November 6, 2025 • 37 mins
Joining Editor in Chief of Marie Claire Nikki Ogunnaike, Laura traces her journey from college athlete to successful partner at Giant Spoon, and how she founded Deep Blue to drive commercial investment in women’s sports. They explore the critical role sports play in achieving career leadership, the impactful intersection of advertising with women's sports, and the innovative strides being made to elevate women's sports through creative investments and new business models.
01:55 Laura's Journey: From Soccer to Advertising
03:03 The Impact of Sports on Corporate Careers
05:15 Early Career in Digital Media
06:54 Building Giant Spoon and Entrepreneurial Insights
15:01 Deep Blue's Mission and Market Challenges
17:12 Partnering with Sue Bird and Strategic Vision
19:21 The Economic and Social Impact of Women's Sports
23:22 Future Vision for Deep Blue and Women's Sports
35:25 Lightning Round: Money, Style, and Power
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ninety percent of women in the C suite have played
some sport at any level in their lives, and over
fifty percent of them collegiately. Yet we also know forty
five percent of girls are dropping out of sport by
the age of fourteen, largely due to body confidence issues.
And you start thinking, well, what influences body confidence issues?
The media, marketing and advertising industry, of which I'm a
part of, this is a great responsibility to say, we
(00:22):
got to rewrite the script here.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hey there, I'm nik Yoganaki, the editor in chief of
Marie Claire, and welcome tonight's talk on the show. I'm
sitting down with fascinating women to discuss what I like
to call the big three. That's money, power, and style
and how those things intersect in their lives. Today on
the show, we're focusing on power with the founder and
CEO of Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment, Laura Corentin. Laura
has spent her career in the world of advertising, working
(00:49):
her way up to partner at Giant Spoon, a full
service agency, but in twenty nineteen, she witnessed the crowd
chanting equal pay when the US women's soccer team won
the World Cup. She knew she had to get involved
the women's sports somehow. Combining her deep institutional knowledge of
the ad world with her own experience growing up as
an athlete, Laura set out to build Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment, the world's first firm dedicated to bringing more
(01:11):
commercial investments to women's sports. On this episode, Laura talks
about the correlation between playing sports and career leadership, the
future of women's sports, and what's next for Deep Blue.
Laura's smart and so inspiring, and I'm so thrilled to have.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Her here today.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So welcome tonight's talk with me, Nicki Oganaki, Laura Karrenti,
welcome to Nice Talk.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Thank you for having me, Nikki. This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I am so excited to speak with you today about
the power of women's sports. I know that you come
from an athletic background. I am a runner and it
defines a lot of the way that I live my life.
So before we dive into all things Deep Blue, the
incredible sports entertainment company that you found in, I do
want to talk a little bit about your background. So
(01:56):
you played D one soccer in college and I'm curious
when you you were playing soccer in college. Did you
know that you wanted to work in sports eventually? Like,
how did that transition happen?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Not at all.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I had every intent of going to law school, which
is what led me to Washington, d C. So I
played at American University in the Patriot League. I spent
a bit of time working on Capitol Hill and getting
in around politics, but ultimately made a sharp right turn
about a week before I was scheduled to take the
L Sets and decided to go a different direction, which
(02:27):
was in advertising, And so took the GRES instead of
the L Sets and made a quick decision and ended
up applying to the University of Texas at Austin, which
is where I got my master's degree in advertising, and
the rest is history. I thought, when I was done playing,
sports are a rap. I mean, if you go back
to that timeline in the early two thousands, obviously what
we're experiencing today, particularly in the world of women's sports,
(02:50):
would be one thing to try to continue as a
professional athlete, but the world of the business of women's
sports was not a thing, And so I had every
intention of moving on and maybe playing some pickup games
as long as my body would allow.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
But outside of that, no.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, how do you feel your time and your work
as an athlete has impacted your corporate career.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It shows up in the most subtle of ways, and
now that there's an awareness of it, it shows up in
the most obvious of ways. And I think one of
the things I've really enjoyed, particularly now being in the
business of women's sports and having the opportunity to work
along so many colleagues like yourself who have background in playing,
whether you've done it recreationally all the way through to
collegiately maybe even professionally, the transferable skills are totally on display.
(03:32):
So when you think of things like communication styles, how
to navigate a locker room is no different than how
to navigate a boardroom. Thinking about interpersonal dynamics, resilience, adversity,
what it means to fail this is a conversation that
comes up quite a bit, and getting really comfortable with
what's uncomfortable and finding your way through it are all things,
especially as an entrepreneur, that you find showing up in
(03:54):
the smallest of conversations and the biggest of decision making moments, and.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
So maybe not so obvious.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Over the twenty years that I played, but certainly the
awareness of it now is key and something that you know,
I talk a lot about with those coming out of school.
Oftentimes one of the first comments that will come out
is like, well.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
You know, my resume is a little light.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
You know, I was just an athlete, and I'm like, well, whoa, whoa,
you weren't just an athlete. And I spend time on
this in talking through what I just mentioned to you,
you know, the list of credentials and criteria and skills
that people have developed that whether it's in the corporate
office or on the field, these are real, practical, tangible,
lived experiences that can be applied. And so it's something
(04:35):
that I've registered over the last two years of building
Deep Blue that were really mindful of when we meet candidates,
especially coming right out of school.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Absolutely, I didn't run in college, but I had a
lot of friends who were athletes, and the time management skills,
the leadership skills, and I went to University of Virginia,
so like we were top in education and also top
in sports, and just the work that everyone had to
put in to juggle all of it, like it was
mind blowing. And I think to your point, the ability
(05:05):
and what you learn from failing all the time. You know,
you don't want a game that's technically a failure, but like,
what did you learn from that is invaluable.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So let's talk about your early career. You know you
started as a digital media planner. I'm curious what drew
you to that path.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
When I finished my master's degree at UT Austin, came
back home to Jersey and was, you know, deciding where
do you go next, And had a friend who was
in the same program as myself that was working in
the holding companies, particularly on the media agency side, and
she's like, oh, there's a few openings.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
You know, you should throw your hat in.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Apply interesting thing about media was it was the class
of my master's program I liked the least, and that
was because it was inundated with flow charts and Excel sheets,
and as much as I love to negotiate more than
the next one, I was not enamored with the numbers
of it all. I was obsessed with the strategic creativity,
(06:00):
the aspect of the advertising industry. But when you're twenty
something years old and you need to get your first job,
so I went and I applied and I ended up
getting it. And the reason I was sold on it,
I'll never forget it was working on a pharmaceutical brand
and the hiring manager at the time said, if you
can be creative in pharmaceutical advertising, let alone media, you
will be on your way and I.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Was like sold.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So that started my career and digital media at the time.
I always laughed thinking back to this, it was like
a little department on the X floor of ex holding company,
and you know, as we were buyers at the time,
it was like AOL and Yahoo were like your two
biggest options.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So the industry has evolved quite a bit since then.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Digital was the afterthought and the nice to have in
comparison to what our counterparts in TV were doing at
the time. But also I credit making that decision of
taking that route early allowed me to speed through some
of my earlier years just having obviously grown up on
the Internet as that first generation totally.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So in twenty sixteen, I have it here that you
started working at ad agency Giant Spoon and then you
became a partner in twenty eighteen, which is a title
that you still hold. What does it mean to be
a partner at Giants.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Bin sure, so ultimately irresponsible not just for the day
to day of the business, but the overarching vision and
direction for where the company's going. So feet on the ground,
head in the sky, like you're sort of looking for
and responsible for the full spectrum. When I decided to
move on from the holding companies, so holding companies advertising agencies, right,
you're talking about big behemoths responsible for hundreds of millions
(07:28):
of dollars across some of the biggest brands in the world.
