Copyright The Boston Globe
The Boston Legacy has added another big-name investor to its ranks: JuJu Watkins. Watkins, a women’s basketball star at Southern Cal, is the first college athlete to invest directly in a women’s pro sports team. She joins Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, Indiana Fever star Aliyah Boston, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, actress Elizabeth Banks, and Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and his wife Tracy in the investor group. Watkins’s investment while still at least two years away from a pro career indicates a “groundbreaking moment for women’s sports and the power of NIL,” Legacy owner Jennifer Epstein said in a release. Her stake in the team was not disclosed. “When you’re talking about equity, those opportunities don’t come around as often as endorsements so this raised my eyebrows and piqued my interest even more,” Watkins told Bloomberg. Advertisement Watkins was the Naismith college player of the year in 2024-25 as a sophomore after leading the Trojans to a Big Ten regular-season championship. She tore her ACL in the NCAA tournament in March, which sidelined her for the entire 2025-26 season. The Legacy announced this week that their home opener in their inaugural season at Gillette Stadium will be on March 14, 2026. The NWSL expansion team is still filling out its roster but has signed 18-year-old NWSL player Chloe Ricketts and Brazilian national team star Amanda Gutierres, and named Portugal’s Filipa Patão the head coach. Katie McInerney can be reached at katie.mcinerney@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram at @katiemac.sports.
