Alex Morgan moves from the pitch to the boardroom post retirement

Alex lewis henry morgan didn't withdraw so often as she shifted focalise.

The two-time Women's domain Cup winner with the United States was always more than simply a soccer player, but since she stepped away from the game she's thrown herself into her different business ventures.

"It didn’t feel like I was stopping being something and needing to start something else the next day," she said. "I felt like I was stopping soccer, but a continuation of so many other parts of my life.”

The 36-year-old Morgan retired from soccer last year when she became pregnant with her second child. At the time, she and her husband, Servando Carrasco, already shared a daughter, Charlie, and Morgan was playing for the San Diego Wave.

Morgan was among the first players signed by the Wave after the club joined the National Women's Soccer League in 2021. She went on to play 63 matches with the team, scoring 28 goals, including the team’s first.

Recently the Wave retired her No. 13 jersey. The national team is set to honor Morgan at a match in October.

While other former athletes have written memoirs, taken up broadcasting or even started podcasts upon retirement, Morgan went in a different direction: She founded a venture capital firm with Carrasco.

The firm, Trybe Ventures, focuses on early-stage companies in health tech, sports tech, media and emerging sports properties. One of its high-profile investments is with Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 women's basketball league.

She has also partnered with JPMorgan Chase as part of an initiative to support women's sports beyond traditional sponsorships. And she became a minority equity partner in the Wave, something that was important to her because she calls San Diego home.

Morgan had already laid the groundwork for her transition. In 2021, she co-founded Togethxr, a sports media and commerce company, along with fellow athletes Sue Bird, Chloe Kim and Simone Manuel. The company aims to highlight the stories of female athletes and push innovative media coverage of women's sports.

Togethxr created the “Everyone Watches Women's Sports” T-shirts that have generated $6 million in revenue.

Morgan's work on the business side of sports is a natural progression, given the rise of women's soccer.

“As we looked at the last five years of NWSL, we’ve seen the valuations of teams continue to multiply, sometimes by 10 or more than that, in only a couple of years. I think that’s turning the heads of a lot of people in the investing world,” she said.

Morgan played in 150 NWSL matches over her career, which included stints with the Portland Thorns and the Orlando Pride.

In addition to World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019, Morgan also won an Olympic gold medal in 2012 for the United States. She played in 224 matches for the U.S. With 123 goals and 53 assists. She was named the U.S. Soccer Player of the Year in 2012 and 2018.

Off the field, Morgan advanced women’s soccer through her fight for equal pay. The U.S. Women filed a lawsuit in 2019 that led to a historic agreement in 2022 that provided the women with pay equitable to what U.S. Men’s players received.

She was also instrumental in shedding light on misconduct and harassment in the NWSL in 2021 that led to league-wide protections for players.

Her business ventures align with those values of equity and justice, as well as maternal rights. She founded the Alex Morgan Foundation in 2023 to further her commitment to those issues.

“I think something that’s really important, is just challenging yourself and knowing that I don’t have all the answers. If anything, I’m coming into the business world very late, with much less experience. My experience really is in the sports field. And so it’s learning a lot every single day. It’s not being afraid to ask for help or advice. It’s finding those mentors that would want to help,” she said. “Also, doing it with my husband makes me feel very confident and very comfortable. You already have that sense of teamwork, so to speak, in a way that I have been able to rely on my whole life in sports.”

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