And I really liked that. I loved it, but I
had this entrepreneurial itch that I guess I've been there
all along, but you know, as you start to mature
in your career and you navigate different experiences.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I wanted to build.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I didn't want to just buy, and so the opportunity
to join Trevor Bark and John who are the co
founders of Giants, when we had all worked together in
a past life to build out the media practice under
the strategic creative vision that I had been seeking all along,
was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. So as
I joined and we built that practice from scratch at
a time when the industry was going largely in the
(08:03):
way of automation, so creativity and strategy were not the
shiny things until they were. Ultimately you had to really
get not just creative with the work, but creative with
your business planning.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I love that. I love the idea of building.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
After a year or two there, I was named a
partner of the company, responsible yes, of course from my
remit in building that media practice, but now contributing to
the overarching vision.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
For the spoon, as it's affectionately known to full.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Service agencies, so across strategy, creativity, media experiential. It really
gave me the opportunity, having grown up in just the
media practice, now to expand my experience and understanding how
what I did could apply to other parts to the
ad business. And then simultaneously what I could absorb from
what my colleagues were doing to inform some of the
strategy and what I was doing from a media perspective.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I'm curious, how did what you continue to build a
giant spoon? Prying you for building deep blue.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Head on a swivel, I mean the ability to know
where the market was moving, what budgets advertisers were pulling from,
what formats they were obsessed with the ability to see
beyond just a specific portion of advertising marketing was critical
to then apply that to a broader industry. So had
to go through those experiences to effectively take the leap, sure,
(09:22):
but then be able to navigate and anticipate what was
going to come next. And yes, building a new business,
but one that had a very specific focus in niche
and women's sports.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So in twenty twenty three you launched Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. You mentioned that you wanted to build something,
but I'm curious what else was the impetus for starting
this company and why in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The day of which the genesis of Deep Blue began,
it was in the summer of twenty nineteen. This was
the Women's World Cup, so the US women's national team
was making a run to win their fourth World Cup,
which they ended up winning. It was also the same
year that a number of the players had to their
employer in US SOI or for equal pay and one
(10:02):
and at the crux of this, when the team was
lifting the trophy in France, the equal pay chant broke
out across the stadium. You know, typically you would hear
USA and the entire crowd in an international market breaks
out an equal pay, equal pay, and I remember all
the broadcasters started talking about have we hit a new
inflection point in women's soccer and women's sports in this country?
(10:26):
And when you think about the twenty year cycle, we
hadn't seen that sort of bump since nineteen ninety nine
when Brady Chestain infamously rips her jersey off. And for
whatever reason, Nikki, like I end up going on the
NWSL website, had this inclination like the majority of these players,
most if not all, are going to end up coming
back to our domestic league, the NWSL, and could it
to state. And when I went on the NWSL website
(10:48):
that day in twenty nineteen, literally as the fanfare is happening,
I scrolled to the very bottom of that website and
there were four partners to the league. So Nike had
the kids, you know, the uniform partner, Lifetime, the Women's
Cable Network was the official distributor of the NWSL at
that point, or in the supplement's company, and there was
a long care brand that didn't have a website at
(11:08):
least that I could find as the fourth.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
You look back on that and you.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Say, well, super grateful that those partners were in early
and they were supporting, But as somebody who grew up
understanding because of my corporate experience, that media rights and
ats spend are inextricably linked to drive the sports and
entertainment business, there was no way these four partners alone
could sustain what I was then watching on TV totally.
(11:33):
So I became obsessed with this is one of these
things where it's like, well, why isn't the advertising industry reacting?
I mean, the feed was hot, like social is going crazy,
like you know, fans like this is the moment We've arrived.
But simultaneously in my inbox where I'm still working with
some of the world's biggest brands, those that actually spend.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
In sport crickets. So it sort of led on a.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Multi year explore, whether in COVID in between, to understand
what the business opportunity was if you specifically and exclusively
focused on bringing commercial investment to women's sports. Turns out
there's a big business. But it was a multi year journey.
I mean I went on a bit of a road
show with one of my colleagues, Nikim mal Hocho, who
ended up joining me Scfoco and the company to really
(12:16):
understand the marketplace. And we had one final test that
we were going to do to really understand like if
we build it, will people come? And that manifested in
what is our Annual Business of Women's Sports Summit. So
in April of twenty three, this is about a week
or two after the Caitlin Clark Angel Reese of it all,
so the hype and enthusiasm is building, and we ended
(12:38):
up hosting this at Studio AH, which, if you know
the inner workings of NBC SNL Studios, and I had
to have an epic space for what I believe needed
to be taken seriously. It needed to have gravitas, and
the conversations were going to be as equally epic to
understand does the market care? I mean, you're in this
business that you know when you have chief marketing officers
(12:59):
of some the world's biggest brands, some of which I
didn't know at the time, flying across the country on
their own dime, spending an entire day in a subject
area that at that time in April of twenty three
was not in the zeitgeist. There's something there totally. So
we went through a whole day of programming and I
remember walking off the stage and I was like, this
(13:20):
is it. We're doing this, which led to a couple
months of just getting things in order. My colleagues at
Giant Spoon, my partners at Giant Spoon seated the company,
which allowed me to move quickly, not only with the
financial backing, but resources as well. Announced the company in
December twenty three. People told me I was out of
my mind, not in a negative way. I think they
were really just like, hey, You've built this career, you
got a good thing going, Like are you sure? And
(13:42):
you couldn't tell me otherwise like I was going. So
we announced the company in twenty three. I think a
lot of people like, what is this? This focus women's sports.
I had another card in my back pocket. I announced
Suberdos joining the company as a partner in January of
twenty four, and that was very important to me because
the athlete perspective was absolutely article and it needed to
be at the table because many people in the industry
(14:03):
had an experienced women's sports, whether it's going to a game,
watching it on TV, having met these athletes. So I
really wanted to ensure we had not just the advertising,
media marketing practitioner skill set at the table, but the
athlete point of view as well as a competitive advantage.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And then you.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Fast forward three four months later, April of twenty four,
Kaitlin Clark makes that run again and it just has
been a rocket ship ever since.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
So perhaps right time, right place.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But I think the backstory is important because this wasn't
like a bandwagon fan moment. This was truly years in
the making of understanding market signals. And you know you
alluded to did my experience and format. Had I not
had fifteen twenty years of buying and being in the
business of sports, men's or women's have understanding the way
the market moved and operated, I don't know that it
(14:50):
would have been as an effective launch, let alone still
be standing here two years later on the up and up.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
So absolutely connected.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, okay, so I want to take a step for
the listener. What does the Deeply Sports do?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So, when we launched the company and still to this
day unless somebody fact checks me otherwise, the first firm
in the world dedicated to bringing commercial investment to the
world of women's sports exclusively. So we are primarily working
with brands to inform their strategy, their commercial strategy for
how they're going to invest, partner, license, activate, et cetera.
(15:25):
In the women's sports industry, so a lot of times
that looks like building creative campaigns, that looks like they're
media investments, that looks like partnering with league teams and athletes.
That was our initial way in, but as we got
under the hood, we realized that there was a very nascent,
immature marketplace. And what I mean by that is women's
(15:46):
sports struggles from two things. It's hard to find and
it's hard to buy, and that's a real disadvantage when
you're in the advertising business. So we realized halfway through
our first year we were going to actually have to
also solve the other side of the coin, which was
creating content. Even today, like if you really think about it,
pre half time postgame shows few and far between in
(16:07):
women's sports, very little in the way of shoulder programming
or ancillary programming in terms of storytelling that goes beyond
the court. Social Obviously, the athletes have taken command of
that and are using the platforms to help build fandom,
which has absolutely been a part of the growth story.
But when you look at the media marketplace in general,
the amount of actual content creation, which then includes advertising inventory,
(16:30):
which is what brings advertisers to the table. Got it
very immature market, So that led us to open up
an IP division and we said we're going to have
to create the market we need for our advertisers to
invest in. So that led us to founding the iHeart
Women's Sports podcast network. We have over sixteen podcasts and
market in the last two years with a daily women's
sports report that goes out across five hundred stations across
(16:52):
the country, reaching seventy five million people monthly.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
We have an events business. We just launched a partnership
with Religion of.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Sports to develop doc It's just really understanding where is
the consumer moving, where are the gaps, and then leveraging
our expertise to fill it, either through partnerships, brand supported initiatives, etc.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Got it Okay?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So you mentioned WNBA Legends Sue Bird as a partner.
What was it about Sue that you knew would be
a great partner for you.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
We had a very serendipitous connection. We met at an
industry event. She was just coming off a twenty year career.
