July 9, 2025 • 39 mins
2024 was a record-breaking season for the WNBA—and Colie Edison is making sure it’s just the start. As Chief Growth Officer, she’s behind the league’s 19% spike in sponsorships, its mission to build long-term brand equity, and the 13x business return league partners are experiencing. She joins Laura to break down what’s fueling and how to sustain that growth, how the league is approaching an expanding fanbase, and why building the W means meeting the moment while thinking seasons ahead through data and beyond.
00:52 Coley Edison's Impact on WNBA Growth
01:48 Expansion Teams Announcement
05:06 Sponsorship Growth and New Standards
06:14 Historic Media Rights Deal
08:07 Balancing Core and New Fans
10:38 Storytelling and Brand Partnerships
14:25 Building Internal Resources and Infrastructure
17:37 Data Collection and Business Intelligence
20:09 Fan Demographics and Engagement
22:03 Value of League, Team, and Athlete IP
29:15 Sustaining and Gaining Momentum
36:25 Upcoming Events and Future Plans
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
No matter what, endorsing our athletes is going to drive
home that brand affinity because we know that fans of
the WNBA are almost three times more likely to purchase
from a brand that partners with the w than any
fans of general sport.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome back to Courtside, where we break down the business
of women's sports with the people turning momentum into muscle.
I'm your host, Laura Crenzy, and today we're talking about
what it really takes to scale a league, build a brand,
and meet the moment. Forget meeting it. The WNBA is
exceeding it. And my guest today is Coley Edison, chief
Growth Officer at the WNBA, and we're catching her during
(00:40):
a very timely moment where the league just announced three
more expansion teams coming to Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. And
Coley Edison, she's a marketing force in her own right.
Since joining the league just three years ago in twenty
twenty two, Coley has helped drive record break and growth.
We're talking fifty four million viewers, a nineteen percent sponsorship spike,
(01:00):
and a league valuation pushing the billion dollar mark. She's
also champion player first investments from charter flights to evolving standards,
all while ensuring the w continues to sustain and gain.
Let's get into it with Coley Edison. Welcome back to courtside.
I am joined by someone who I absolutely love to
(01:20):
sit courtside with, the Chief Growth Officer of the WNBA,
the hottest women's sports league in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Coley Edison, Welcome to court side. Thank you so much
for having me, Laura. It's great to be.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Here, so so fun to have this conversation literally the
day after. How lucky am I to get you on
the line, knowing how busy you are because you just
announced expansion teams one, two, and three for twenty twenty
eight through twenty thirty. Just incredible. So Cleveland is coming online,
Detroit is coming online, Philadelphia is coming online. That in
(01:52):
addition to two new teams that were just announced previously,
Toronto and Portland. So Coley talk to us about literally
putting the growth and chief growth officer in the WNBA.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It all goes back to the players. That's the reason
that we're here. I think when I talk about putting
the growth in and my job as Chief Growth Officer,
it was to operationalize what was really already there, which
was the best women's basketball in the world, combined with
this amazing brand of the WNBA, which has always stood
for female empowerment and really raising the voices of underrepresented groups.
(02:27):
You know, our players are eighty percent women of color,
many who identify as LGBTQ. And so with this backbone
of amazing talent and amazing brand and an amazing purpose,
my job was to operationalize and monetize all of that,
and that's where we are today in twenty twenty five,
seeing one hundred and forty percent growth on viewership and
triple digit growth in every other metric as well.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Now, somebody comes from media. Anytime you start getting into
triple let alone double digit growth, I think you have
a business case. But that wasn't always the case. Can
you talk about some of those cornerstones of growth that
you've been able to build on that were absolutely critical
for this moment we're experiencing now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So when I came in, I'm the first one to
hold this position as chief growth officer. Kathy recruited me
back in twenty twenty one. I started in twenty two.
I had one direct report and that person was really
focused on really up leveling our broadcast, which is great
because if you were viewing at the time, you know,
local games looked like X and national games looked like Y,
(03:25):
and it was really just not a consistent experience. So
that was great, but that was not going to ultimately
catapult our launch. So the first thing that I did
when I came in, My biggest focus was on digital transformation.
If you recall the WNBA app back in twenty two
and before, that was really just a destination to get
you to our streaming site so you could log onto
(03:46):
the app and then you would go on to League Pass.
There was really no central truth, no place to go
for stats, highlight stories around the game, player profiles that
didn't exist within us. You always have to go elsehere where.
At the same time, our dot com needed in a
complete makeover as well, and really just the way that
(04:07):
our social was run needed that backbone of great digital
and so we came in and in twenty twenty three
we completed in eighteen month digital transformation, and I think
that was a key cornerstone, like you said, that building
block for catapulting the growth.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So you come in in twenty two, by twenty twenty
three estimated revenue was eight hundred and sixty million dollars.
Since then, as we see rookies like Kaitlin Clark and
Angel Reese and an incredible class come into the league.
In twenty four, we then head into fifty four million
unique viewers, up one hundred and seventy percent. We've got
a lot of media and marketing executives who listened to
(04:45):
the show, and so I think it's important to dimensionalize
just how big and how quickly the league has exploded
since then. League sponsorships grew to forty three corporate sponsors,
up from thirty six just a year prior in twenty
twenty three, including eight new partners who's sign after that
twenty twenty three season, ninety percent year over year increase
in sponsorship deals. The list goes on and on and on,
(05:08):
but notably, in addition to those dollars coming in, there
have been new standards that the league has been setting,
including things like full time charter flights, thinking about upping
the standards of professionalism and wellness around women's sports. Ticket
sales are up. Of course, I even saw the San
Francisco Chronicle like in the growth of the WNBA, the Beatlemania.
I mean, what do you make of all of it?
(05:29):
Joining the league in twenty twenty two and just seeing
the zeitgeist busting moment, and more importantly, how do you
sustain it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I mean, I think what's really important for people to
know is that it wasn't always like this, Laura, and
I think you're really trying to hit that home. And
it's important to me because I was making a lot
of phone calls that nobody was picking up. And you
know what's crazy is those same people that ghosted me
are calling me now and they want a deal. In
my role, I oversee our media partnerships. We just signed
(05:59):
the most historic women's sports deal in the history of
women's sports. It's a two point two billion dollar media
rights deal over the next eleven years, and that is
just with what we're calling our tranch iMedia. So with that,
we'll welcome the NBC Universal family into the fold, and
we'll continue to have our games on ESPN and ABC
(06:21):
as well as Disney Plus. And then we're also going
to be really upping our game on Amazon Prime. That's
the first trench, and then we just announced the first
piece of our second trench, which is renewing our deal
with Ion. We love being on Ion. We were the
first sports property that they signed. A big part of
that is the ancillary content that they've invested a lot
into produce. So you're seeing these Friday night spotlights for
(06:44):
the WNBA and then we have a studio show that's
on before the game and in the middle, and I think.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Which is net new to women's sports, not just women's
basketball period.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
APPRECIATEO. What's really unique here.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Is that, you know, people ask me what I think
the number one driver is of this and outside of
the players, because I'll always go back to that, it's
the investment. It's the investment from the media companies. It's
the investment from the media, right, how are our stories
being told by those who are covering the game, not
just by those who are broadcasting the game. And then
(07:18):
it's the investment by our partners. And so that's really
where we've seen such huge increases. And like you've seen,
the output has been, you know, growth across social attendance,
digital viewership, every metric.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
One hundred percent. And when you talk about the coverage
being paramount, you just talked about for the first time
ever bringing a pre show in and around women's sports.
This is major to understand the storylines, the context of
the game, the off court components that go into the
on court success and competition. Ultimately, as you look at
continuing to grow that level of distribution under Sin, you've
(07:55):
got a lot of OG fans who are dialed in
and our league past members on the end, they'll figure
out where to find the game. But you've got a
whole new generation of fans coming online that are hot
on the TikTok, they're in the feed. How are you
balancing to ensure you protect the core right while really
demensializing and growing this next gen of fan.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, it's a really good question, Laura. I think at
the heart, we know our loyalists who have been with
us from day one, and we kind of know what
they want. We sit on a ton of first party data,
meaning we can see the viewing habits, the attendance habits,
the buying habits, the engagement habits of our fans, and
we know what our loyalists want, and they want the
(08:37):
true basketball and we're always going to deliver that first
and foremost. We are a professional sports property, and I
think you know we're going to stay true to that,
and then the goal is to make it easier to
be a fan, whether you are a new fan or
an old fan. You need to know when is our
game on, where are the games on, and how do
(08:57):
I watch, attend, and buy. And I want to represent
the teams that I love and the players that I love.
