Alex Morgan doesn’t just like the phrase retirement. “I’ve been saying ‘post-playing profession,’” she stated, “as a result of retirement makes it sound like I’m previous. It’s positively extra of a transition.”
Morgan, 35, introduced her retirement in September, together with the information that she’s pregnant along with her second little one. In her 15-year profession, Morgan was prolific on the pitch, scoring 123 targets for the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Workforce (fifth-most all-time) and profitable two World Cups, an Olympic gold medal, 4 Concacaf Participant of the 12 months awards, and lots of extra accolades alongside the way in which.
Maybe extra importantly, her profession spanned a interval of meteoric development in girls’s sports activities that noticed breakthroughs in gender equality, with Morgan on the fore of a number of the most important efforts. In 2016, she was a part of a bunch of USWNT gamers who filed a grievance with the Equal Employment Alternative Fee over inequality in pay and remedy in U.S. girls’s soccer. In 2022, the outcomes of that submitting required women and men to be paid an equal price for all friendlies and tournaments, together with the World Cup. She additionally fought for anti-harassment insurance policies within the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League, serving to remodel team-player relations for a league that finally grew to set valuation and attendance data in 2024.
Morgan not too long ago talked to Quick Firm about her retirement—what it appears like for her, how she’s navigated the method, and the way she’s persevering with to help present and future generations of feminine athletes, on and off the pitch.
Quick Firm: It’s been practically 4 months because you introduced your retirement. What has life been like, and what does “retirement” appear like for you?
Alex Morgan: For me, it’s been about moving into enterprise capital—doing much more investing and constructing my private portfolio. I’ve been doing that quietly for the final 4 or 5 years. I’ve about 15 firms that I’ve invested in spanning sports activities, well being tech, and client items. Now, I’ve my very own fund alongside my husband, which has been actually thrilling, and it’s one thing that I’ve been in a position to dedicate much more time to.
FAST COMPANY: You talked about you had been investing in sports activities. As an investor, the place do you see probably the most alternative proper now?
AM: I believe we’re seeing an unimaginable alternative within the WNBA and the NWSL. The valuations of those groups and leagues are persevering with to extend. And we’re seeing it not solely right here, however in girls’s sports activities abroad as properly. So what excites me most about my subsequent chapter is that despite the fact that I’m not in a position to be on the sphere, I’m in a position to uplift and help girls’s sports activities leagues and groups around the globe.
FAST COMPANY: You say you’re in a position to help girls’s sports activities around the globe. How so? What are you doing personally to help these groups and leagues within the U.S. and overseas?
AM: I believe it’s an all-around method. Via my media firm, TOGETXER, we’re working to uplift these girls and provides them alternatives to share their tales, whether or not that’s by podcasts or brief or long-form content material. Then there’s the investing aspect and the mentorship and advising roles, which I’m nonetheless refining to determine how I can have the largest affect. I’m additionally persevering with to help the NWSL and in search of methods to be most impactful, whether or not that’s with my former staff, the San Diego Wave, or the league as a complete. I’ve been an enormous advocate of the NWSL, taking part in in each season since its inception in 2013.
FAST COMPANY: What’s it been like so that you can witness the NWSL’s great development over the past 12 years?
AM: It’s unimaginable to witness, and to have been a part of it. Issues actually began to show after we pressured the league to be extra skilled with their requirements in 2020 and 2021, pushing the league to undertake anti-harassment insurance policies and laws that basically, at their core, protected gamers. There was generally an influence imbalance between coaches or higher-ups and the gamers, so we needed gamers to really feel protected and guarded and to have management over the place they needed to go—what metropolis and market they needed to play in. We needed them to really feel like their contracts had been protected for that 12 months and that they couldn’t be waived tomorrow and have their contract minimize and their [team-provided] housing taken away. I believe professionalizing issues like that took the league to a complete new degree.