For all the medals, and she has five gold medals
for all the MVPs and championship titles. What I saw
was the raw point guard and subird and you talked
about transferable skills. What was interesting in my earliest conversations
with Sue was not just how she saw where the
(17:44):
women's sports industry could move, but the questions that she
was asking. And it was very clear to me that
this was a person who understood and could control what
she could control in some of the endeavors that she
was already participating in. But if she could also put
her fingerprints on this of the house which was influencing
the systems, you can make the greatest content in the world,
(18:04):
but if nobody sees it, it's a moot.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Point.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So if you can understand the mechanics of how brands
come to the table, how they make investment decisions, what
data points they're looking for to make those decisions, now
all of a sudden, you have this end to end
perspective that could help move the industry forward. We laughed
when we ultimately decided to partners, like, what should my
title be?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
And just like I don't know, chief point guard officer.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I'm like I don't know if that's going to fly
with procurement, but really, what she's talking about a strategy.
She is a strategist, and it's amazing. You watch her
in the room, and I love it to this day.
I get so excited to see it in action. The
same way I'm sure countless practices, games, international competitions. She
commanded the floor, She anticipated where her teammates were going
(18:46):
to be, She put things in motion. She ran plays
no different watching her in the boardroom. So the subject
matter is obviously different, but that innate sense of understanding
what in anticipating what needs to happen two or three
plays ahead to get to a result one of the
best I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I have to say, I'm listening to you speak about
Sue and your background, and I'm just sort of like,
if you have a daughter, Like, how could you not
put her in sports? Like this is what could happen
in any sport, Like there's so much to be learned
from that.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Totally, And you know, there's so much great data on this.
Girls who play sports become women who lead. This is
an inherent, proven connection. Ninety percent of women in the
C suite have played some sport. At any level in
their lives, and over fifty percent of them collegiately. So
you know that there is this correlation of the skills
that you develop becoming leadership tools later on. Yet we
(19:41):
also know, and as I think about speaking to the
editor in chief of Marie Clair, forty five percent of
girls are dropping out of sport by the age of fourteen,
largely due to body confidence issues. And you start thinking, well,
what influences body confidence issues? The media, marketing and advertising
industry of which I'm a part of, is a great
responsibil say, we got to rewrite the script here.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And understand what messages.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
We're putting out or perhaps not putting out that can
impact somebody's decision to stay in the game. And then
it's like, okay, you could understand that correlation. That was
enough for year one to start talking in that sensibility,
but you got to put numbers against it, because ultimately, Nikki,
at the end of the day, you're asking for people
to make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, tens of
(20:26):
millions of dollars in investment to grow this thing.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You need to come with the facts. I saw a
study not that long ago.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
It was literally published within the last few months in
the UK from Sky and the commissioned to study to
understand what the economic potential was that was lost if
a young woman drops out in the UK. They equated
it's about thirty thousand pounds per person that drops out
and earning potential. So you do the quick math in
terms of conversion rate, that means in the US hypothetically
(20:52):
that's forty six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So you go a step further and you're like.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Okay, there's three point five million girls playing sports at
the high.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
School level in the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
If you pull forty five percent of them, now you're
at one point five seventy five million are dropping out.
Multiply that by forty point six. Now you realize you're
talking about sixty four billion dollars in economic potential and
opportunity that is lost because girls are.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Dropping out of sports.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And now you're going to take a step back and say, now,
not only do we have a social opportunity development skills,
we're also talking about an economic gap that needs to
be closed. That's a different conversation than go women.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Sports, right, And then you draw it even further when
you look at certain political laws trying to be passed.
Then you have that question of like, okay, who does
it benefit?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Who is winning? If women are not in sports, you look.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
At things like healthcare. I really applaud the work that
Michelle Kang is doing. Michelle King is an entrepreneur and
owns a number of women's soccer teams and is really
monatically focused on the performance angle and bringing attention to
the research inequities just around women's bodies and the fact
that six percent of all research is done through the
lens of a woman's body. So you rip back layers
(22:09):
and you realize that how women are trained has largely
been off men's training manuals. You can go down the
list of systems that need to be addressed in order
to get to parody.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, and I like that you use the word systems.
I think that's a really key word when we think about.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
All of this.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
So Deep Blues slogan is be the shark, which I love.
Can you explain a little bit for the listener what
that means.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, So it turns out the largest shark ever recorded
in the world happens to be a female, And I
always say she lives off the coast of Hawaii. I
believe she's past sixty years old now, which I would say,
maybe that's my life goals and it's a future vision board.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
But her name is deep Blue.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And so what I love about sharks is that they're
never at rest and they can only swim forward. And
when you think about the mission and the task at hand,
it just felt very apropos that we would make deep
Blue our namesake and have that mindset, because you know,
every day is a battle. You get up and still
two years into this thing, looking at the numbers, the ratings,
(23:16):
the merchandise sold, the tickets flying off the shelves, I
still every day have to get up and make the
business case why women's sports.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
So deep Blue has accomplished so much. In September, Deep
Blue launched its first documentary, The Fastest Six Weeks and Sports.
You announced the Women's Sports Index. You worked on Badgist sales,
first deal with the New York Liberty. Ultimately, though, what
is your vision for the future.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Of Deep Blue?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Sure, so, as I was alluding earlier, the Trojan Horsen
was going to be advertising media marketing. It's what I did,
It's what I knew. But once you get under the
hood and you called out. The word that I think
is really important too, is like it is a systems
game and recognizing how to leverage the institutional knowledge I
have from my experience in advertising and now applying it
(24:04):
to other areas. The vision is that deep Blue will
become a global operating system that will have assets that
sit on top of it, build off of it, et cetera,
and so forth. So who's to say, you know, deep
Blue doesn't own teams in the future, or deep Blue
doesn't get into the commerce space or talent management. I mean,
there's so many different directions of where it can go.
(24:24):
It is such an early stage market. The biggest thing
that I've recognized is the ability to work with brands
to bypass gatekeep systems, to be able to get ideas
in market, to be able to get products in market.
That ability, I think will take the industry zero to
sixty because you're not be held to sort of legacy
ways of having to get project's finance, having to get
(24:46):
approval to get them in market, etc. And so that
is a bit of gaming the system in an effort
to really grow and sustain it.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's so interesting. I want to talk to you about
the state of women's sports in general. I started at
Clara in twenty twenty three, and one of the first
things I wanted to do was make a women in
Sports issue because I had seen and continue to see
how women's sports was really breaking into the mainstream and
no small part thanks to the efforts of people like you.
(25:15):
You know, So talk to me a little bit about
the current state of the ad industry and like monetary
opportunities when it comes to women's sports right now.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, we're still on the ground floor.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
What's interesting is the headlines and we have to be
very cognizant of this. I wouldn't say necessarily yet match
up to the potential of investment. And what I mean
by that is, you know, the athletes are doing a
phenomenal job, teams, leagues, front offices, phenomenal job of taking
something that was so under resourced, underserved, underinvested in just
(25:49):
two years ago and turning it on its head to
create bespoke, standalone models, new ways of engaging with fans.
When I think about game day experience, you allude to
New York liberty. I mean, and I would challenge and
I'm not just talking women's sports. I would challenge any
sports franchise to go up against what they're producing night
after night at the Barclays.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's lights out.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And that comes from independent thinking, that comes from innovation
and ingenuity.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
And we're going to need more of that.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And while they're doing a phenomenal job of demonstrating the potential,
the investment has to meet it. I think a lot
about how the current state of advertisers.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Some that have been in there from the beginning, and
I really.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Applaud them, and they've stuck by it and they've committed,
and without them, it's not possible. We're going to need
to move into non endemics. And what I mean by
that is getting outside of the usual suspects to grow
this pie, which means a whole model has to continue
to iterate and evolve, so what you would typically see
in sports and oversaturated categories. What I'm absolutely loving is
seeing the insights driving and informing brands like Etsy, brands
(26:56):
like Bobby. I mean, go down the list of brands
that haven't invested in this space, but recognizing the audience
very little if any overlap from what they may be
investing on the men's side or perhaps they haven't invested
on the men's side because their audience might not be there,
whatever the case may be, but are testing the waters here.