And we have not done prior to me coming in,
and no fault of the league at the time, but
we didn't do a great job of making it easy
to be a fan. Our viewers had to search through
many different cable networks and listen. We are also aware
(09:19):
that there's huge disruption in the media landscape and it's
not getting any easier across other properties as well. You know,
NFL is both streaming and linear and every other property.
But it's our job as the league to help our
fans find us, engage with us, and deeply build that
fandom so that we can move from you know, I
talked about this with you being a supporter of the
(09:41):
WNBA to being a fan of a team and a.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Player, right. Yeah. The important to bring in the casual
and as much as the Rabbit fans. You know, in
twenty four you had your most watched postseason in sixteen
years and your most watched regular season in twenty one years. Now.
A lot of that does come from everything from appointment viewing, discoverability, access,
but a lot of it also comes from the storyline
and the dimensionality of this league. And as much as
(10:05):
obviously your role in REMIT is with media, it's also
in bringing in corporate partners to help not just support financially,
but what I'm seeing a lot is extrapolating and creating
value exchange to talk more about who these women are
on and off the court. Can you talk about the
storytelling that you've seen evolve over the last three years
(10:25):
since your time at the league and what that has
meant in bringing in corporate partners that might not just
be interested in the basketball piece.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, storytelling is key across every medium we talk about today,
but when it comes to our players, we used to
say there was one hundred and forty four athletes with
two hundred and eighty eight stories, and you know now
they're one hundred and fifty six. And these are really
multi dimensional people. They are dynamic individuals who have really
been underrepresented across brand deals, and I think brands started
(10:56):
to pick up on the fact that women athletes are
the most followed and the most influential that you're going
to see on social media. They are authentic and that
is what resonates with fans in twenty twenty five. They
want to see a multi dimensional person, not just when
she's at her best, but also the moments where she's struggling.
So a few places that we've done that you know
(11:17):
I'll speak to. We have an amazing program called the
Change Makers. We have at and T, Nike, Deloitte, CarMax,
Ally Financial, and Google who have come in and they
were really saying, we want to make an investment not
only to this league, but to the players and to
women sports and society as a whole. And so the
(11:38):
past two years we've partnered with a platform called Voice
in Sport, which is headed by Steph Strack, an amazing
ex Nike exec And the goal of Voice and Sport
is to use digital mentorship to keep girls in sport.
And that's a through line here with storylines and storytelling
is that when I was growing up, when you were
growing up, we had nobody to tell us what the
(12:00):
truth was about playing sports at the highest level. So
you dealt with, you know, beauty issues and getting your
period and not being sexy if you weren't a cheerleader,
and what should you be eating and what shouldn't you
embody dysmorphie in all of these things, and there was
nowhere to go. And now, through the change Maker sponsorship
(12:20):
and our partnership with Voice and Sport, we've mentored fifty
thousand girls last season. We're on track to do another
fifty thousand this season and fifty thousand next season. And
those mentors that I'm talking about are sixteen WNBA paid athletes,
each telling their stories of where they've been and the
struggles that they've had and motivating these girls to stay
in sport because girls drop out at a rate two
(12:42):
weeks of boys by the time they're fourteen. So that's
just one instance where we're taking the true stories of
these athletes and using that to influence girls. And then
I think brands have seen how powerful that is. One
I'll talk about that join this year's coach. You know,
Coach came on as our official handbag partner and made
a huge investment in the draft the rookie class, outfitting
(13:04):
them for our draft. They have the sponsors of the
Orange Carpet and really focused on the spirit and the
individuality of our players and highlighting that through their product
and through their brand. We widen that aperture so more
brands can come in through those different lanes.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Once you get all these brands in the door, though,
the execution is key. And I heard you as we
started this conversation say, when you were hired, you had
one direct report and this was focused largely on media.
Then you have this gold rush, right, the largest increase
probably of commercial investment in women's sports we've seen todate.
You've got to be able to deliver. Can you talk
(13:56):
about how you're evolving your resource, your infrastructure internally to
not just support a meet brands where they are, but
to ensure that the authenticity, the storytelling, all of the
things that you just said that make this leak so
unique and special maintain and are also brought to the
forefront with these partnerships.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah. Right, that's the core, And I think that was
a little bit of the old WNBA was able to say, sure,
we'll take your sponsorship dollars, but then they really couldn't
service them, and that was not you know, for a
lack of wanting to. It was just a lack of resources.
And when Kathy Engelbert came in and began this transformation,
(14:36):
she understood that her biggest role was in deployment of
capital and that was both the actual investment dollars that
we had when we raised seventy five million in outside
capital raised in twenty two, but also human capital, because
you can't get this done if you don't have the
people to do it. And so I scaled up my team.
Phil Cook, our amazing CMO, scaled up his team between
(14:58):
the two of us. I started with one, he started
with four. I now have a team of twenty nine
and he has over thirty. And we're each opening up
ten more positions in this next fiscal which kicks off
at the end of September, because we need to be
there because I don't I've always had this, even when
I worked in the PBA. I don't care if your
sponsorship is two hundred thousand dollars, I'm going to treat
(15:18):
it like it's two million dollars. And if it's two
million dollars, I'm going to treat it like it's twenty
million dollars. Because I know when you renew. It's it's
a lot easier to renew than it is to acquire
a new partner, right and if you have experienced what
I like to call over delivery from every brand asset
that you bought to every off court experience, then you're
(15:40):
more likely to reno. And so that's really been the
focus is how do we over deliver for every partner
so that we can see one hundred percent renewals.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And what are some of those skill sets that you
are bringing in.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It was some key hires in the beginning, and now
it's building up under those teams. So dev Ward leads
our digital practice and we have an entire digital team,
and we also use Deloitte, who is our great partner,
for more external resources. But we have a front end
engineering team, a back end engineering team, a digital products team,
a digital monetization team, and this all reports up into
(16:12):
me because I do have a background in that. And no,
none of that existed before or it was a shared
resource with the NBA, which was great at the time.
But I always say it's a lack of intellectual resourcing,
not that anybody didn't care, they just didn't have the
time right to spend building the W and now we're
able to do that. And then you know, on another vertical,
(16:33):
I have Katie Donovan, who's leading our growth strategy, came
in and that's an entire business intelligence vertical data strategy, analytics.
I'm looking at Machida Sinclair's executive summary put together, and
these are facts that have to be mined. That data
has to be mined, and you need best in class
folks to do that. And then you know, we have
a sports betting team led up by Lauren Dwyer, and
(16:53):
my partnership's team let up by Erica, and my business
development team let up by Emily Black And I just
want to shout out all those people, Eric Smith, because
this doesn't get done by one person, and you know that, Laura,
this gets done by everybody who's in the trenches. And
so I think it's a diversified skill set. Everything from
business intelligence to partnership management to on the ground execution,
(17:15):
all of these things are super important because you need
to build that trust with your partners.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I want to pivot to something you were just talking
about in that skill set, which is business intelligence data collection.
This is something that in my opinion, really slowed the
growth of women's sports even today, because intelligence and data
just simply hasn't existed. How are you approaching that and
how much of it has been informed by investors as
opposed to corporate partners or maybe both.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, I mean the crazy thing is it's informed by
us first and foremost. When Kathy came in, she asked
who is our fan right, and there was nothing. So
it was we need to make that investment in standing
up a back end that can support data collection. And
so we found some great partners in this space. We
work with Stellar Algo so that we could build a
(18:03):
unified fan data platform both at the league level. And
then what we're also doing this is an investment the
league is making for the teams. We're installing this at
the team level so that we can have two way
data sharing. And so now that's the backbone. And then
how do you offer this to your partners, Because Laura,
you know, partners are not coming in and just worrying
(18:24):
about impressions anymore. It is much bigger. They want to
be able to use this as a catalyst for how
they could build their brand against the power of women's sports.
