Ana Dias Transferred to Tigres UANL Femenil
Portland Thorns FC Transfer Forward Ana Dias to Tigres UANL for 100k
Portland Thorns FC have transferred forward Ana Dias to Tigres UANL of the Liga MX in Mexico, in exchange for a confirmed 100k fee.
On March 20, the Portland Thorns announced they acquired Portugal National Team forward Dias from ZFK Zenit.
In the 2024 she has scored one goal in 10 regular-season appearances and additionally, one goal in three matches during the 2024 NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup.
“We want to thank Ana for her time with our Club,” General Manager and President of Soccer Operations Karina LeBlanc said. “She has been a great teammate, and has played an important part of our success this season. We wish her the best moving forward.”
LeBlanc has been extremely busy this offseason and have acquired a ton of extra spending money with the departures of Janine Beckie and Ana Dias.
The Portland Thorns seem destined for more moves whether it be this window or next.
We at STF wish Ana Dias all the best at Tigres of Liga MX Femenil.
Hmm...?
https://x.com/VancouverRiseFC/status/1828573467513614434
Here's a new interview with Lisa Bhathal Merage with the Portland Business Journal:
https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2024/08/27/thorns-owner-bhathal-merage-practice-womens-sports.html?csrc=6398&taid=66ce4c8b7ee58400019a0e37&utm_campaign=trueAnthemTrendingContent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
If, like myself, you don't have a sub to the PBJ, I've included the text of the interview (thank you, quick Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C) :)
By Demi Lawrence – Staff Reporter, Portland Business Journal
Aug 27, 2024
Updated Aug 27, 2024 3:51pm PDT
In January, the Portland Thorns welcomed RAJ Sports, the team's new ownership group.
Led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, the group assumed controlling ownership over Portland’s National Women's Soccer League team from Peregrine Sports after a sexual harassment scandal forced former ownership to sell. Peregrine still owns the Thorns' MLS counterpart, the Timbers.
Merage and Bhathal are the children of Raj and Marta Bhathal, who co-own the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. As the team’s controlling owner, Merage now sits on the NWSL Board of Governors while Bhathal acts as an alternate governor.
In this exclusive and edited interview, the Business Journal and Merage talked about the Thorns’ upcoming new practice facility, RAJ Sports’ decision to bring on Portland-connected investors and why she wants to be part of making Portland a major women’s sports hub.
--How long was the process of purchasing the team, and what drew you to the Thorns in specific?
(Our family) has been in sports for about a decade, so a lot of deals cross over our desk. And for the Thorns, it was January 2023 that we first saw the deck, and we were like, "Oh, this is interesting." But then we started feeling more that there was going to be this rise in women's sports, too. My day job is with Revitate, which is our family investment platform focused on real estate, sports and consumer products, and my job is chief impact officer, so I'm all about the social impact of things as well.
But it wasn't until last September that I went up for a game, and it was really the fans and supporters that did us in. Providence Park is amazing, the fans and supporters in Portland are incredible and you just don't see that everywhere. So I went to a game, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is it." And I took a video, and I went home the next day and had dinner with my parents.
I showed my parents the video, first it was my mom, and she was like, "Oh my gosh, there's fans up there in that corner?" I'm like, "Yes, look at that." And then I gave a video to my dad, who is originally from India. And although he was the only one not to have an arranged marriage within his brothers and sisters, a group of eight, he still grew up in an era at the time in India where women literally walked like 10 feet behind the men, even though he's not that way at all. But he looked at it, and he said, "As an older Indian gentleman, I really believe in women's sports," and that was what did it for us.
--RAJ Sports’ has said its primary focus is to advance plans for a new “first-class, purpose-built, women’s soccer-specific training facility.” Why is that a priority, and how is that coming along? When can we expect it to be open, and where will it be located?
Things are coming along. I don't have anything that I can really share yet, but we're working on it. Our goal is that within 2025 it will be open, so we're working on it.
At the end of the day, these are professional athletes, and we came from the world of men's sports with the Sacramento Kings, where in Sacramento, we built a new arena, we built a beautiful training center. Why do women not have that? It should be equal, it should be the same, and it's something that we really believe in investing in. [Merage declined to comment on where the practice facility will be located.]
--What went into the decision to add investors to the club?
I think it's really important that we have a connection to the Portland community. As you know, our family is based in Southern California, and I think it's one of the things that has been really important to us. We were connected with Tim Boyle, and he's been so warm and welcoming, and he really knows so many people in the community. It just allows us to come into the community and make sure that we are listening in the community the right way.
--I'm glad you brought up Southern California, because I was curious what the plan is for ownership here in Portland. Are you going to be splitting time between Southern California and Portland?
I've been up in Portland a lot, but our home is still down here in Newport Beach. We have other businesses down here, I'm here, my family's here, my husband and all of his family's here. So we don't have plans to move up to Portland, but the good news is it's only a two-hour flight away. We kind of joke that with traffic, it takes two hours to drive to LA right now, so it's not that big a difference.
--What are your thoughts on the new NWSL player agreement that will end the draft, expand parental leave, child care benefits and mental health services, allow players to approve trades and double minimum salaries by 2030?
It’s a unique place to be as a governor in a growth league like the NWSL, because at the end of the day, we want our players to be paid more. That really is the goal. There’s still such a discrepancy between male athletes and female athletes, but the key metric is viewership. We need to make sure people are watching the games. We need to make sure that there's a tune in, because the media contracts are what directly relates to players having bigger salaries, and that's true in every league.
--Have there been any ideas thrown around on how to increase that viewership?
There's lots of work being done. I also chair the marketing and commercial committee for the league, so it is a multi-pronged approach. Sponsorships, for example, are important not only from a revenue perspective, but also with regard to...media buying commercials and just general support for the league.
And then, of course, there's the advertising component, and one thing that we're talking about right now is, how do we capitalize on the fact that the USA won the gold medal, and 19 athletes that are gold medal winners in the NWSL and 56 overall that played in the league that were Olympians? I mean, that's a really big indicator for the league, and clearly puts the NWSL as the leading league in the world.
--What are some things you’ve learned from the Thorns’ front office, coaching staff and players since purchasing the club? What are their main concerns for the club and how is RAJ Sports working to meet those?
The Timbers organization was a shared front business office, so the first thing we did is we hired Alexis Lee as our president, and we're currently building out the staff. So far this year, we've hired 15 people, and our goal is to get to 25 by the end of the year, and that's been a big undertaking. We've worked with Peregrine on a shared services model, where certain components will roll over as we're ready. They were doing everything from ticketing, marketing, IT, HR, you name it, and we've been slowly bringing that on board ourselves.
--Are there any plans in place for RAJ Sports to get integrated into downtown Portland as the Thorns’ new owners?
Social impact and community involvement is something that's really important to our family and part of our DNA. The path to doing that is something we're still figuring out. That's where people like Tim Boyle have come in and been very helpful.
We also will be establishing a Thorns foundation. I don't have a timeline nailed down yet, because it's tied into the hiring of these 25 people, but that's something that's high on my list of priorities, and that will be part of how we give back and get involved in the community.
I would love to see Portland really cement itself as the epicenter of women's professional sports. I think that the fans of the Thorns were really early adopters and saw the potential of women's sports and really moved the needle for what you see in this world today. When we are recruiting other players for the Thorns, everybody wants to play in Providence Park, it is just a game changer.