The entry point is still accessible for brands to test,
(27:16):
which I think is great. I think that will run
out eventually, but we need to be able to make
the business case full stop, to bring new and differentiated
brands and categories to the space to continue to grow
this thing.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Isn't there something so exciting to knowing that you're just
on the ground floor, that the rocket is just taking off.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
It's exciting to be part of shaping what the model
can look like. But then there's days I'm just like NICKI,
I'm like.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
How are we not seeing this? Right? Of course you
talked about systems early on.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
This was one of the biggest catalysts for informing our
business plan and talking about systems. Women's sports doesn't have
a product issue. I mean that US women's national team
I was talking about earlier on in the conversation, one
of the most dominant teams for decades.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
No storytelling issues here.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Anywhere you look, there is some really exciting, engaging, emotional storytelling.
It's a system's issue, and what you realize is that.
For example, women's sports is still to this day bought
and sold on the same currency and measured in the
same metrics as men's sports are, which is reach an efficiency.
So how many eyeballs can my dollars get as cost
(28:23):
efficiently as possible. So when you're sitting in an advertising
agency at buying agency in particular, which I did for
the first half of my career, and a brand tasks
you with find as many eyeballs as efficiently as possible,
and a media network big network has tons of media rights,
sellers aren't incentivized to sell one property versus the other.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
They're incentivized to hit their quarterly goals.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
So if they present you Sunday Night football versus the
WNBA playoffs, which by the way, happened to overlap this year,
and I have a dollar to spend, that is my goal.
I can tell you where the dollar's going nine ten
out of ten times, and the seller is not incentivized
to redirect your decision making. So how can women's sports
survive and thrive if they're being transacted and measured on
(29:12):
a currency and metric they inherently cannot deliver on because
you don't have it on primetime. It's not a major broadcast,
it's behind seventy five pay walls.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
This is what I mean. It's hard to find, hard
to buy. You can't find it.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, so right there, out of the gate, you start
to recognize it's like, well, until you could right size
the media model, you're actually buying a completely different business altogether.
Now you start talking about engagement. I'll take women's sports
all day.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
One thousand percent. On the podcast we had Shana from
The Liberty on and it to this day is one
of the most viral clips we've had on Marie Clair
when she was talking about Ellie the Elephant and to
see the engagement, like people commenting, I don't follow sports,
but I know Ellie.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh, they've done a phenomenal job. Hats off to Shane
and her team. I mean, truly what they've been able
to do in creating a cultural icon, lot of sports icon,
a cultural icon. Who's showing up at red carpets and
sitting front row at Fashion.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Week and first person perspective can tell you.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I've had multiple brands come to the table that if
Ellie isn't in the package, they are disappointed.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, I love where else is that?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Happening. I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
So something I love that you say at Deep Blue
is that women's sports aren't just having a moment, it
is the moment. I'm curious, though, what can we as
consumers do to make sure that that moment continues?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Sure, I mean you hear the players say this all
the time. Buy a ticket, go to a game. I
mean when you start thinking about the accessibility of women's
sports for a family of four, you can still go
and enjoy a game for under one hundred dollars. The
access point to be able to experience it, to become
a fan, to fall in love with it, that is
what we encourage. And you know, a lot of it
is just supply. I think the demand has been there,
(30:53):
so you start to look at things like merchandising. I
think the WNBA merchandising was up seven hundred percent year
over year. When you look at that, it's like, is
that the growth of interest or is it because simply
there wasn't enough product.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
You could argue both ways.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I'm sure the spend indicator is there ally financial. Just
put out a study that is all about how fans
are spending.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
There is no signs of slowing down.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Insomuch that women's sports fans I believe it is seven
out of ten will continue to spend or indicate they
will continue to spend in the space, so there's absolute demand.
Then I start thinking about all of the ancillary businesses
that are popping up.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Look at women's sports bars.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm a huge fan of what Jenny Winnn took a
bet on in Portland to start this momentum at the
sports bra And you know, now there's, however, many across
the country, literally entire industries being born out of this moment.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Show up, support them, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
And I think to get people in the seats to
experience it. It's one of my favorite things to do.
Somebody who's on the fence of questioning their decision making
should we invest just take them to the game. Yes,
And you start to see it is not what we
have been conditioned to think a sporting event is. Like,
it's a much different experience from outside the stadium and
(32:07):
arena all the way through to the final whistle, the
family environment, the community and culture that exists, the support.
You know, it's one of the funniest things I love
about women's sports. Like I'm a New York fan through
and through, like I support my teams, but I support
everybody else's teams, and there is this inherent like rooting
for the broader industry. I think so much of that
(32:28):
is because fans of women's sports over the last however
many decades, have had to put this thing on their
back and carry it forward to ensure that it continues
and sustains. And now that there's infrastructure, support and resources
to help extrapolate that experience, they're sticking with it and
it's growing.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
One of my.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Favorite statistics that I saw recently specifically to the WNBA
was thirteen to seventeen year old boys in terms of
fandom and engagement grow one hundred and thirty percent this
past season. So now you have an entire generation, not
even different creating what causes that While the athletes are
in the feed, the highlights are in the feed, they're
engaging on social.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
This shows progress.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So while we're still at the earliest, these are the
signals Nikki like I look for that.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
I'm like, come on, can't you see it? But we
have to build the case.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, I think to your point, though, going to a
game is key, like stepping into the community. Like something
that we talk about at Marie Clair often is the community,
like you saw it.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
At power Play.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Like we're all about building the community. Because when you
build that, or when you become a part of that,
then your eyes open up in a whole different way
and you're like, Oh, okay, I get it. I want
to know what do you see for the future of
women's sports.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I mean, I hope it's just exponential growth. In the
early days, it was is this an opportunity and bringing
awareness to it. Now we're really in a period of
right sizing it, like it's the building of infrastructure, the
building of systems. You know, even just look at what's
happening across not just here in the US but around
the world, and the amount of money being put into
training facilities. We are in that build period. What happens
when it's built, That's what I'm very excited about. But
(34:02):
I'm also eager to think about how we will build differently.
I had a really interesting experience last year at an
NWSL playoff game at Audi Field. I went to go
see Gotham play the Washington Spirit, and there was a
stroller parking section. I had never seen that at an
arena or a stadium, and now it was a pop
up vendor. It wasn't like a dedicated business within the space.
(34:24):
But I thought just the creativity of knowing, you know,
many people walking to the game, the access, the convenience
of it all. There's an executive I hadn't met years
ago who was running a team in Europe who decided
to put Espresso Martinez on tap and how that changed
the culture of the fan experience. Chelsea Women's Football Club
(34:44):
does bottomless brunch at the Bridge Stanford Bridge for their
women's games and what that has done for ticket sales.
So I'm excited to see how the creativity and innovation
happens in the build and then what the value will
then be compounded on top of that.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
I am so excited.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Well, just hearing you speak about just those few things,
I'm like, oh, this is really just the beginning, Like
this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think it is going to take great entrepreneurs and
brain trusts to push the limits. And I think that
is what is most exciting about the growth potential of
women's sports is that you have people coming into this
space with fresh eyes, fresh thinking that are saying, well,
why do I have to do it the way this
has been done, and I think that that is the
beauty and where this can grow.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, that's incredible. Okay, So before I let you go,
we always like to end this podcast with a quick
lightning round about money, style and power. I'll ask you
three questions and you just tell me what comes to
mind first. Okay, So number one, what's one thing money
can't buy?
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Time?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
If you could trade closets with anyone, who would it be?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
And why?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I want Emma Gred's closet when it comes to getting
business done. I want Halle Bieber's maternity slash streetwear. And
I want to roar James's shoe collection.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Oh those are good. That's all on my Pinter's board
right now. I love that. I love that. Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So lastly, what's your go to song when you want
to feel powerful?
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Some sort of like house version of the Jaws anthem?
Like I think I'm gonna go work on that after
we get off this conversation.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
That's the next arm is like making playlists. Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, Laura Karanti, thank you so much for joining us
on Nice Talk. This has been incredible.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Thank you. This was a nice talk. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
A huge thank you to Laura Karanti. If you like
today's episode, please subscribe to Nice Talk wherever you get
your podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review us.