And so one of our new offerings is really allowing
and sharing this data through what we call a data cleanroom,
so that brands can come in and build entire marketing
plans against a fan that they knew nothing about a
(18:48):
few years ago, and today can have eighteen to twenty
to forty plus different data segmentations based on what we
know about these fans.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Right, how come the data hasn't existed? I mean, you
can talk about the tech infrastructre et cetera. But one
of the things that I think is really important to understand,
especially around game day, is every single team in the
WNBA rents their facility right de leases of the men's teams,
and as such, you're not getting that first party data
and obviously people sharing back end, but it's not that clean.
(19:19):
You know who's coming through the turnstiles, who's buying concessions,
you know what the in game experience is, You're having
to work double time. I would presume to understand all
of those key points when you are not the first
point of entry for that data to come through. So
there's facilities being built, but all these things matter to
be able to give brand in particular and investors the
(19:40):
business case for putting their dollars into the game.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, and I would say you said, like sometimes it's
going to the mail team. In some of these buildings
there isn't even a mail team, and we're still fourth
on the list for having our event played.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
There any data that surprised you thus far When you
say who the fan is.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I think what sticks out to me is probably the
younger viewers who are really driving this growth. I mean,
I'm looking at just like our opening week, girls under
eighteen is up one hundred and sixty nine percent. Wow, okay,
under eighteen is up one hundred both men and women
is up one hundred and sixty one percent. And then
(20:19):
I think when we look at really driven by multicultural viewers, right,
so our black viewers are up thirty eight percent, And
I think what's really unique about our league is just
how diverse the fan base is gen Z and millennial women.
That eighteen to thirty four demo that everyone wants to
reach is up thirty nine percent. And so I think,
(20:40):
you know what's not it's surprising to actually have the
data confirm what you've known, right that you think you
know this and then the data confirms it. And I
think that's the type of interesting data facts that our
brands really want to access, and then I think it's
just about like how long they're watching and why they're watching.
I know we kind of break it up as core
(21:02):
casual anew. You talked about this, but like, we are
sustaining the fandom. So in twenty twenty three, we had
thirty percent was our core viewer. In twenty twenty four,
we had thirty four percent as the core viewer. Now
in twenty twenty five, our core viewer is at sixty
eight percent. So we are doubling this loyal fan base
(21:24):
and just continue to grow there. So yes, we're going
to continue to add new right, we had twelve percent
new viewers for tip off week, we had twenty one
percent casual viewers. But what we've shown is that core
viewers make up over a third of this audience returning
from last season, which means that we have the most
engaged fans and they are really fueling that viewership growth.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Where does the value of the IP sit. How are
you thinking about league versus team, versus athlete or the
combination of all three to continue to drive value.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
If you are a brand at the highest level, your
league deal will work hardest for you and you know
this right, So now you're able to access WNBAIP and
most importantly, the players in their jersey is on a
national level. Otherwise you know it is if you don't
have a national awareness issue or you're not trying to
build your brand nationally. I don't know anybody who isn't it,
(22:16):
but say you aren't, then it might be okay just
to do a team deal. And in certain instances, team
deals make a ton of sense. Sometimes there's a category
that's blocked over here at the league level. I'm going
to push you toward a team deal, so I think
you know the most bang for your buck will come
at that league level. If you need that national presence
and you want to build your brand at the highest level,
(22:37):
and then I think you should also supplement it with
a team deal. A team deal lets you go deeper
into the community is in which that team plays in.
But it's important to have that grassroots connection and it's
important that it makes sense with who your brand is.
And then no matter what, endorsing our athletes is going
to drive home that brand affinity. Because we know that
(22:59):
fans of the w the NBA are almost three times
more likely to purchase from a brand that partners with
the w than any fans of general sport, and that
just really goes hard when you're talking about athletes.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Let's talk about that for a second, because we were
just all together at the Canlin Festival where you had
a great discussion with representatives from Genius Sports and Snap
and one of the data points that was shared by
one of the representatives, Melly mccartal at Genius, was around
the effectiveness of leveraging athletes in campaigns, and specifically she
(23:33):
gave the example of CarMax where I believe it was
over one hundred and thirty percent return in terms of
engagement when it came to Carmacks using WNBA athletes in
their ads in comparison to league partners who didn't leverage
those athletes. Can you talk about that level of influence
and impact and how you begin to even equate it
so that brands understand the level of value they do
(23:55):
get from these players in terms of impact and just
overall cultural residences.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, when you think about who the WNBA fan, they
are social first, right, They're one hundred and twenty percent
more likely to seek out these experiences that are going
to make great content for their social media. And so
if you have a partnership with a player who's really
big in that space, that's going to work really hard
for you. If I just look at tip Off, right,
(24:23):
some of these players obviously, you know Caitlin Clark, she
grew her fan base by one hundred and sixty eight
percent year over year just in tip Off week. You
know someone like Angel grew four hundred and fifty percent
year over year just in tip Off week. So the
two of them combined make up over seventeen million followers.
(24:44):
So we know that there is great resonance with these
players and the people who support them. I think when
you talk about why the purpose right behind a lot
of this, it's all impact driven. Eighty percent of our
fans are more likely to feel that brand is important
if they understand where they are on the wire issues
in society, and they make it very clear where you
(25:06):
are when you are a partner of the WNBA. And
so I think when you talk about the connection with
our fans, right, this growth and fandom is coming from
this deepened connection with the fans and our highly engaged audience.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
I was speaking engagement not that long ago at a
local high school. One of the questions that came forward
was do you think the veterans are jealous or bitter
or have just a negative visceral reaction to the rookies
and all that they're getting access to, And I said
absolutely n I thought Cannice Parker did a brilliant job
in an interview that she did with Steven Ah Smith
(26:00):
talking about the pay it forward nature of this league.
Nothing brings me more joy as an eighties baby who
grew up playing in the nineties than seeing Cheryl Swoops,
Lisa Leslie, all of these great sitting courtside supporting these
young athletes and all they do to show the love
of the game. How do you see that coming forward
(26:21):
in your role as chief growth officer, the importance of
history and the alumni while also capitalizing on the growth
that we're experiencing with these new players.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, I think it's very important to recognize that we
are standing on the shoulders of giants. We are where
we are because of the work that started in ninety seven.
These athletes are the representation of all of that hard work.
And I just I don't want to correct you, but
I will tell you when I go to a Knicks game,
and I'm a huge Knicks fan. That's how I got
into this. I started watching basketball with my father in
(26:52):
nineteen ninety four. If you were a Knicks fan in
ninety four, that was probably the best year to do it.
But every big Knicks game I'm at, Patrick is right there.
He's going to be at every game, and Mellow's going
to be at a lot of them, and John Starks
is going to be at a lot of them. And
you don't say that they're supporting the newbies, right they're fans.
They are frigging fans of the Knicks. And yes, we've
(27:14):
had a lot of different teams, so it's harder to
stay true to being that fan. But the La Sparks
have been there from day one. So you know when
Kansas is going and sitting court side for a retirement jersey,
she's there to be on her but she's also there
because she's still a fan. She's a fan of this game.
And I think our rookie is appreciate that and know
that and still look up to these women.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
It's a great point. I think what's equally interesting is
you use that same word support and seeing Steph Carry
was at the VALX game. Just this week, Kyrie showing
up court side to support page. But I think to
everything you just said, it is an important distinction is
that I love seeing KAD and Lebron get hype in
the feed watching a w game. How important is that
(27:56):
for the crossover and the growth and the recognition that
we're just talking about the greatness of basketball and these
athletes and moving away from that support narrative to one
that is focused on for the love of the game.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It's huge. I mean when you see KD in real
time on Twitter and Instagram making comments, he's watching the
game because it's good frigging basketball, and so is Lebron,
and they are fans of these really talented athletes. I mean,
if you look at fandom over from last year, even
the largest growth you're seeing amongst all women's leagues, amongst
(28:29):
all men's leagues is women's WNBA basketball. And I think
that doesn't preclude and DA fans from driving that. You know,
that viewership spike in it's very helpful, but it's also
very authentic and it's very real. They're not going to
sit there and watch a game of it's bad basketball, period.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Right right, You've done an incredible job, Kolia of bringing
in great returns, incredibly great trajectory and growth. How do
you keep this thing moving? Is it about continued excceps toleration.
