Lisa Bhathal Merage said growing up working in her family’s business, she and her brother Alex Bhathal had to work “harder, smarter, faster and better than everybody else.”
“Back when we were younger and just starting, we had to prove that we were there for a reason,” Merage told the Business Journal.
The siblings worked their way up to eventually becoming co-CEOs of women’s swimwear company RAJ Swim, took it global and sold it to private equity in what’s said to be the largest PE buyout in the swimwear industry.
Now, as governor of Portland Thorns FC of the National Women’s Soccer League and Portland’s new Women’s National Basketball Association expansion team, the Portland Fire, Merage is betting big on women’s professional sports—something she sees on the rise, “not a moment or trend.”
She is also managing partner and chief impact officer of Newport Beach investment platform Revitate, focused on making investments in real estate and sports, which is an expansion of the family’s investment office RAJ Capital.
Merage’s track record of building across varying industries, spanning women’s fashion, venture capital and sports, earned her the Business Journal’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award on March 26.
“In Orange County, we have an NHL team, but we didn’t have a NWSL or WNBA team until now,” Merage said during her acceptance speech. “Please tune in, watch women’s sports and know that the Portland Thorns and Portland Fire are yours as well.”
From Sports Fan to Owner
Merage said she knew she had always loved fashion because of the family business and sports.
Her father, Raj Bhathal, moved to Los Angeles from India in 1960 and fell in love with American sports, Merage said. Meanwhile, her mother Marta, a Newport Beach native, was an athlete herself and played golf at UCLA.
As a family, they would go to games for different teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Angels.
The family got involved in sports not just as fans but also on the business side.
In 1990, her parents invested in a World League of American Football team called the Orlando Thunder. Though the league eventually folded, ownership of the team helped with networking and eventually led to the Bhathals becoming part owners of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, whose value has risen more than eightfold to $4.5 billion, according to Forbes.
After graduating from USC’s Marshall School of Business, Merage was deciding whether to go into fashion or sports. She was interning at both Wet Seal and a sports company that put on college bowl games.
“I learned at that time it was a man’s world, and I was just going to let it be because it was just a different time,” Merage said.
So, she joined the family business, RAJ Swim, formerly named RAJ Manufacturing, which her parents founded in 1967. She served as co-CEO with her brother from 2006 until the eventual sale in 2016.
Driving Social Impact
“Alex and I are not very good at sitting around,” Merage said.
Following the sale of RAJ Swim, the sister-and-brother duo launched a new investment platform, Revitate, in 2020 to invest in real estate and sports.
The idea for Revitate came from the family’s involvement in the revitalization of downtown Sacramento as co-owners of the Sacramento Kings.
The team was building the 17,500-seat indoor Golden 1 Center basketball arena. Lisa and Alex were wondering what their next steps should be after learning the area was an Opportunity Zone. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 designated certain Opportunity Zones as eligible for tax incentives to encourage investment in low-income areas.
They invested $1 billion in the Golden 1 Center’s development, which opened in 2016, and other mixed-use spaces surrounding the stadium, including a hotel and Downtown Commons retail and entertainment district. That investment spurred an additional $1.4 billion within a 1.5-mile radius of the arena.
“While we didn’t get to have any of the great tax benefits with the build of Golden 1 Center, we saw firsthand the social impact it created,” Merage said.
Revitate’s first fund was called Revoz and was started with capital from friends and family.
Eight years later, Revitate has seven different funds and has made more than $2 billion in investments across over 25 assets. Merage said that with every investment, the firm tracks the social impact that it creates before, during and after construction, which she oversees as chief impact officer.
“While investor return is still our priority, we can quantify the good that we’re doing at the same time,” Merage said.
Building Two Teams from Scratch
Merage said that she and Alex were beginning to hear about the rise of women’s sports when the opportunity to acquire the Portland Thorns arose.
“I went up for a game and saw this incredible fan base that is in Portland,” she said.
Through their RAJ Sports subsidiary of RAJ Capital, the siblings won the competitive bidding process in 2023 to acquire the Thorns for $63 million, a league record, according to OregonLive, citing unidentified sources.
They acquired players, coaches and performance staff, but had no business office and had to build out everything from hiring a president to ticketing and marketing from scratch, said Merage.
As they were closing the deal for the Thorns, they heard about the WNBA’s interest for an expansion franchise in Portland and were also awarded the team, which they also had to build from scratch.
On March 13, the Portland Thorns opened the NWSL season, selling 22,000 tickets, according to Merage.
Thorns star Sophia Wilson, forward for the team, recently returned after going on maternity leave.
For the Portland Fire, Merage said they’re leading the league in new season-ticket sales and already have 7,500 season tickets, which is “a very strong number in the world of sports.”
“This is truly what I believe my purpose is because it’s a combination of everything in my life that’s led up to this,” Merage said. “I was in women’s consumer brands for so much of my career, then I was in social impact, and this is kind of combining all of those things with the love of sport.”
She is now working to change the male-dominated sports industry with the recent launch of the first sales development program in professional sports dedicated exclusively to women’s franchises, an initiative that is “close to her heart.”
The program will support the business operations of the Portland Thorns and Portland Fire, focusing on training and development in ticket sales for both organizations. It will welcome its inaugural class this June.
“The goal is that we will train and educate recent college grads where they can continue either working for us or create opportunity for them to go with other teams all across different leagues,” Merage said.
RAJ Sports is also partnering with Kaiser Permanente to build a first-of-its-kind dual professional soccer and basketball complex in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland.
The nearly 100,000-square-foot Kaiser Permanente Performance Center will serve as home to the Thorns and Fire and feature two full-size basketball courts and two outdoor soccer pitches.
The facility will also have spaces focused on sports medicine and wellness, including performance labs, dedicated Kaiser medical and treatment suites and wellness areas.
“It’s going to hopefully help retain the best players, coaches and staff,” Merage said.
The partnership, announced in February, established Kaiser as the official medical provider and the team physicians for both teams. RAJ Sports said that in the coming months it will name a chief medical officer from Kaiser.
A public opening will take place the week of Aug. 19, according to Merage.
