July 30, 2025 • 33 mins
When Andrea Brimmer announced Ally’s 50/50 pledge at the 2022 ESPNW Summit, it wasn’t a tribute ad or a token donation—it was a demand for equity, backed by dollars. As CMO of Ally (and a former collegiate midfielder), Andrea joins Laura to unpack how they turned a bold idea into a blueprint for the industry. They talk through how she restructured the budget, challenged media systems, and proved that betting big on women’s sports isn’t just good PR—it’s smart business. Plus, why Andrea shows up “like a girl” in every room she enters, and what it means to leave the game better than you found it.
00:51 Meet Andrea Brimmer: Athlete to Marketing Pioneer
02:13 Andrea's Early Love for Soccer
04:33 Athlete Strengths that Become Executive Strengths
06:39 The Drama of the 50/50 Pledge Announcement
13:24 Impact and Results of the 50/50 Pledge
18:56 Authentic Partnerships with Athletes
21:12 Systemic Issues in Women's Sports
25:56 Reflecting on Progress and Future Goals
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Rewind to three years ago. It was the fiftieth anniversary
of Title nine, myself being a product of Title nine,
feeling very passionate about Title nine and wanting to protect it.
And we talked a lot as a team about Oh,
we could do a tribute at or we could do this,
or we could do that, or we could make a donation.
And I remember saying, none of that's going to do shit, Like,
it's not going to do anything. It's not going to
(00:25):
do anything to change anything. We have to do something real,
and we have to do something big. And the stat
that really jumped out to me was that less than
five percent of the media coverage was going to women's
sports and less than one percent of sponsorship dollars. And
that's when we came up with the idea of the
fifty to fifty Pledge.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome back to Courtside, where we break down the business
of women's sports with the people rewriting the rules. I'm
your host, Laura Krante, and today we're talking about what
it takes to turn a promise into a movement and
a marketing budget into a blueprint for equity. My guest
is Andrew Brimmer, the chief marketing and PR officer at Ally,
and if you know women's sports, you know Ali. Andrew
(01:03):
Brimmer is a former collegiate soccer player, herself a marketing
pioneer and the architect behind one of the boldest brand
commitments in sports, the fifty to fifty pledge. This pledge
was a game changer back in twenty twenty two when
Ali committed to spending equal media investment across men's and
women's sports inventory and sponsorships. In this conversation, Andrew and
I get into the strategy behind that commitment. The real
(01:25):
business upside Ally has achieved based on its investment in
women's sports and the things that still need to change
for fans to be able to find and access women's
sports and really ignite the industry as a whole.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And we are back courtside.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
With none other than not only the pioneer and architect
of the modern marketing that is women's sports today, but
someone who has known and played the game since her
early days.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Welcome to the show, Andrea Brimmer. Thanks, Elsie. That's that's
quite the intro.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I like, guess I could have kept going, but I
didn't want you to cut me off. But what I
know to be true, is before there was Andrew Brimmer's
CMO of ally, before there was Andrew Brimmer, architect of
the fifty to fifty Pledge, there was Andrew Brimmer, the player,
the standout star at Michigan State, and probably goes back
well beyond that. So I wanted to ask you, when
(02:16):
did you first fall in love with the game? You know,
I actually fell in love with it when I was
in third grade. I've always been like a total jock.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I was always the one where all my girl cousins
were inside playing with barbies, and I was outside with
all the boys playing t ball or tag or whatever
they were playing. And I started playing soccer when I
was in third grade and just absolutely fell in love
with it. I played everything. I played softball, I played soccer,
I played volleyball, I ran track, but soccer was and
(02:45):
always will be my first love. I don't know if
I ever asked you what position did you play? I
was a center mid. I was center mid my whole life,
of course, right, you and me, both you and me, both,
I know. And I made the varsity team in high
school as a sophomore. We didn't have freshman back then.
Was you didn't go to high school till you were
sophomore and made the varsity team as a sophomore, and
they pulled me up. They had me play forward because
(03:06):
there was a senior in the center mid position, and
I scored thirty one goals my sophomore year on the
varsity team, and they wanted to keep me at forward,
but I love that midi position, so I wanted to
drop back. Yeah, controlling the game, that's right. Obviously, scoring
thirty one goals as a sophomore is no small feet,
But how did you take the leap from that to
playing at Michigan State at a bigger stage collegiately? For me,
(03:27):
my dream, an unfulfilled dream that I still have to
this day, was to play in the Olympics. And I
was in an ODP program, but there was really no
Olympic team and I wanted to play. I really didn't
want to play in college, to be honest with you.