What are the sort of playbooks that you're drawing up
to ensure that this isn't just a moment but as
many people will say, it's a movement.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah. I mean every year Kathy and our senior team
focus on a little motto, and this year it's sustain
and gain. Sustain the momentum that we've built over the
past two years and find the areas in which we
can continue to gain. One of those areas that we
can continue to gain in because realistically, are we going
to see triple digit growth in every single metric? None,
(29:30):
it's not a realistic No, it's not realistic, and nobody
expects that, and nobody's going to be able to do that.
But where can we move the needle in places we
haven't you know? And one of those I'm going to
say is going to be in that digital and social space.
So digital right now, we are up one hundred and
seventy seven percent versus twenty twenty three, But what does
that look like? We had almost a million. I'll say,
(29:52):
mus I think this crowd will know monthly active users
on our app. This is an app that had less
than one hundred thousand months active users completely when I
started in twenty two. Lead pass subscriptions, that's another place
we can continue to put growth in. Right, we're up
fifty two percent year over year. We've already had over
three hundred thousand subscriptions for this year. So these are
(30:14):
the areas that you can continue to pull those levers.
And then for me, it's about finding new assets. We
know that some of our premier assets have been sponsored
by long running brands, but you need to write size
the valuation of every single asset and then go out
and find the brand partner who understands that value. For me,
(30:36):
I think the value of women's sports and when you're
putting out really the value proposition, it's quite different than
anything that exists today. And that's where we can continue
to drive this home and continue to see sustained growth.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So let's talk about the gains and the growth. I mean,
are there categories even open at the WNBA right now?
From a brand perspective.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh, you know, Laura always find a way for categories
to get opened, there's a going to be the opportunity
to bring on new partners. I will tell you we're
in a unique position where we can say, if this
brand is not aligned from what we stand for as
a brand, we're not going to even start the conversation.
And it's happened. And it's hard as someone who lives
(31:17):
and breathes revenue growth to say I'm going to turn
down those dollars. But at the end of the day,
if you are not aligned with the work that we
are doing to empower women and to grow women's sports,
you know, globally, then you're just not the right fit.
We can't tarnish what we've built and pride ourselves on
what logo woman stands are. That's really important. I'd also say,
(31:40):
if you're a brand that's coming in and you just
want your name on the court and maybe that works
for you in the NFL and a logo goes far
for you, great, you're also not the right brand for us.
We're going to come in and we're going to build
a bespoke program where you will have ownable assets, and
then you will have a community engagement plan, and then
(32:00):
you will have a player marketing aspect to your partnership
and needs to be three sixty. And so the brands
that we're still talking to today in the spaces that
are open have to make those commitments because it needs
to work two ways. We want to solve the problems
that brands have by using our platform, and then we
want the brands to use You know, someone always asks me,
(32:21):
what's the best way a brand could partner with You
put our players in your ads? And when Molly talks
about CarMax, they were one of the first to do it.
And now you can't turn on any sports program without
seeing a WNBA player in an ad.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Totally. Can you talk about that dimensionality? Right? If you're
a brand listening to this, who's like, we don't even
know where to start, I can understand how it is
a new space. The women's sports community is one that
definitely holds accountability for how people show up and activate
within the space. What are those standards? When you talk
about values Coali.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
The first question is always what are you hoping to gain?
What the problem are you trying to solve by a
partnership with the WNBA. And if all of that not everything,
and this is I just want to be clear, this
is not an altruistic value proposition here. When you tell
me that this is the right thing to do, that's great.
But I want you to tell me this is the
right thing to do for your brand because you're going
(33:17):
to see the return on investment. And our partners last
year saw on average a thirteen x return on their investment.
So I would say, who are you trying to reach, right,
because our fans are seventy four percent more likely to
be interested in fashion, seventy percent more likely to be
interested in diversity and inclusion, sixty seven percent more likely
(33:38):
to be interested in travel, forty six percent are more
likely to be young millennials, sixty two percent are more
likely to be gen Z. So let me give you
all of this data if it lines up with what
you're trying to do to drive growth at your business,
let's talk. Let's build a platform and that's exactly what
we did with CarMax as a great example. You know
(33:59):
they wanted to and then as our change maker partners
and our change maker partners need to work two ways, right,
how are you coming in and you're going to support
the league, but you're also going to support And I
could say support here because it means dollars, an investment
and uplifting and how are you going to support the
player experience and how you're going to support the communities
in which we play. And we said, let's build out,
let's carve this lane, and we landed on brand building.
(34:21):
So they actually sponsor media training for our rookies when
they come in, right, and that's not going to get
them a big lift from a B two C perspective,
but that's doing the work that then gets noticed on
social media and then becomes a big B two C tactic.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I love that type of value exchange because it's the
intangibles often where the difference making happens. Are there other
tangible examples you can point to that came in this
year that didn't just offer up dollars but really have
offered up value exchanges that helped propel the league further?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, I mean ally Financial. We have wanted to partner
with them for a while. We're so excited that we
got to make it in this year, and as we
talk about where do they want to play, I know
that supporting financial literacy for our players, supporting the off
court endeavors of our players is going to be a
huge place for them, and not everybody's going to see
that right away. That's the part of partnership, which comes
(35:15):
from building a completely customizable, bespoke platform. I love to
go back to one of the ogs in this space,
which is AT and T. At the very beginning when
they came in, they gave every player a phone and
phone service, and that may seem like a very small thing,
but when you know what our players were making years
(35:35):
ago and we still have that challenge and how important
it is to stay connected. That type of brand affinity
was locked in from day one because the players saw
what AT and T was doing to help them and
their families. And then you have people like Deloitte who
are offering amazing internship programs, Nike who currently employs I
think over a dozen retired WNBA players. Our athletes are
(35:59):
the microcosmo women in society and women in the workforce.
You need to be educated, you need to be prepared,
and you need to be able to pivot. And we
want to set those athletes up with all of the
tools they'll need to be successful on the court and
off the court. And we can't do that without our
brand partners.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
That's fantastic. So get under the hood with me for
a second. You got WNBA All Star just a few
weeks away the back half of what I know will
be a crazy season to close out. I don't know
how you topped Game five at Barclays last year.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
It was Game five last year. We're going to top
it by going to a Game seven this year for
the first time ever. And then in our early bounds
of the playoffs will do one in one so that
you actually are playing a home game no matter what.
And I think that's going to be huge for our teams.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
What can we expect? What are the things that you're
working on that you can chair that you think will
continue to elevate the standards and expectations of this league.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Listen WNBA All Star in Indiana this summer, when the
fiver are so on fire, when Caitlin and Aaliyah have
both been named to the All Star team with Katelyne
and as the youngest ever captain of an All Star team,
they've established a host committee. There are events every single
minute of every single day. We sold out that game. Immediately,
I have people asking me for tickets. I have none.
(37:12):
I have nobre tickets left. I just wonder.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
I guess I can't ask that the closest.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
All right, I'll find one for you, Laura. But yeah,
I think that's what I'm looking forward to you because
that's when the fans show up, and that's when the
brands show out. You know. I started WNBA Live my
first season with the league in twenty twenty two. We
have a handful of partners and a couple thousand people
walking through the Convention Center. This year, we'll have over
twenty five partners exhibiting. We intend to see over twenty
(37:37):
thousand fans in the Convention Center for our Live fan fest,
and I just can't wait to be there.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
I love it well. I just couldn't be more appreciative
of the work I know you and your team are
putting in around the clock to ensure this thing doesn't
just sustain but gains and it will continue to accelerate
not just the future of women's basketball, but truly setting
the standard for women's sports, not just here in the
States but around the world. So congratulates on everything that
you're building. I would ask you who your favorite is
(38:03):
to win the Commissioner's Cup this weekend, but I know
you're not allowed to say, but if you want to
throw it in, we'll take it. I no.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
I always my answer when anybody asks me who my
favorite team is, who my favorite player is, it's Ellie
the Elephant.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Which is universal, which is universal.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
That's a safe answer. But also I literally love her.