We'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions for the show,
so feel free to reach out to us on Instagram
at Marie Claire mag or directly to me at nikki ogum.
We can't wait to hear from you. I'm Nikoganaki and
I'll see you next Thursday for another Nice Talk. This
(36:52):
episode was produced by Hilary Kerr Summerhammers and Natalie Thurman.
Our production assistant is Raven Yamamota. Our editor is Natalia Perez.
Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles,
and our music is by The Math Club.
Ninety percent of women in the C suite have played
some sport at any level in their lives, and over
fifty percent of them collegiately. Yet we also know forty
five percent of girls are dropping out of sport by
the age of fourteen, largely due to body confidence issues.
And you start thinking, well, what influences body confidence issues?
The media, marketing and advertising industry, of which I'm a
part of, this is a great responsibility to say, we
(00:22):
got to rewrite the script here.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hey there, I'm nik Yoganaki, the editor in chief of
Marie Claire, and welcome tonight's talk on the show. I'm
sitting down with fascinating women to discuss what I like
to call the big three. That's money, power, and style
and how those things intersect in their lives. Today on
the show, we're focusing on power with the founder and
CEO of Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment, Laura Corentin. Laura
has spent her career in the world of advertising, working
(00:49):
her way up to partner at Giant Spoon, a full
service agency, but in twenty nineteen, she witnessed the crowd
chanting equal pay when the US women's soccer team won
the World Cup. She knew she had to get involved
the women's sports somehow. Combining her deep institutional knowledge of
the ad world with her own experience growing up as
an athlete, Laura set out to build Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment, the world's first firm dedicated to bringing more
(01:11):
commercial investments to women's sports. On this episode, Laura talks
about the correlation between playing sports and career leadership, the
future of women's sports, and what's next for Deep Blue.
Laura's smart and so inspiring, and I'm so thrilled to have.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Her here today.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So welcome tonight's talk with me, Nicki Oganaki, Laura Karrenti,
welcome to Nice Talk.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Thank you for having me, Nikki. This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I am so excited to speak with you today about
the power of women's sports. I know that you come
from an athletic background. I am a runner and it
defines a lot of the way that I live my life.
So before we dive into all things Deep Blue, the
incredible sports entertainment company that you found in, I do
want to talk a little bit about your background. So
(01:56):
you played D one soccer in college and I'm curious
when you you were playing soccer in college. Did you
know that you wanted to work in sports eventually? Like,
how did that transition happen?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Not at all.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I had every intent of going to law school, which
is what led me to Washington, d C. So I
played at American University in the Patriot League. I spent
a bit of time working on Capitol Hill and getting
in around politics, but ultimately made a sharp right turn
about a week before I was scheduled to take the
L Sets and decided to go a different direction, which
(02:27):
was in advertising, And so took the GRES instead of
the L Sets and made a quick decision and ended
up applying to the University of Texas at Austin, which
is where I got my master's degree in advertising, and
the rest is history. I thought, when I was done playing,
sports are a rap. I mean, if you go back
to that timeline in the early two thousands, obviously what
we're experiencing today, particularly in the world of women's sports,
(02:50):
would be one thing to try to continue as a
professional athlete, but the world of the business of women's
sports was not a thing, And so I had every
intention of moving on and maybe playing some pickup games
as long as my body would allow.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
But outside of that, no.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, how do you feel your time and your work
as an athlete has impacted your corporate career.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It shows up in the most subtle of ways, and
now that there's an awareness of it, it shows up in
the most obvious of ways. And I think one of
the things I've really enjoyed, particularly now being in the
business of women's sports and having the opportunity to work
along so many colleagues like yourself who have background in playing,
whether you've done it recreationally all the way through to
collegiately maybe even professionally, the transferable skills are totally on display.
(03:32):
So when you think of things like communication styles, how
to navigate a locker room is no different than how
to navigate a boardroom. Thinking about interpersonal dynamics, resilience, adversity,
what it means to fail this is a conversation that
comes up quite a bit, and getting really comfortable with
what's uncomfortable and finding your way through it are all things,
especially as an entrepreneur, that you find showing up in
(03:54):
the smallest of conversations and the biggest of decision making moments, and.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
So maybe not so obvious.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Over the twenty years that I played, but certainly the
awareness of it now is key and something that you know,
I talk a lot about with those coming out of school.
Oftentimes one of the first comments that will come out
is like, well.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
You know, my resume is a little light.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
You know, I was just an athlete, and I'm like, well, whoa, whoa,
you weren't just an athlete. And I spend time on
this in talking through what I just mentioned to you,
you know, the list of credentials and criteria and skills
that people have developed that whether it's in the corporate
office or on the field, these are real, practical, tangible,
lived experiences that can be applied. And so it's something
(04:35):
that I've registered over the last two years of building
Deep Blue that were really mindful of when we meet candidates,
especially coming right out of school.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Absolutely, I didn't run in college, but I had a
lot of friends who were athletes, and the time management skills,
the leadership skills, and I went to University of Virginia,
so like we were top in education and also top
in sports, and just the work that everyone had to
put in to juggle all of it, like it was
mind blowing. And I think to your point, the ability
(05:05):
and what you learn from failing all the time. You know,
you don't want a game that's technically a failure, but like,
what did you learn from that is invaluable.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So let's talk about your early career. You know you
started as a digital media planner. I'm curious what drew
you to that path.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
When I finished my master's degree at UT Austin, came
back home to Jersey and was, you know, deciding where
do you go next, And had a friend who was
in the same program as myself that was working in
the holding companies, particularly on the media agency side, and
she's like, oh, there's a few openings.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
You know, you should throw your hat in.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Apply interesting thing about media was it was the class
of my master's program I liked the least, and that
was because it was inundated with flow charts and Excel sheets,
and as much as I love to negotiate more than
the next one, I was not enamored with the numbers
of it all. I was obsessed with the strategic creativity,
(06:00):
the aspect of the advertising industry. But when you're twenty
something years old and you need to get your first job,
so I went and I applied and I ended up
getting it. And the reason I was sold on it,
I'll never forget it was working on a pharmaceutical brand
and the hiring manager at the time said, if you
can be creative in pharmaceutical advertising, let alone media, you
will be on your way and I.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Was like sold.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So that started my career and digital media at the time.
I always laughed thinking back to this, it was like
a little department on the X floor of ex holding company,
and you know, as we were buyers at the time,
it was like AOL and Yahoo were like your two
biggest options.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So the industry has evolved quite a bit since then.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Digital was the afterthought and the nice to have in
comparison to what our counterparts in TV were doing at
the time. But also I credit making that decision of
taking that route early allowed me to speed through some
of my earlier years just having obviously grown up on
the Internet as that first generation totally.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So in twenty sixteen, I have it here that you
started working at ad agency Giant Spoon and then you
became a partner in twenty eighteen, which is a title
that you still hold. What does it mean to be
a partner at Giants.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Bin sure, so ultimately irresponsible not just for the day
to day of the business, but the overarching vision and
direction for where the company's going. So feet on the ground,
head in the sky, like you're sort of looking for
and responsible for the full spectrum. When I decided to
move on from the holding companies, so holding companies advertising agencies, right,
you're talking about big behemoths responsible for hundreds of millions
(07:28):
of dollars across some of the biggest brands in the world.