Now, with the return on funding being a lot bigger, we’re seeing all these house owners and funds coming in that I by no means would have imagined—like Sixth Avenue [investing $125 million] with Bay FC and Bob Iger and Willow Bay with Angel Metropolis FC [valued at $250 million]. It’s unimaginable to see these folks not solely wanting a bit of the upside in girls’s soccer but additionally believing in its trajectory. The gamers have put in a lot to make this work, and seeing it really profitable now’s actually thrilling—and validating.
FAST COMPANY: You say that is extra of a transition than a “retirement.” Having navigated the method, what recommendation would you give somebody who’s going by an identical means of retirement or profession transition?
AM: The most important factor I’ve discovered is that nothing is a gradual incline. There have been peaks and valleys in my soccer profession, and I’ve them post-career. Stepping into enterprise entails quite a lot of studying, troublesome days, and questioning your self. Then you definitely get a small win and also you have a good time that, and that offers you the motivation to do the following factor. So that you have a good time the small wins when you may, however you retain pushing ahead and keep on observe.
An important factor is dedicating your self to what you’re placing your effort and time into and never giving up when issues get exhausting, as a result of they completely will.
FAST COMPANY: The panorama of girls’s sports activities has modified drastically throughout your profession. How do you suppose the dialog round psychological well being has modified?
AM: I believe athletes need to really feel supported. Interval. I fought for pay fairness, maternity depart, and help for mothers as skilled athletes. These are particular wants. However caring for your total psychological well-being is simply as necessary.
Simply take a look at what Powerade is doing now with The Athletes Code, asserting that they’re going to have it written into each athlete’s contract that they will pause their partnerships to prioritize their psychological well being—with continued pay and help, no questions requested. I believe it’s extraordinarily necessary within the panorama {of professional} sports activities. As a result of athletes do want that help. Each sport is as a lot psychological as it’s bodily, and caring for the psychological aspect—despite the fact that you may’t see it—is simply as necessary because the bodily.
It’s one thing that I’ve completely wanted to do in my profession. After I got here again after having my first little one, it was actually mentally draining—not getting a full evening’s sleep and having a full-time job whereas taking part in for the Nationwide Workforce and Orlando and simply attempting to do it abruptly. It was loads. And I applaud Powerade for offering the sort of help athletes in these sorts of conditions, and on the whole, require.
Being able to take a pause with out retribution, with out consequence, is extraordinarily necessary as a result of each athlete goes by intervals the place their sport turns into their id—it’s how they’re validated locally, how they worth themselves or how others worth them. That alone might be mentally draining. So I can see what Powerade is doing having a ripple impact within the sports activities neighborhood.
FAST COMPANY: Why is it particularly necessary for feminine athletes to have this sort of help from their sponsors and companions?
AM: From my private expertise, soccer opens quite a lot of doorways to those model partnerships, however these partnerships really account for extra of my annual compensation than my sport alone. And I believe that’s the case for lots of feminine athletes and athletes who compete on the Olympic stage. Numerous their model partnerships really help them financially greater than their sport can. In order that they disproportionately depend on their model companions.
FAST COMPANY: So that you suppose athletes have extra help now than ever earlier than?
AM: I believe the evolution of all the things outdoors of the bodily facet of sport has accomplished a whole 180 from after I entered the sport. And I believe athletes carry out at their greatest once they’re utterly supported. That’s all athletes need. That entails pay fairness. It entails accepting and embracing feminine athletes who need to develop into mothers whereas staying on the high of their recreation. And it entails speaking about psychological well being inside sports activities.
I really feel like we went by a darkish time with athletes being weak after which being shamed simply because folks couldn’t see their struggling. However I believe we’re in a superb place now, and I’m actually happy with the work that I’ve put in—the work that quite a lot of my teammates and different athletes have put in, and now the work that the manufacturers are placing in—to vary that.
To see that now after taking part in professionally for 15 years, it feels good to have the ability to depart the game—no less than in a taking part in sense—understanding that not solely do I stroll away as a world champion and an Olympic champion, however I stroll away really leaving the game higher, and having athletes come into the game the place they really feel supported sufficient to simply play and be the most effective at it. That’s the most effective feeling for me.