So that's one thing I'm looking forward to is being
court sided with you, Laura and us dancing with Ellie.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, if there's one thing you can count on, it's that.
Congrats again, Coley. Love to see the growth and looking
forward to cheering you on through the rest of this
season and moving forward.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Thanks Laura, thanks for having me everybody, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
I'm your host, Laura Krenti, founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
(38:58):
wherever you get your podcasts. Want more, follow, rate and
review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and stay
in the game by following us on social media at
Iheartwomen's Sports and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
In the show notes, thanks for listening. We'll see you
next time court side.
No matter what, endorsing our athletes is going to drive
home that brand affinity because we know that fans of
the WNBA are almost three times more likely to purchase
from a brand that partners with the w than any
fans of general sport.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome back to Courtside, where we break down the business
of women's sports with the people turning momentum into muscle.
I'm your host, Laura Crenzy, and today we're talking about
what it really takes to scale a league, build a brand,
and meet the moment. Forget meeting it. The WNBA is
exceeding it. And my guest today is Coley Edison, chief
Growth Officer at the WNBA, and we're catching her during
(00:40):
a very timely moment where the league just announced three
more expansion teams coming to Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. And
Coley Edison, she's a marketing force in her own right.
Since joining the league just three years ago in twenty
twenty two, Coley has helped drive record break and growth.
We're talking fifty four million viewers, a nineteen percent sponsorship spike,
(01:00):
and a league valuation pushing the billion dollar mark. She's
also champion player first investments from charter flights to evolving standards,
all while ensuring the w continues to sustain and gain.
Let's get into it with Coley Edison. Welcome back to courtside.
I am joined by someone who I absolutely love to
(01:20):
sit courtside with, the Chief Growth Officer of the WNBA,
the hottest women's sports league in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Coley Edison, Welcome to court side. Thank you so much
for having me, Laura. It's great to be.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Here, so so fun to have this conversation literally the
day after. How lucky am I to get you on
the line, knowing how busy you are because you just
announced expansion teams one, two, and three for twenty twenty
eight through twenty thirty. Just incredible. So Cleveland is coming online,
Detroit is coming online, Philadelphia is coming online. That in
(01:52):
addition to two new teams that were just announced previously,
Toronto and Portland. So Coley talk to us about literally
putting the growth and chief growth officer in the WNBA.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It all goes back to the players. That's the reason
that we're here. I think when I talk about putting
the growth in and my job as Chief Growth Officer,
it was to operationalize what was really already there, which
was the best women's basketball in the world, combined with
this amazing brand of the WNBA, which has always stood
for female empowerment and really raising the voices of underrepresented groups.
(02:27):
You know, our players are eighty percent women of color,
many who identify as LGBTQ. And so with this backbone
of amazing talent and amazing brand and an amazing purpose,
my job was to operationalize and monetize all of that,
and that's where we are today in twenty twenty five,
seeing one hundred and forty percent growth on viewership and
triple digit growth in every other metric as well.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Now, somebody comes from media. Anytime you start getting into
triple let alone double digit growth, I think you have
a business case. But that wasn't always the case. Can
you talk about some of those cornerstones of growth that
you've been able to build on that were absolutely critical
for this moment we're experiencing now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So when I came in, I'm the first one to
hold this position as chief growth officer. Kathy recruited me
back in twenty twenty one. I started in twenty two.
I had one direct report and that person was really
focused on really up leveling our broadcast, which is great
because if you were viewing at the time, you know,
local games looked like X and national games looked like Y,
(03:25):
and it was really just not a consistent experience. So
that was great, but that was not going to ultimately
catapult our launch. So the first thing that I did
when I came in, My biggest focus was on digital transformation.
If you recall the WNBA app back in twenty two
and before, that was really just a destination to get
you to our streaming site so you could log onto
(03:46):
the app and then you would go on to League Pass.
There was really no central truth, no place to go
for stats, highlight stories around the game, player profiles that
didn't exist within us. You always have to go elsehere where.
At the same time, our dot com needed in a
complete makeover as well, and really just the way that
(04:07):
our social was run needed that backbone of great digital
and so we came in and in twenty twenty three
we completed in eighteen month digital transformation, and I think
that was a key cornerstone, like you said, that building
block for catapulting the growth.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So you come in in twenty two, by twenty twenty
three estimated revenue was eight hundred and sixty million dollars.
Since then, as we see rookies like Kaitlin Clark and
Angel Reese and an incredible class come into the league.
In twenty four, we then head into fifty four million
unique viewers, up one hundred and seventy percent. We've got
a lot of media and marketing executives who listened to
(04:45):
the show, and so I think it's important to dimensionalize
just how big and how quickly the league has exploded
since then. League sponsorships grew to forty three corporate sponsors,
up from thirty six just a year prior in twenty
twenty three, including eight new partners who's sign after that
twenty twenty three season, ninety percent year over year increase
in sponsorship deals. The list goes on and on and on,
(05:08):
but notably, in addition to those dollars coming in, there
have been new standards that the league has been setting,
including things like full time charter flights, thinking about upping
the standards of professionalism and wellness around women's sports. Ticket
sales are up. Of course, I even saw the San
Francisco Chronicle like in the growth of the WNBA, the Beatlemania.
I mean, what do you make of all of it?
(05:29):
Joining the league in twenty twenty two and just seeing
the zeitgeist busting moment, and more importantly, how do you
sustain it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I mean, I think what's really important for people to
know is that it wasn't always like this, Laura, and
I think you're really trying to hit that home. And
it's important to me because I was making a lot
of phone calls that nobody was picking up. And you
know what's crazy is those same people that ghosted me
are calling me now and they want a deal. In
my role, I oversee our media partnerships. We just signed
(05:59):
the most historic women's sports deal in the history of
women's sports. It's a two point two billion dollar media
rights deal over the next eleven years, and that is
just with what we're calling our tranch iMedia. So with that,
we'll welcome the NBC Universal family into the fold, and
we'll continue to have our games on ESPN and ABC
(06:21):
as well as Disney Plus. And then we're also going
to be really upping our game on Amazon Prime. That's
the first trench, and then we just announced the first
piece of our second trench, which is renewing our deal
with Ion. We love being on Ion. We were the
first sports property that they signed. A big part of
that is the ancillary content that they've invested a lot
into produce. So you're seeing these Friday night spotlights for
(06:44):
the WNBA and then we have a studio show that's
on before the game and in the middle, and I think.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Which is net new to women's sports, not just women's
basketball period.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
APPRECIATEO. What's really unique here.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Is that, you know, people ask me what I think
the number one driver is of this and outside of
the players, because I'll always go back to that, it's
the investment. It's the investment from the media companies. It's
the investment from the media, right, how are our stories
being told by those who are covering the game, not
just by those who are broadcasting the game. And then
(07:18):
it's the investment by our partners. And so that's really
where we've seen such huge increases. And like you've seen,
the output has been, you know, growth across social attendance,
digital viewership, every metric.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
One hundred percent. And when you talk about the coverage
being paramount, you just talked about for the first time
ever bringing a pre show in and around women's sports.
This is major to understand the storylines, the context of
the game, the off court components that go into the
on court success and competition. Ultimately, as you look at
continuing to grow that level of distribution under Sin, you've
(07:55):
got a lot of OG fans who are dialed in
and our league past members on the end, they'll figure
out where to find the game. But you've got a
whole new generation of fans coming online that are hot
on the TikTok, they're in the feed. How are you
balancing to ensure you protect the core right while really
demensializing and growing this next gen of fan.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, it's a really good question, Laura. I think at
the heart, we know our loyalists who have been with
us from day one, and we kind of know what
they want. We sit on a ton of first party data,
meaning we can see the viewing habits, the attendance habits,
the buying habits, the engagement habits of our fans, and
we know what our loyalists want, and they want the
(08:37):
true basketball and we're always going to deliver that first
and foremost. We are a professional sports property, and I
think you know we're going to stay true to that,
and then the goal is to make it easier to
be a fan, whether you are a new fan or
an old fan. You need to know when is our
game on, where are the games on, and how do
(08:57):
I watch, attend, and buy. And I want to represent
the teams that I love and the players that I love.
