The new standard
Leveling The Playing Field
Well, hello
If Q4 has you stressing about budgets, take a little inspiration from the World Series–bound Milwaukee Brewers, who took down a team with more than double its payroll to reach baseball’s ultimate stage. The biggest spenders don’t always win — in business and in sports. How about we apply that advice to growing your career?
Corporate Sponsorship
🤝 Making the world go round
The GIST: In 2023, Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC) gave itself a three-year deadline to hit a 50/50 split of sponsorship dollars going towards women's and men’s professional sports. On Wednesday, the company achieved it. More than a milestone, this is a seismic shift in the sports business ecosystem.
Where companies once treated women’s sports as a single line item on their annual budgets, CTC and Ally Financial — which achieved the 50/50 mark earlier this spring — are living case studies that should encourage brands to move beyond being just a logo on a piece of merch, and into contributing to the future infrastructure of women’s sports.
The ripple effect of its investments is far-reaching and anchors a financially viable business strategy. In the three years since CTC announced its Women’s Sports Initiative, the pro women’s sports market in Canada has more than doubled and a conservative estimate sees it reaching as high as $570M by 2030, representing 380% growth.
- CTC and its subsidiary SportChek have been instrumental to that progress, becoming founding partners of the PWHL and the NSL, as well as official partners of Canada’s first WNBA team, the Toronto Tempo. Talk about forward motion.
Meanwhile, Ally has been at the forefront of that explosive growth in the U.S., where the market is expected to grow 16% YoY through 2030 — roughly 3x faster than men's sports, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company. That same report also highlighted a potential $2.5B in annual revenue for rights holders in women’s sports leagues by 2030.
The takeaway: Billion-dollar valuations and profits in sports are not just from ticket sales or the team store: Real, sustained growth comes from media deals and corporate sponsorships. By funding the foundations of these leagues, brands like CTC and Ally provide the financial runway required to secure landmark broadcasting deals, attract top talent, and secure necessary operational resources necessary to protect and support players.
- It all goes to show that women’s sports is no longer a marketing experiment — it’s a high-stakes competition and brands watching from the sidelines are going to miss out on massive future holdings in a surging market. You snooze, you lose.
🃏 Creative freedom was on full display in these non-traditional brand activations: Nutrafol’s Hairy Homer helped baseball fans with their hair growth journey, the San Jose Public Library gave us library card envy, three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić launched his stand-up career with Sprite, and Ben Stiller went one-on-one with NY Knicks star OG Anunoby.
🏀 New kids-focused YouTube channel ESPN JV celebrated its official launch with an episode all about LeBron James and his illustrious NBA career.
⚽ Before this weekend’s El Clásico, both Spanish soccer clubs dropped major collabs: Real Madrid released a lifestyle collection with Adidas and Farm Rio, while Barcelona took its ongoing kit partnership with Spotify to new heights, giving Grammy-winning artist Tyler, The Creator full creative control over the campaign…and he delivered.
🍺 The Sports Bra unveiled the location for its newest franchise in downtown Boston, with tentative plans to open this fall.
🚩 Flag football is coming to Super Bowl week in LA, with the newly announced Grand Slam of Flag set to showcase six of the world's top women's national teams and feature a $500K prize pool.
👂 Everyone knows the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries are defensive powerhouses but with the WNBA Finals in full swing, our friends at Athlete Strategies provided the inside scoop on these fandoms.
- Our takeaway? Valks fans splurge on pet food at nearly 18x the average consumer, while Dream supporters love live music and attend concerts at over 6x the national rate. Music-loving pet parents is the perfect demo.
▶️ Every day is a day closer to the start of the PWHL, and two new faces will help bring this season to life: Congrats to Tereza Sadilova on her appointment to director of hockey operations with the Toronto Spectres and new Seattle Torrent marketing and partnership activation manager Allie Emery.
▶️ On the gridiron, Lilah Haye is celebrating her promotion to government and community relations manager with the Las Vegas Raiders. Break out the touchdown dance.
▶️ Leading women’s sports agent Lesley Feldman and her talent practice, Players Collxctive, have joined Octagon — further strengthening the agency’s longstanding women’s sports practice.
🔓 LA28 will be here before we know it and you could be involved as the new senior manager of the volunteer program or senior associate of creative services. Two golden opportunities.
🔓 If the golf marketing failures of a few months ago taught us anything, it’s that more women need to be involved in the decision-making process. Tee up that opportunity with this brand marketing manager opening from Ralph Lauren.
📃 SponsorUnited published a report demonstrating how beauty brands are entering sports at a staggering clip, but “the category is still early in its investment cycle.” The rise of women’s sports fandom strikes again.
🗞️ Bloomberg Businessweek spotlighted athletes and women in business driving the women’s sports boom, from Gen Z phenomenon and Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu to legendary reporter and analyst Doris Burke.
👥 The annual USC Sports Business Summit on November 5th is open for registration, which focuses on connecting the next generation of sports business leaders with the decision-makers shaping the industry today.
📃 The World Economic Forum says women’s sports could help close the leadership gender gap in business, drawing on Deloitte’s September 2023 report and previous research showing high-earning and C-suite level women are more likely to have grown up playing sports.
Today’s email was brought to you by Rachel Fuenzalida. Fact-checking by Bonnie Lee. Ops by Elisha Gunaratnam. Managing edits by Molly Potter and Katie Foster. Head of content Ellen Hyslop.