And I really liked that. I loved it, but I
had this entrepreneurial itch that I guess I've been there
all along, but you know, as you start to mature
in your career and you navigate different experiences.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I wanted to build.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I didn't want to just buy, and so the opportunity
to join Trevor Bark and John who are the co
founders of Giants, when we had all worked together in
a past life to build out the media practice under
the strategic creative vision that I had been seeking all along,
was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. So as
I joined and we built that practice from scratch at
a time when the industry was going largely in the
(08:03):
way of automation, so creativity and strategy were not the
shiny things until they were. Ultimately you had to really
get not just creative with the work, but creative with
your business planning.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I love that. I love the idea of building.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
After a year or two there, I was named a
partner of the company, responsible yes, of course from my
remit in building that media practice, but now contributing to
the overarching vision.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
For the spoon, as it's affectionately known to full.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Service agencies, so across strategy, creativity, media experiential. It really
gave me the opportunity, having grown up in just the
media practice, now to expand my experience and understanding how
what I did could apply to other parts to the
ad business. And then simultaneously what I could absorb from
what my colleagues were doing to inform some of the
strategy and what I was doing from a media perspective.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I'm curious, how did what you continue to build a
giant spoon? Prying you for building deep blue.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Head on a swivel, I mean the ability to know
where the market was moving, what budgets advertisers were pulling from,
what formats they were obsessed with the ability to see
beyond just a specific portion of advertising marketing was critical
to then apply that to a broader industry. So had
to go through those experiences to effectively take the leap, sure,
(09:22):
but then be able to navigate and anticipate what was
going to come next. And yes, building a new business,
but one that had a very specific focus in niche
and women's sports.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So in twenty twenty three you launched Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. You mentioned that you wanted to build something,
but I'm curious what else was the impetus for starting
this company and why in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The day of which the genesis of Deep Blue began,
it was in the summer of twenty nineteen. This was
the Women's World Cup, so the US women's national team
was making a run to win their fourth World Cup,
which they ended up winning. It was also the same
year that a number of the players had to their
employer in US SOI or for equal pay and one
(10:02):
and at the crux of this, when the team was
lifting the trophy in France, the equal pay chant broke
out across the stadium. You know, typically you would hear
USA and the entire crowd in an international market breaks
out an equal pay, equal pay, and I remember all
the broadcasters started talking about have we hit a new
inflection point in women's soccer and women's sports in this country?
(10:26):
And when you think about the twenty year cycle, we
hadn't seen that sort of bump since nineteen ninety nine
when Brady Chestain infamously rips her jersey off. And for
whatever reason, Nikki, like I end up going on the
NWSL website, had this inclination like the majority of these players,
most if not all, are going to end up coming
back to our domestic league, the NWSL, and could it
to state. And when I went on the NWSL website
(10:48):
that day in twenty nineteen, literally as the fanfare is happening,
I scrolled to the very bottom of that website and
there were four partners to the league. So Nike had
the kids, you know, the uniform partner, Lifetime, the Women's
Cable Network was the official distributor of the NWSL at
that point, or in the supplement's company, and there was
a long care brand that didn't have a website at
(11:08):
least that I could find as the fourth.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
You look back on that and you.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Say, well, super grateful that those partners were in early
and they were supporting, But as somebody who grew up
understanding because of my corporate experience, that media rights and
ats spend are inextricably linked to drive the sports and
entertainment business, there was no way these four partners alone
could sustain what I was then watching on TV totally.
(11:33):
So I became obsessed with this is one of these
things where it's like, well, why isn't the advertising industry reacting?
I mean, the feed was hot, like social is going crazy,
like you know, fans like this is the moment We've arrived.
But simultaneously in my inbox where I'm still working with
some of the world's biggest brands, those that actually spend.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
In sport crickets. So it sort of led on a.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Multi year explore, whether in COVID in between, to understand
what the business opportunity was if you specifically and exclusively
focused on bringing commercial investment to women's sports. Turns out
there's a big business. But it was a multi year journey.
I mean I went on a bit of a road
show with one of my colleagues, Nikim mal Hocho, who
ended up joining me Scfoco and the company to really
(12:16):
understand the marketplace. And we had one final test that
we were going to do to really understand like if
we build it, will people come? And that manifested in
what is our Annual Business of Women's Sports Summit. So
in April of twenty three, this is about a week
or two after the Caitlin Clark Angel Reese of it all,
so the hype and enthusiasm is building, and we ended
(12:38):
up hosting this at Studio AH, which, if you know
the inner workings of NBC SNL Studios, and I had
to have an epic space for what I believe needed
to be taken seriously. It needed to have gravitas, and
the conversations were going to be as equally epic to
understand does the market care? I mean, you're in this
business that you know when you have chief marketing officers
(12:59):
of some the world's biggest brands, some of which I
didn't know at the time, flying across the country on
their own dime, spending an entire day in a subject
area that at that time in April of twenty three
was not in the zeitgeist. There's something there totally. So
we went through a whole day of programming and I
remember walking off the stage and I was like, this
(13:20):
is it. We're doing this, which led to a couple
months of just getting things in order. My colleagues at
Giant Spoon, my partners at Giant Spoon seated the company,
which allowed me to move quickly, not only with the
financial backing, but resources as well. Announced the company in
December twenty three. People told me I was out of
my mind, not in a negative way. I think they
were really just like, hey, You've built this career, you
got a good thing going, Like are you sure? And
(13:42):
you couldn't tell me otherwise like I was going. So
we announced the company in twenty three. I think a
lot of people like, what is this? This focus women's sports.
I had another card in my back pocket. I announced
Suberdos joining the company as a partner in January of
twenty four, and that was very important to me because
the athlete perspective was absolutely article and it needed to
be at the table because many people in the industry
(14:03):
had an experienced women's sports, whether it's going to a game,
watching it on TV, having met these athletes. So I
really wanted to ensure we had not just the advertising,
media marketing practitioner skill set at the table, but the
athlete point of view as well as a competitive advantage.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And then you.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Fast forward three four months later, April of twenty four,
Kaitlin Clark makes that run again and it just has
been a rocket ship ever since.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
So perhaps right time, right place.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But I think the backstory is important because this wasn't
like a bandwagon fan moment. This was truly years in
the making of understanding market signals. And you know you
alluded to did my experience and format. Had I not
had fifteen twenty years of buying and being in the
business of sports, men's or women's have understanding the way
the market moved and operated, I don't know that it
(14:50):
would have been as an effective launch, let alone still
be standing here two years later on the up and up.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
So absolutely connected.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, okay, so I want to take a step for
the listener. What does the Deeply Sports do?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So, when we launched the company and still to this
day unless somebody fact checks me otherwise, the first firm
in the world dedicated to bringing commercial investment to the
world of women's sports exclusively. So we are primarily working
with brands to inform their strategy, their commercial strategy for
how they're going to invest, partner, license, activate, et cetera.
(15:25):
In the women's sports industry, so a lot of times
that looks like building creative campaigns, that looks like they're
media investments, that looks like partnering with league teams and athletes.
That was our initial way in, but as we got
under the hood, we realized that there was a very nascent,
immature marketplace. And what I mean by that is women's
(15:46):
sports struggles from two things. It's hard to find and
it's hard to buy, and that's a real disadvantage when
you're in the advertising business. So we realized halfway through
our first year we were going to actually have to
also solve the other side of the coin, which was
creating content. Even today, like if you really think about it,
pre half time postgame shows few and far between in
(16:07):
women's sports, very little in the way of shoulder programming
or ancillary programming in terms of storytelling that goes beyond
the court. Social Obviously, the athletes have taken command of
that and are using the platforms to help build fandom,
which has absolutely been a part of the growth story.
But when you look at the media marketplace in general,
the amount of actual content creation, which then includes advertising inventory,
(16:30):
which is what brings advertisers to the table. Got it
very immature market, So that led us to open up
an IP division and we said we're going to have
to create the market we need for our advertisers to
invest in. So that led us to founding the iHeart
Women's Sports podcast network. We have over sixteen podcasts and
market in the last two years with a daily women's
sports report that goes out across five hundred stations across
(16:52):
the country, reaching seventy five million people monthly.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
We have an events business. We just launched a partnership
with Religion of.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Sports to develop doc It's just really understanding where is
the consumer moving, where are the gaps, and then leveraging
our expertise to fill it, either through partnerships, brand supported initiatives, etc.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Got it Okay?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So you mentioned WNBA Legends Sue Bird as a partner.
What was it about Sue that you knew would be
a great partner for you.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
We had a very serendipitous connection. We met at an
industry event. She was just coming off a twenty year career.