And we have not done prior to me coming in,
and no fault of the league at the time, but
we didn't do a great job of making it easy
to be a fan. Our viewers had to search through
many different cable networks and listen. We are also aware
(09:19):
that there's huge disruption in the media landscape and it's
not getting any easier across other properties as well. You know,
NFL is both streaming and linear and every other property.
But it's our job as the league to help our
fans find us, engage with us, and deeply build that
fandom so that we can move from you know, I
talked about this with you being a supporter of the
(09:41):
WNBA to being a fan of a team and a.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Player, right. Yeah. The important to bring in the casual
and as much as the Rabbit fans. You know, in
twenty four you had your most watched postseason in sixteen
years and your most watched regular season in twenty one years. Now.
A lot of that does come from everything from appointment viewing, discoverability, access,
but a lot of it also comes from the storyline
and the dimensionality of this league. And as much as
(10:05):
obviously your role in REMIT is with media, it's also
in bringing in corporate partners to help not just support financially,
but what I'm seeing a lot is extrapolating and creating
value exchange to talk more about who these women are
on and off the court. Can you talk about the
storytelling that you've seen evolve over the last three years
(10:25):
since your time at the league and what that has
meant in bringing in corporate partners that might not just
be interested in the basketball piece.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, storytelling is key across every medium we talk about today,
but when it comes to our players, we used to
say there was one hundred and forty four athletes with
two hundred and eighty eight stories, and you know now
they're one hundred and fifty six. And these are really
multi dimensional people. They are dynamic individuals who have really
been underrepresented across brand deals, and I think brands started
(10:56):
to pick up on the fact that women athletes are
the most followed and the most influential that you're going
to see on social media. They are authentic and that
is what resonates with fans in twenty twenty five. They
want to see a multi dimensional person, not just when
she's at her best, but also the moments where she's struggling.
So a few places that we've done that you know
(11:17):
I'll speak to. We have an amazing program called the
Change Makers. We have at and T, Nike, Deloitte, CarMax,
Ally Financial, and Google who have come in and they
were really saying, we want to make an investment not
only to this league, but to the players and to
women sports and society as a whole. And so the
(11:38):
past two years we've partnered with a platform called Voice
in Sport, which is headed by Steph Strack, an amazing
ex Nike exec And the goal of Voice and Sport
is to use digital mentorship to keep girls in sport.
And that's a through line here with storylines and storytelling
is that when I was growing up, when you were
growing up, we had nobody to tell us what the
(12:00):
truth was about playing sports at the highest level. So
you dealt with, you know, beauty issues and getting your
period and not being sexy if you weren't a cheerleader,
and what should you be eating and what shouldn't you
embody dysmorphie in all of these things, and there was
nowhere to go. And now, through the change Maker sponsorship
(12:20):
and our partnership with Voice and Sport, we've mentored fifty
thousand girls last season. We're on track to do another
fifty thousand this season and fifty thousand next season. And
those mentors that I'm talking about are sixteen WNBA paid athletes,
each telling their stories of where they've been and the
struggles that they've had and motivating these girls to stay
in sport because girls drop out at a rate two
(12:42):
weeks of boys by the time they're fourteen. So that's
just one instance where we're taking the true stories of
these athletes and using that to influence girls. And then
I think brands have seen how powerful that is. One
I'll talk about that join this year's coach. You know,
Coach came on as our official handbag partner and made
a huge investment in the draft the rookie class, outfitting
(13:04):
them for our draft. They have the sponsors of the
Orange Carpet and really focused on the spirit and the
individuality of our players and highlighting that through their product
and through their brand. We widen that aperture so more
brands can come in through those different lanes.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Once you get all these brands in the door, though,
the execution is key. And I heard you as we
started this conversation say, when you were hired, you had
one direct report and this was focused largely on media.
Then you have this gold rush, right, the largest increase
probably of commercial investment in women's sports we've seen todate.
You've got to be able to deliver. Can you talk
(13:56):
about how you're evolving your resource, your infrastructure internally to
not just support a meet brands where they are, but
to ensure that the authenticity, the storytelling, all of the
things that you just said that make this leak so
unique and special maintain and are also brought to the
forefront with these partnerships.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah. Right, that's the core, And I think that was
a little bit of the old WNBA was able to say, sure,
we'll take your sponsorship dollars, but then they really couldn't
service them, and that was not you know, for a
lack of wanting to. It was just a lack of resources.
And when Kathy Engelbert came in and began this transformation,
(14:36):
she understood that her biggest role was in deployment of
capital and that was both the actual investment dollars that
we had when we raised seventy five million in outside
capital raised in twenty two, but also human capital, because
you can't get this done if you don't have the
people to do it. And so I scaled up my team.
Phil Cook, our amazing CMO, scaled up his team between
(14:58):
the two of us. I started with one, he started
with four. I now have a team of twenty nine
and he has over thirty. And we're each opening up
ten more positions in this next fiscal which kicks off
at the end of September, because we need to be
there because I don't I've always had this, even when
I worked in the PBA. I don't care if your
sponsorship is two hundred thousand dollars, I'm going to treat
(15:18):
it like it's two million dollars. And if it's two
million dollars, I'm going to treat it like it's twenty
million dollars. Because I know when you renew. It's it's
a lot easier to renew than it is to acquire
a new partner, right and if you have experienced what
I like to call over delivery from every brand asset
that you bought to every off court experience, then you're
(15:40):
more likely to reno. And so that's really been the
focus is how do we over deliver for every partner
so that we can see one hundred percent renewals.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And what are some of those skill sets that you
are bringing in.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It was some key hires in the beginning, and now
it's building up under those teams. So dev Ward leads
our digital practice and we have an entire digital team,
and we also use Deloitte, who is our great partner,
for more external resources. But we have a front end
engineering team, a back end engineering team, a digital products team,
a digital monetization team, and this all reports up into
(16:12):
me because I do have a background in that. And no,
none of that existed before or it was a shared
resource with the NBA, which was great at the time.
But I always say it's a lack of intellectual resourcing,
not that anybody didn't care, they just didn't have the
time right to spend building the W and now we're
able to do that. And then you know, on another vertical,
(16:33):
I have Katie Donovan, who's leading our growth strategy, came
in and that's an entire business intelligence vertical data strategy, analytics.
I'm looking at Machida Sinclair's executive summary put together, and
these are facts that have to be mined. That data
has to be mined, and you need best in class
folks to do that. And then you know, we have
a sports betting team led up by Lauren Dwyer, and
(16:53):
my partnership's team let up by Erica, and my business
development team let up by Emily Black And I just
want to shout out all those people, Eric Smith, because
this doesn't get done by one person, and you know that, Laura,
this gets done by everybody who's in the trenches. And
so I think it's a diversified skill set. Everything from
business intelligence to partnership management to on the ground execution,
(17:15):
all of these things are super important because you need
to build that trust with your partners.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I want to pivot to something you were just talking
about in that skill set, which is business intelligence data collection.
This is something that in my opinion, really slowed the
growth of women's sports even today, because intelligence and data
just simply hasn't existed. How are you approaching that and
how much of it has been informed by investors as
opposed to corporate partners or maybe both.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, I mean the crazy thing is it's informed by
us first and foremost. When Kathy came in, she asked
who is our fan right, and there was nothing. So
it was we need to make that investment in standing
up a back end that can support data collection. And
so we found some great partners in this space. We
work with Stellar Algo so that we could build a
(18:03):
unified fan data platform both at the league level. And
then what we're also doing this is an investment the
league is making for the teams. We're installing this at
the team level so that we can have two way
data sharing. And so now that's the backbone. And then
how do you offer this to your partners, Because Laura,
you know, partners are not coming in and just worrying
(18:24):
about impressions anymore. It is much bigger. They want to
be able to use this as a catalyst for how
they could build their brand against the power of women's sports.
And so one of our new offerings is really allowing
and sharing this data through what we call a data cleanroom,
so that brands can come in and build entire marketing
plans against a fan that they knew nothing about a
(18:48):
few years ago, and today can have eighteen to twenty
to forty plus different data segmentations based on what we
know about these fans.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Right, how come the data hasn't existed? I mean, you
can talk about the tech infrastructre et cetera. But one
of the things that I think is really important to understand,
especially around game day, is every single team in the
WNBA rents their facility right de leases of the men's teams,
and as such, you're not getting that first party data
and obviously people sharing back end, but it's not that clean.
