Something in the water

The GIST: On Monday, advertising veteran Laura Correnti announced the creation of Deep Blue, a new advertising firm with the goal of becoming the top agency for women’s sports. The news follows a record year for virtually every women’s sports league as the industry looks to generate $1B in revenue during 2024. There’s definitely something in the water.

The team: Giant Spoon — the creative ad agency where Correnti is already a partner — helped kickstart Deep Blue this month. Several sports industry veterans are on the new agency’s advisory council, including former athletes Melissa Ortiz, Rennae Stubbs, and Shasta Averyhardt, with more names set to join the crew soon.

• Deep Blue will unite advertising, media, and marketing experts with active and retired pro athletes to give the agency an edge in a market dominated by the likes of CAA, Wasserman, and WME Sports.

The strategy: Deep Blue is entering a competitive sports agency space worth billions, so in order to stand out, it’s taking a page from successful women’s leagues by utilizing input from current and former athletes. Another cue from contemporary trends is its analytical focus on media investment, partnership, and asset valuation. Numbers don’t lie.

• This April, Correnti also launched the first-ever Business of Women’s Sports Summit, which sought to close a major advertising gap — women athletes only receive 5% of sponsorship dollars and coverage

• Presenting sponsor Ally has already done some work in this space, but as an agency, Deep Blue hopes to further facilitate representation through an acute understanding of women’s leagues.

Zooming out: With women athletes setting plenty of records on and off the field, media companies, sponsors, agencies, and anyone else looking to capitalize on that popularity are racing to enter a market that’s filling up fast. When women’s sports become a billion-dollar industry, outfits like Deep Blue will be ready to get a bite of the action.

The GIST: Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark is setting on-court records for points, assists, and free throws, but she’s also thriving off the court. Clark is climbing the NIL leaderboard after landing a major multiyear deal with Gatorade yesterday, adding to her illustrious brand portfolio. Stacking paper.

The brand: The prominent sports drink brand boasts a selective college roster: Clark is only one of four NCAA athletes on Team Gatorade and the second women’s basketball star — UConn’s Paige Bueckers signed with the brand in 2021.

• Clark’s deal includes a $22K donation to her namesake foundation, a charitable gift reminiscent of the $100K donation the company made in Candace Parker’s honor this September.

• Gatorade has built its brand on empowering high school athletes, including sending a Las Vegas girls’ basketball team to watch the 2023 WNBA Finals. It makes sense that Clark would come full-circle with the brand: she was Iowa’s 2019 Gatorade Player of the Year.

The portfolio: There’s no senioritis in store for Clark, who ranks fourth in women’s basketball NIL valuation with a $777K estimated annual value before the Gatorade deal. But her brand is quickly proving to be as elite as her game — she was the first NCAA athlete to sign with State Farm, and she’s already been tapped to represent premium brands like Nike, Buick, Topps, and H&R Block.

• Buick, a longtime NCAA partner, stepped into the women’s March Madness spotlight last year with its “See Her Greatness” campaign featuring Clark and four fellow NCAA athletes. Topps offered its first Iowa trading cards with Clark’s likeness, while her H&R Block deal was part of a new brand initiative to invest in college women athletes. Putting on a clinic.

The trend: While male-dominated NIL valuations seem to endorse a troubling pattern, that’s changing quickly thanks to high-profile stars like Clark. The top seven athletes who signed the most new NIL deals in 2023 were women, and female athletes report much higher engagement.

• Clark is a testament to this — she’s No. 44 in NIL valuations, yet her 1.1M total followers outpace several higher-earning male athletes.
  

• It’s also worth noting that these multiyear deals could go pro when Clark does, meaning she’ll be able to pivot from NCAA success to WNBA stardom.