By the time the 1999 World Cup arrived, Hamm was something American sports had almost no template for: a female athlete who was also a genuine cultural phenomenon. Nike built campaigns around her. Kids wore her number. The tournament's crowds and television ratings shocked everyone except the players. She finished her career as the all-time international goals leader, a record that held for over a decade, but the number that mattered more was the one nobody tracked: the count of girls who laced up cleats because they saw her do it first.

What made Hamm unusual wasn't the fame, it was how little she seemed to want it and how purposefully she channeled it anyway. She became an owner of Angel City FC, the Los Angeles women's pro club built on the idea that women's sports ownership should look different, which is exactly the kind of structural bet Hamm has always made. She didn't just open doors. She kept building them.