For all the medals, and she has five gold medals
for all the MVPs and championship titles. What I saw
was the raw point guard and subird and you talked
about transferable skills. What was interesting in my earliest conversations
with Sue was not just how she saw where the
(17:44):
women's sports industry could move, but the questions that she
was asking. And it was very clear to me that
this was a person who understood and could control what
she could control in some of the endeavors that she
was already participating in. But if she could also put
her fingerprints on this of the house which was influencing
the systems, you can make the greatest content in the world,
(18:04):
but if nobody sees it, it's a moot.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Point.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So if you can understand the mechanics of how brands
come to the table, how they make investment decisions, what
data points they're looking for to make those decisions, now
all of a sudden, you have this end to end
perspective that could help move the industry forward. We laughed
when we ultimately decided to partners, like, what should my
title be?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
And just like I don't know, chief point guard officer.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I'm like I don't know if that's going to fly
with procurement, but really, what she's talking about a strategy.
She is a strategist, and it's amazing. You watch her
in the room, and I love it to this day.
I get so excited to see it in action. The
same way I'm sure countless practices, games, international competitions. She
commanded the floor, She anticipated where her teammates were going
(18:46):
to be, She put things in motion. She ran plays
no different watching her in the boardroom. So the subject
matter is obviously different, but that innate sense of understanding
what in anticipating what needs to happen two or three
plays ahead to get to a result one of the
best I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I have to say, I'm listening to you speak about
Sue and your background, and I'm just sort of like,
if you have a daughter, Like, how could you not
put her in sports? Like this is what could happen
in any sport, Like there's so much to be learned
from that.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Totally, And you know, there's so much great data on this.
Girls who play sports become women who lead. This is
an inherent, proven connection. Ninety percent of women in the
C suite have played some sport. At any level in
their lives, and over fifty percent of them collegiately. So
you know that there is this correlation of the skills
that you develop becoming leadership tools later on. Yet we
(19:41):
also know, and as I think about speaking to the
editor in chief of Marie Clair, forty five percent of
girls are dropping out of sport by the age of fourteen,
largely due to body confidence issues. And you start thinking, well,
what influences body confidence issues? The media, marketing and advertising
industry of which I'm a part of, is a great
responsibil say, we got to rewrite the script here.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And understand what messages.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
We're putting out or perhaps not putting out that can
impact somebody's decision to stay in the game. And then
it's like, okay, you could understand that correlation. That was
enough for year one to start talking in that sensibility,
but you got to put numbers against it, because ultimately, Nikki,
at the end of the day, you're asking for people
to make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, tens of
(20:26):
millions of dollars in investment to grow this thing.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You need to come with the facts. I saw a
study not that long ago.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
It was literally published within the last few months in
the UK from Sky and the commissioned to study to
understand what the economic potential was that was lost if
a young woman drops out in the UK. They equated
it's about thirty thousand pounds per person that drops out
and earning potential. So you do the quick math in
terms of conversion rate, that means in the US hypothetically
(20:52):
that's forty six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So you go a step further and you're like.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Okay, there's three point five million girls playing sports at
the high.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
School level in the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
If you pull forty five percent of them, now you're
at one point five seventy five million are dropping out.
Multiply that by forty point six. Now you realize you're
talking about sixty four billion dollars in economic potential and
opportunity that is lost because girls are.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Dropping out of sports.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And now you're going to take a step back and say, now,
not only do we have a social opportunity development skills,
we're also talking about an economic gap that needs to
be closed. That's a different conversation than go women.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Sports, right, And then you draw it even further when
you look at certain political laws trying to be passed.
Then you have that question of like, okay, who does
it benefit?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Who is winning? If women are not in sports, you look.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
At things like healthcare. I really applaud the work that
Michelle Kang is doing. Michelle King is an entrepreneur and
owns a number of women's soccer teams and is really
monatically focused on the performance angle and bringing attention to
the research inequities just around women's bodies and the fact
that six percent of all research is done through the
lens of a woman's body. So you rip back layers
(22:09):
and you realize that how women are trained has largely
been off men's training manuals. You can go down the
list of systems that need to be addressed in order
to get to parody.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, and I like that you use the word systems.
I think that's a really key word when we think about.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
All of this.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
So Deep Blues slogan is be the shark, which I love.
Can you explain a little bit for the listener what
that means.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, So it turns out the largest shark ever recorded
in the world happens to be a female, And I
always say she lives off the coast of Hawaii. I
believe she's past sixty years old now, which I would say,
maybe that's my life goals and it's a future vision board.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
But her name is deep Blue.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And so what I love about sharks is that they're
never at rest and they can only swim forward. And
when you think about the mission and the task at hand,
it just felt very apropos that we would make deep
Blue our namesake and have that mindset, because you know,
every day is a battle. You get up and still
two years into this thing, looking at the numbers, the ratings,
(23:16):
the merchandise sold, the tickets flying off the shelves, I
still every day have to get up and make the
business case why women's sports.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
So deep Blue has accomplished so much. In September, Deep
Blue launched its first documentary, The Fastest Six Weeks and Sports.
You announced the Women's Sports Index. You worked on Badgist sales,
first deal with the New York Liberty. Ultimately, though, what
is your vision for the future.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Of Deep Blue?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Sure, so, as I was alluding earlier, the Trojan Horsen
was going to be advertising media marketing. It's what I did,
It's what I knew. But once you get under the
hood and you called out. The word that I think
is really important too, is like it is a systems
game and recognizing how to leverage the institutional knowledge I
have from my experience in advertising and now applying it
(24:04):
to other areas. The vision is that deep Blue will
become a global operating system that will have assets that
sit on top of it, build off of it, et cetera,
and so forth. So who's to say, you know, deep
Blue doesn't own teams in the future, or deep Blue
doesn't get into the commerce space or talent management. I mean,
there's so many different directions of where it can go.
(24:24):
It is such an early stage market. The biggest thing
that I've recognized is the ability to work with brands
to bypass gatekeep systems, to be able to get ideas
in market, to be able to get products in market.
That ability, I think will take the industry zero to
sixty because you're not be held to sort of legacy
ways of having to get project's finance, having to get
(24:46):
approval to get them in market, etc. And so that
is a bit of gaming the system in an effort
to really grow and sustain it.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's so interesting. I want to talk to you about
the state of women's sports in general. I started at
Clara in twenty twenty three, and one of the first
things I wanted to do was make a women in
Sports issue because I had seen and continue to see
how women's sports was really breaking into the mainstream and
no small part thanks to the efforts of people like you.
(25:15):
You know, So talk to me a little bit about
the current state of the ad industry and like monetary
opportunities when it comes to women's sports right now.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, we're still on the ground floor.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
What's interesting is the headlines and we have to be
very cognizant of this. I wouldn't say necessarily yet match
up to the potential of investment. And what I mean
by that is, you know, the athletes are doing a
phenomenal job, teams, leagues, front offices, phenomenal job of taking
something that was so under resourced, underserved, underinvested in just
(25:49):
two years ago and turning it on its head to
create bespoke, standalone models, new ways of engaging with fans.
When I think about game day experience, you allude to
New York liberty. I mean, and I would challenge and
I'm not just talking women's sports. I would challenge any
sports franchise to go up against what they're producing night
after night at the Barclays.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's lights out.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And that comes from independent thinking, that comes from innovation
and ingenuity.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
And we're going to need more of that.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And while they're doing a phenomenal job of demonstrating the potential,
the investment has to meet it. I think a lot
about how the current state of advertisers.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Some that have been in there from the beginning, and
I really.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Applaud them, and they've stuck by it and they've committed,
and without them, it's not possible. We're going to need
to move into non endemics. And what I mean by
that is getting outside of the usual suspects to grow
this pie, which means a whole model has to continue
to iterate and evolve, so what you would typically see
in sports and oversaturated categories. What I'm absolutely loving is
seeing the insights driving and informing brands like Etsy, brands
(26:56):
like Bobby. I mean, go down the list of brands
that haven't invested in this space, but recognizing the audience
very little if any overlap from what they may be
investing on the men's side or perhaps they haven't invested
on the men's side because their audience might not be there,
whatever the case may be, but are testing the waters here.
The entry point is still accessible for brands to test,
(27:16):
which I think is great. I think that will run
out eventually, but we need to be able to make
the business case full stop, to bring new and differentiated
brands and categories to the space to continue to grow
this thing.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Isn't there something so exciting to knowing that you're just
on the ground floor, that the rocket is just taking off.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
It's exciting to be part of shaping what the model
can look like. But then there's days I'm just like NICKI,
I'm like.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
How are we not seeing this? Right? Of course you
talked about systems early on.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
This was one of the biggest catalysts for informing our
business plan and talking about systems. Women's sports doesn't have
a product issue. I mean that US women's national team
I was talking about earlier on in the conversation, one
of the most dominant teams for decades.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
No storytelling issues here.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Anywhere you look, there is some really exciting, engaging, emotional storytelling.