(19:19):
You know who's coming through the turnstiles, who's buying concessions,
you know what the in game experience is, You're having
to work double time. I would presume to understand all
of those key points when you are not the first
point of entry for that data to come through. So
there's facilities being built, but all these things matter to
be able to give brand in particular and investors the
(19:40):
business case for putting their dollars into the game.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, and I would say you said, like sometimes it's
going to the mail team. In some of these buildings
there isn't even a mail team, and we're still fourth
on the list for having our event played.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
There any data that surprised you thus far When you
say who the fan is.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I think what sticks out to me is probably the
younger viewers who are really driving this growth. I mean,
I'm looking at just like our opening week, girls under
eighteen is up one hundred and sixty nine percent. Wow, okay,
under eighteen is up one hundred both men and women
is up one hundred and sixty one percent. And then
(20:19):
I think when we look at really driven by multicultural viewers, right,
so our black viewers are up thirty eight percent, And
I think what's really unique about our league is just
how diverse the fan base is gen Z and millennial women.
That eighteen to thirty four demo that everyone wants to
reach is up thirty nine percent. And so I think,
(20:40):
you know what's not it's surprising to actually have the
data confirm what you've known, right that you think you
know this and then the data confirms it. And I
think that's the type of interesting data facts that our
brands really want to access, and then I think it's
just about like how long they're watching and why they're watching.
I know we kind of break it up as core
(21:02):
casual anew. You talked about this, but like, we are
sustaining the fandom. So in twenty twenty three, we had
thirty percent was our core viewer. In twenty twenty four,
we had thirty four percent as the core viewer. Now
in twenty twenty five, our core viewer is at sixty
eight percent. So we are doubling this loyal fan base
(21:24):
and just continue to grow there. So yes, we're going
to continue to add new right, we had twelve percent
new viewers for tip off week, we had twenty one
percent casual viewers. But what we've shown is that core
viewers make up over a third of this audience returning
from last season, which means that we have the most
engaged fans and they are really fueling that viewership growth.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Where does the value of the IP sit. How are
you thinking about league versus team, versus athlete or the
combination of all three to continue to drive value.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
If you are a brand at the highest level, your
league deal will work hardest for you and you know
this right, So now you're able to access WNBAIP and
most importantly, the players in their jersey is on a
national level. Otherwise you know it is if you don't
have a national awareness issue or you're not trying to
build your brand nationally. I don't know anybody who isn't it,
(22:16):
but say you aren't, then it might be okay just
to do a team deal. And in certain instances, team
deals make a ton of sense. Sometimes there's a category
that's blocked over here at the league level. I'm going
to push you toward a team deal, so I think
you know the most bang for your buck will come
at that league level. If you need that national presence
and you want to build your brand at the highest level,
(22:37):
and then I think you should also supplement it with
a team deal. A team deal lets you go deeper
into the community is in which that team plays in.
But it's important to have that grassroots connection and it's
important that it makes sense with who your brand is.
And then no matter what, endorsing our athletes is going
to drive home that brand affinity. Because we know that
(22:59):
fans of the w the NBA are almost three times
more likely to purchase from a brand that partners with
the w than any fans of general sport, and that
just really goes hard when you're talking about athletes.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Let's talk about that for a second, because we were
just all together at the Canlin Festival where you had
a great discussion with representatives from Genius Sports and Snap
and one of the data points that was shared by
one of the representatives, Melly mccartal at Genius, was around
the effectiveness of leveraging athletes in campaigns, and specifically she
(23:33):
gave the example of CarMax where I believe it was
over one hundred and thirty percent return in terms of
engagement when it came to Carmacks using WNBA athletes in
their ads in comparison to league partners who didn't leverage
those athletes. Can you talk about that level of influence
and impact and how you begin to even equate it
so that brands understand the level of value they do
(23:55):
get from these players in terms of impact and just
overall cultural residences.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, when you think about who the WNBA fan, they
are social first, right, They're one hundred and twenty percent
more likely to seek out these experiences that are going
to make great content for their social media. And so
if you have a partnership with a player who's really
big in that space, that's going to work really hard
for you. If I just look at tip Off, right,
(24:23):
some of these players obviously, you know Caitlin Clark, she
grew her fan base by one hundred and sixty eight
percent year over year just in tip Off week. You
know someone like Angel grew four hundred and fifty percent
year over year just in tip Off week. So the
two of them combined make up over seventeen million followers.
(24:44):
So we know that there is great resonance with these
players and the people who support them. I think when
you talk about why the purpose right behind a lot
of this, it's all impact driven. Eighty percent of our
fans are more likely to feel that brand is important
if they understand where they are on the wire issues
in society, and they make it very clear where you
(25:06):
are when you are a partner of the WNBA. And
so I think when you talk about the connection with
our fans, right, this growth and fandom is coming from
this deepened connection with the fans and our highly engaged audience.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
I was speaking engagement not that long ago at a
local high school. One of the questions that came forward
was do you think the veterans are jealous or bitter
or have just a negative visceral reaction to the rookies
and all that they're getting access to, And I said
absolutely n I thought Cannice Parker did a brilliant job
in an interview that she did with Steven Ah Smith
(26:00):
talking about the pay it forward nature of this league.
Nothing brings me more joy as an eighties baby who
grew up playing in the nineties than seeing Cheryl Swoops,
Lisa Leslie, all of these great sitting courtside supporting these
young athletes and all they do to show the love
of the game. How do you see that coming forward
(26:21):
in your role as chief growth officer, the importance of
history and the alumni while also capitalizing on the growth
that we're experiencing with these new players.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, I think it's very important to recognize that we
are standing on the shoulders of giants. We are where
we are because of the work that started in ninety seven.
These athletes are the representation of all of that hard work.
And I just I don't want to correct you, but
I will tell you when I go to a Knicks game,
and I'm a huge Knicks fan. That's how I got
into this. I started watching basketball with my father in
(26:52):
nineteen ninety four. If you were a Knicks fan in
ninety four, that was probably the best year to do it.
But every big Knicks game I'm at, Patrick is right there.
He's going to be at every game, and Mellow's going
to be at a lot of them, and John Starks
is going to be at a lot of them. And
you don't say that they're supporting the newbies, right they're fans.
They are frigging fans of the Knicks. And yes, we've
(27:14):
had a lot of different teams, so it's harder to
stay true to being that fan. But the La Sparks
have been there from day one. So you know when
Kansas is going and sitting court side for a retirement jersey,
she's there to be on her but she's also there
because she's still a fan. She's a fan of this game.
And I think our rookie is appreciate that and know
that and still look up to these women.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
It's a great point. I think what's equally interesting is
you use that same word support and seeing Steph Carry
was at the VALX game. Just this week, Kyrie showing
up court side to support page. But I think to
everything you just said, it is an important distinction is
that I love seeing KAD and Lebron get hype in
the feed watching a w game. How important is that
(27:56):
for the crossover and the growth and the recognition that
we're just talking about the greatness of basketball and these
athletes and moving away from that support narrative to one
that is focused on for the love of the game.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It's huge. I mean when you see KD in real
time on Twitter and Instagram making comments, he's watching the
game because it's good frigging basketball, and so is Lebron,
and they are fans of these really talented athletes. I mean,
if you look at fandom over from last year, even
the largest growth you're seeing amongst all women's leagues, amongst
(28:29):
all men's leagues is women's WNBA basketball. And I think
that doesn't preclude and DA fans from driving that. You know,
that viewership spike in it's very helpful, but it's also
very authentic and it's very real. They're not going to
sit there and watch a game of it's bad basketball, period.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Right right, You've done an incredible job, Kolia of bringing
in great returns, incredibly great trajectory and growth. How do
you keep this thing moving? Is it about continued excceps toleration.
What are the sort of playbooks that you're drawing up
to ensure that this isn't just a moment but as
many people will say, it's a movement.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah. I mean every year Kathy and our senior team
focus on a little motto, and this year it's sustain
and gain. Sustain the momentum that we've built over the
past two years and find the areas in which we
can continue to gain. One of those areas that we
can continue to gain in because realistically, are we going
to see triple digit growth in every single metric? None,
(29:30):
it's not a realistic No, it's not realistic, and nobody
expects that, and nobody's going to be able to do that.
