesses in 2023, she consolidated the three clubs in 2024 into a holding company called ‘Kyniska Sports International’. After one full season under Kang's ownership, London City won the second division and earned promotion to the Women's Super League (WSL, first division).

This structure is the ‘multi-club system’. It is a model in which a single owner holds clubs in multiple countries and operates player development, scouting, sports science, and sponsorship in an integrated way. In men's soccer, City Football Group centered on Premier League club Manchester City is representative, but a multi-club network dedicated to women's soccer was created for the first time in the world by Michelle Kang.

She built an independent ecosystem exclusively for women's soccer. Until now, most women's clubs were subordinate to men's teams, applying men's schedules, budgets, and training systems as they were. Declaring, “Women are not small men,” Michelle Kang overturned that structure. The group researches women-specific sports science - such as preventing ACL injuries and the relationship between menstrual cycles and performance - and shares the data across the three clubs. It also opened global pathways: a U.S. prospect can learn the latest European tactics at Lyon, and a player who developed in London can move on to the NWSL stage.

In December 2025, in partnership with US Soccer, she launched the ‘Kang Women's Institute’ with an additional $55 million investment. Michelle Kang emphasized, “The problem in women's soccer is that there are only scattered projects and nowhere pushing them at scale,” adding, “It needs to be done properly, in one go, and at scale.” Once the only woman in Sogang University's business administration department, she is, four decades later, rewriting the standards of women's soccer.