It's a system's issue, and what you realize is that.
For example, women's sports is still to this day bought
and sold on the same currency and measured in the
same metrics as men's sports are, which is reach an efficiency.
So how many eyeballs can my dollars get as cost
(28:23):
efficiently as possible. So when you're sitting in an advertising
agency at buying agency in particular, which I did for
the first half of my career, and a brand tasks
you with find as many eyeballs as efficiently as possible,
and a media network big network has tons of media rights,
sellers aren't incentivized to sell one property versus the other.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
They're incentivized to hit their quarterly goals.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
So if they present you Sunday Night football versus the
WNBA playoffs, which by the way, happened to overlap this year,
and I have a dollar to spend, that is my goal.
I can tell you where the dollar's going nine ten
out of ten times, and the seller is not incentivized
to redirect your decision making. So how can women's sports
survive and thrive if they're being transacted and measured on
(29:12):
a currency and metric they inherently cannot deliver on because
you don't have it on primetime. It's not a major broadcast,
it's behind seventy five pay walls.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
This is what I mean. It's hard to find, hard
to buy. You can't find it.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, so right there, out of the gate, you start
to recognize it's like, well, until you could right size
the media model, you're actually buying a completely different business altogether.
Now you start talking about engagement. I'll take women's sports
all day.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
One thousand percent. On the podcast we had Shana from
The Liberty on and it to this day is one
of the most viral clips we've had on Marie Clair
when she was talking about Ellie the Elephant and to
see the engagement, like people commenting, I don't follow sports,
but I know Ellie.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh, they've done a phenomenal job. Hats off to Shane
and her team. I mean, truly what they've been able
to do in creating a cultural icon, lot of sports icon,
a cultural icon. Who's showing up at red carpets and
sitting front row at Fashion.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Week and first person perspective can tell you.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I've had multiple brands come to the table that if
Ellie isn't in the package, they are disappointed.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, I love where else is that?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Happening. I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
So something I love that you say at Deep Blue
is that women's sports aren't just having a moment, it
is the moment. I'm curious, though, what can we as
consumers do to make sure that that moment continues?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Sure, I mean you hear the players say this all
the time. Buy a ticket, go to a game. I
mean when you start thinking about the accessibility of women's
sports for a family of four, you can still go
and enjoy a game for under one hundred dollars. The
access point to be able to experience it, to become
a fan, to fall in love with it, that is
what we encourage. And you know, a lot of it
is just supply. I think the demand has been there,
(30:53):
so you start to look at things like merchandising. I
think the WNBA merchandising was up seven hundred percent year
over year. When you look at that, it's like, is
that the growth of interest or is it because simply
there wasn't enough product.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
You could argue both ways.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I'm sure the spend indicator is there ally financial. Just
put out a study that is all about how fans
are spending.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
There is no signs of slowing down.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Insomuch that women's sports fans I believe it is seven
out of ten will continue to spend or indicate they
will continue to spend in the space, so there's absolute demand.
Then I start thinking about all of the ancillary businesses
that are popping up.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Look at women's sports bars.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm a huge fan of what Jenny Winnn took a
bet on in Portland to start this momentum at the
sports bra And you know, now there's, however, many across
the country, literally entire industries being born out of this moment.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Show up, support them, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
And I think to get people in the seats to
experience it. It's one of my favorite things to do.
Somebody who's on the fence of questioning their decision making
should we invest just take them to the game. Yes,
And you start to see it is not what we
have been conditioned to think a sporting event is. Like,
it's a much different experience from outside the stadium and
(32:07):
arena all the way through to the final whistle, the
family environment, the community and culture that exists, the support.
You know, it's one of the funniest things I love
about women's sports. Like I'm a New York fan through
and through, like I support my teams, but I support
everybody else's teams, and there is this inherent like rooting
for the broader industry. I think so much of that
(32:28):
is because fans of women's sports over the last however
many decades, have had to put this thing on their
back and carry it forward to ensure that it continues
and sustains. And now that there's infrastructure, support and resources
to help extrapolate that experience, they're sticking with it and
it's growing.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
One of my.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Favorite statistics that I saw recently specifically to the WNBA
was thirteen to seventeen year old boys in terms of
fandom and engagement grow one hundred and thirty percent this
past season. So now you have an entire generation, not
even different creating what causes that While the athletes are
in the feed, the highlights are in the feed, they're
engaging on social.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
This shows progress.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So while we're still at the earliest, these are the
signals Nikki like I look for that.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
I'm like, come on, can't you see it? But we
have to build the case.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, I think to your point, though, going to a
game is key, like stepping into the community. Like something
that we talk about at Marie Clair often is the community,
like you saw it.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
At power Play.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Like we're all about building the community. Because when you
build that, or when you become a part of that,
then your eyes open up in a whole different way
and you're like, Oh, okay, I get it. I want
to know what do you see for the future of
women's sports.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I mean, I hope it's just exponential growth. In the
early days, it was is this an opportunity and bringing
awareness to it. Now we're really in a period of
right sizing it, like it's the building of infrastructure, the
building of systems. You know, even just look at what's
happening across not just here in the US but around
the world, and the amount of money being put into
training facilities. We are in that build period. What happens
when it's built, That's what I'm very excited about. But
(34:02):
I'm also eager to think about how we will build differently.
I had a really interesting experience last year at an
NWSL playoff game at Audi Field. I went to go
see Gotham play the Washington Spirit, and there was a
stroller parking section. I had never seen that at an
arena or a stadium, and now it was a pop
up vendor. It wasn't like a dedicated business within the space.
(34:24):
But I thought just the creativity of knowing, you know,
many people walking to the game, the access, the convenience
of it all. There's an executive I hadn't met years
ago who was running a team in Europe who decided
to put Espresso Martinez on tap and how that changed
the culture of the fan experience. Chelsea Women's Football Club
(34:44):
does bottomless brunch at the Bridge Stanford Bridge for their
women's games and what that has done for ticket sales.
So I'm excited to see how the creativity and innovation
happens in the build and then what the value will
then be compounded on top of that.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
I am so excited.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Well, just hearing you speak about just those few things,
I'm like, oh, this is really just the beginning, Like
this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think it is going to take great entrepreneurs and
brain trusts to push the limits. And I think that
is what is most exciting about the growth potential of
women's sports is that you have people coming into this
space with fresh eyes, fresh thinking that are saying, well,
why do I have to do it the way this
has been done, and I think that that is the
beauty and where this can grow.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, that's incredible. Okay, So before I let you go,
we always like to end this podcast with a quick
lightning round about money, style and power. I'll ask you
three questions and you just tell me what comes to
mind first. Okay, So number one, what's one thing money
can't buy?
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Time?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
If you could trade closets with anyone, who would it be?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
And why?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I want Emma Gred's closet when it comes to getting
business done. I want Halle Bieber's maternity slash streetwear. And
I want to roar James's shoe collection.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Oh those are good. That's all on my Pinter's board
right now. I love that. I love that. Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So lastly, what's your go to song when you want
to feel powerful?
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Some sort of like house version of the Jaws anthem?
Like I think I'm gonna go work on that after
we get off this conversation.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
That's the next arm is like making playlists. Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, Laura Karanti, thank you so much for joining us
on Nice Talk. This has been incredible.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Thank you. This was a nice talk. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
A huge thank you to Laura Karanti. If you like
today's episode, please subscribe to Nice Talk wherever you get
your podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review us.
We'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions for the show,
so feel free to reach out to us on Instagram
at Marie Claire mag or directly to me at nikki ogum.
We can't wait to hear from you. I'm Nikoganaki and
I'll see you next Thursday for another Nice Talk. This
(36:52):
episode was produced by Hilary Kerr Summerhammers and Natalie Thurman.
Our production assistant is Raven Yamamota. Our editor is Natalia Perez.
Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles,
and our music is by The Math Club.
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