But where can we move the needle in places we
haven't you know? And one of those I'm going to
say is going to be in that digital and social space.
So digital right now, we are up one hundred and
seventy seven percent versus twenty twenty three, But what does
that look like? We had almost a million. I'll say,
(29:52):
mus I think this crowd will know monthly active users
on our app. This is an app that had less
than one hundred thousand months active users completely when I
started in twenty two. Lead pass subscriptions, that's another place
we can continue to put growth in. Right, we're up
fifty two percent year over year. We've already had over
three hundred thousand subscriptions for this year. So these are
(30:14):
the areas that you can continue to pull those levers.
And then for me, it's about finding new assets. We
know that some of our premier assets have been sponsored
by long running brands, but you need to write size
the valuation of every single asset and then go out
and find the brand partner who understands that value. For me,
(30:36):
I think the value of women's sports and when you're
putting out really the value proposition, it's quite different than
anything that exists today. And that's where we can continue
to drive this home and continue to see sustained growth.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So let's talk about the gains and the growth. I mean,
are there categories even open at the WNBA right now?
From a brand perspective.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh, you know, Laura always find a way for categories
to get opened, there's a going to be the opportunity
to bring on new partners. I will tell you we're
in a unique position where we can say, if this
brand is not aligned from what we stand for as
a brand, we're not going to even start the conversation.
And it's happened. And it's hard as someone who lives
(31:17):
and breathes revenue growth to say I'm going to turn
down those dollars. But at the end of the day,
if you are not aligned with the work that we
are doing to empower women and to grow women's sports,
you know, globally, then you're just not the right fit.
We can't tarnish what we've built and pride ourselves on
what logo woman stands are. That's really important. I'd also say,
(31:40):
if you're a brand that's coming in and you just
want your name on the court and maybe that works
for you in the NFL and a logo goes far
for you, great, you're also not the right brand for us.
We're going to come in and we're going to build
a bespoke program where you will have ownable assets, and
then you will have a community engagement plan, and then
(32:00):
you will have a player marketing aspect to your partnership
and needs to be three sixty. And so the brands
that we're still talking to today in the spaces that
are open have to make those commitments because it needs
to work two ways. We want to solve the problems
that brands have by using our platform, and then we
want the brands to use You know, someone always asks me,
(32:21):
what's the best way a brand could partner with You
put our players in your ads? And when Molly talks
about CarMax, they were one of the first to do it.
And now you can't turn on any sports program without
seeing a WNBA player in an ad.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Totally. Can you talk about that dimensionality? Right? If you're
a brand listening to this, who's like, we don't even
know where to start, I can understand how it is
a new space. The women's sports community is one that
definitely holds accountability for how people show up and activate
within the space. What are those standards? When you talk
about values Coali.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
The first question is always what are you hoping to gain?
What the problem are you trying to solve by a
partnership with the WNBA. And if all of that not everything,
and this is I just want to be clear, this
is not an altruistic value proposition here. When you tell
me that this is the right thing to do, that's great.
But I want you to tell me this is the
right thing to do for your brand because you're going
(33:17):
to see the return on investment. And our partners last
year saw on average a thirteen x return on their investment.
So I would say, who are you trying to reach, right,
because our fans are seventy four percent more likely to
be interested in fashion, seventy percent more likely to be
interested in diversity and inclusion, sixty seven percent more likely
(33:38):
to be interested in travel, forty six percent are more
likely to be young millennials, sixty two percent are more
likely to be gen Z. So let me give you
all of this data if it lines up with what
you're trying to do to drive growth at your business,
let's talk. Let's build a platform and that's exactly what
we did with CarMax as a great example. You know
(33:59):
they wanted to and then as our change maker partners
and our change maker partners need to work two ways, right,
how are you coming in and you're going to support
the league, but you're also going to support And I
could say support here because it means dollars, an investment
and uplifting and how are you going to support the
player experience and how you're going to support the communities
in which we play. And we said, let's build out,
let's carve this lane, and we landed on brand building.
(34:21):
So they actually sponsor media training for our rookies when
they come in, right, and that's not going to get
them a big lift from a B two C perspective,
but that's doing the work that then gets noticed on
social media and then becomes a big B two C tactic.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I love that type of value exchange because it's the
intangibles often where the difference making happens. Are there other
tangible examples you can point to that came in this
year that didn't just offer up dollars but really have
offered up value exchanges that helped propel the league further?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, I mean ally Financial. We have wanted to partner
with them for a while. We're so excited that we
got to make it in this year, and as we
talk about where do they want to play, I know
that supporting financial literacy for our players, supporting the off
court endeavors of our players is going to be a
huge place for them, and not everybody's going to see
that right away. That's the part of partnership, which comes
(35:15):
from building a completely customizable, bespoke platform. I love to
go back to one of the ogs in this space,
which is AT and T. At the very beginning when
they came in, they gave every player a phone and
phone service, and that may seem like a very small thing,
but when you know what our players were making years
(35:35):
ago and we still have that challenge and how important
it is to stay connected. That type of brand affinity
was locked in from day one because the players saw
what AT and T was doing to help them and
their families. And then you have people like Deloitte who
are offering amazing internship programs, Nike who currently employs I
think over a dozen retired WNBA players. Our athletes are
(35:59):
the microcosmo women in society and women in the workforce.
You need to be educated, you need to be prepared,
and you need to be able to pivot. And we
want to set those athletes up with all of the
tools they'll need to be successful on the court and
off the court. And we can't do that without our
brand partners.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
That's fantastic. So get under the hood with me for
a second. You got WNBA All Star just a few
weeks away the back half of what I know will
be a crazy season to close out. I don't know
how you topped Game five at Barclays last year.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
It was Game five last year. We're going to top
it by going to a Game seven this year for
the first time ever. And then in our early bounds
of the playoffs will do one in one so that
you actually are playing a home game no matter what.
And I think that's going to be huge for our teams.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
What can we expect? What are the things that you're
working on that you can chair that you think will
continue to elevate the standards and expectations of this league.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Listen WNBA All Star in Indiana this summer, when the
fiver are so on fire, when Caitlin and Aaliyah have
both been named to the All Star team with Katelyne
and as the youngest ever captain of an All Star team,
they've established a host committee. There are events every single
minute of every single day. We sold out that game. Immediately,
I have people asking me for tickets. I have none.
(37:12):
I have nobre tickets left. I just wonder.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
I guess I can't ask that the closest.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
All right, I'll find one for you, Laura. But yeah,
I think that's what I'm looking forward to you because
that's when the fans show up, and that's when the
brands show out. You know. I started WNBA Live my
first season with the league in twenty twenty two. We
have a handful of partners and a couple thousand people
walking through the Convention Center. This year, we'll have over
twenty five partners exhibiting. We intend to see over twenty
(37:37):
thousand fans in the Convention Center for our Live fan fest,
and I just can't wait to be there.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
I love it well. I just couldn't be more appreciative
of the work I know you and your team are
putting in around the clock to ensure this thing doesn't
just sustain but gains and it will continue to accelerate
not just the future of women's basketball, but truly setting
the standard for women's sports, not just here in the
States but around the world. So congratulates on everything that
you're building. I would ask you who your favorite is
(38:03):
to win the Commissioner's Cup this weekend, but I know
you're not allowed to say, but if you want to
throw it in, we'll take it. I no.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
I always my answer when anybody asks me who my
favorite team is, who my favorite player is, it's Ellie
the Elephant.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Which is universal, which is universal.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
That's a safe answer. But also I literally love her.
So that's one thing I'm looking forward to is being
court sided with you, Laura and us dancing with Ellie.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, if there's one thing you can count on, it's that.
Congrats again, Coley. Love to see the growth and looking
forward to cheering you on through the rest of this
season and moving forward.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Thanks Laura, thanks for having me everybody, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
I'm your host, Laura Krenti, founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
(38:58):
wherever you get your podcasts. Want more, follow, rate and
review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and stay
in the game by following us on social media at
Iheartwomen's Sports and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
In the show notes, thanks for listening. We'll see you
next time court side.
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