THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — On a typically warm, sunny spring day in Southern California, Angel City FC sporting director Mark Parsons made it clear that he wasn’t interested in doing things normally. Why? Because Angel City FC is not just another club.
Parsons requested to move his interview with ESPN from the team’s news conference room to his office down the hall, where a slideshow presentation being projected onto the wall answered most conceivable questions about Angel City’s future. The interviewee had become the host, a subtle metaphor for how one of the world’s most famous women’s soccer teams is trying to take control of its own narrative on the field.
The presentation to ESPN was the same one, minus a few confidential pages, that Parsons had recently given to players and staff upon taking the job in January. His mission — and the reason the club hired him — is relatively simply laid out in the first slide: “Be world leaders in women’s soccer on and off the field.”
Indisputably, Angel City has quickly built a recognizable brand with its off-field moves since launching five years ago.
The Los Angeles-based NWSL franchise made a splash with a celebrity ownership group that includes Hollywood actress Natalie Portman, tennis icon Serena Williams, and…