I was burned out and there was no real professional
women's soccer, so there's no path, you know, it was
a dead end after college. But I got recruited from
(03:48):
about three or four different colleges, and I wanted to
go to Michigan State just because I wanted to get
a degree up there in comm Arts. And I went
up there in my freshman year and I wasn't going
to play, and the coach I could still remember, came
to my dorm and he was like, you have to play.
Just come to a couple of practices and if you
like it, you can play. If you don't, nothing venture,
nothing gained. And then just being back out on that
(04:09):
field and really like the honor of being able to
represent your school. I was like, Wow, this is this
is pretty badass.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, well you may not have played in the Olympics,
but you sure shit are shaping what is the Olympics
of women's sports marketing today. So you played through Michigan State.
Obviously you get your degree. You've had an unbelievable career
pre ally in the world of auto et cetera. Can
you talk about before you got to Ally in your
current role. You know, maybe it wasn't so present or
pronounced then, but what you realize now of the skills
(04:38):
that you learned along the way, being in that leadership position,
controlling the center of the field, and some of those
things that you think have been transferable over the course
of your career.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, look, there's always the basic things
that everybody says, being on a team, having to show
up for your teammates every single day, understanding how to
operate within a system. But I think for me more
transformative as a collegiate athlete and as an athlete, my
whole entire life was well, we're a few things. One
the pace at which you need to run to be
(05:08):
a successful executive, and that is very analogous to being
a collegiate athlete, right, especially when you played a nonprofit sport.
We actually had to keep a grade point up, right,
We didn't have a choice, and so I had to
keep my grades up. I was at practice every single day,
up at school a month before school started, two a days,
staying in shape the entirety of the year, you know,
(05:31):
staying physically fit, mentally fit, and trying to balance my
life be a student, have fun. So those things had
probably a bigger impact than anything. And then I think
the second thing was really the formation of learning how
to really be brave and take risks and push yourself
beyond what you think you're mentally and physically capable of
(05:53):
in your job. And obviously what you've done with Deep Blue,
the risks that we have to take every single day,
and the way that you have to push yourself, and
the ability that you need to have to compartmentalize like
real life from work life and mom life and partner
life and all those things. Those were skills that I
didn't know I was learning at the time. But those
(06:15):
are the things that I think have made me what
I am today in terms of the type of executive
that I am. Totally, I mean high performance, high functioning.
These things are invaluable.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I totally agree that you learn along the way, but
speak about high risk, high reward tremendous segue into your
current role as a CMO at ally, in addition to
all of the great marketing you do outside of women's sports,
pulling on that thread of bravery you jumped in the
game before women's sports was in the vernacular. In twenty
(06:44):
twenty two, you announce the fifty to fifty pledge. You
stand up on a stage at the espnW summit, and
you do something that was so bold and audacious. Quite frankly, Andrew,
I don't even think people really understood it because it
was so far out in front of where we are today.
I wanted to set this conversation up with the backstory
because for me and I know for you, this is
(07:04):
the intersection of passion meeting profession, the ability you might
not have played, as I said, on that Olympic team,
but the ability now to impact sport in a capacity
that is so desperately needed on the women's side. Where
did the vision come from, and more importantly, the guts
to see it through.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I think the formation of it began through our sponsorship
of NWSL and being early on and riding through the
emotional rollercoaster of some of the harassment scandals in that
whole period of time, and then really realizing in that
moment that we had to get really proximate with the players,
(07:42):
and ultimately then doing our sponsorship of the Players Association
and starting to really listen to the story from the
side of the players, and realizing that there was something
really deep and important that was happening in women's sports
and that people just weren't seeing it. And so rewind
to three years ago, it was the fiftieth anniversary of
Title nine. Myself being a product of Title nine, feeling
(08:04):
very passionate about Title nine and wanting to protect it.
And we talked a lot as a team about Oh,
we could do a tribute at or we could do this,
or we could do that, or we could make a donation.
And I remember saying, none of that's going to do shit, Like,
it's not going to do anything. It's not going to
do anything to change anything. We have to do something real,
and we have to do something big. And the stat
(08:26):
that really jumped out to me was that less than
five percent of the media coverage was going to women's
sports and less than one percent of the sponsorship dollars.
And that's when we came up with the idea of
the fifty to fifty pledge. It was literally like a
Thursday we came up with the idea. The SPNW summit
was Tuesday. I called Foudy and I said, Hey, we've
got this big announcement that we want to make. Can
(08:48):
we live stream in? She's like fine by me, but
you got to get cleared from Disney. We reached out
to Rita Farroh. She's like, love it. We live streamed in.
Foudy interviewed me. We made the announcement against the backdrop
of my entire team, who had no idea. We were
making the announcement, made the announcement, and then that night
I get a text for my boss. I was feeling good,
(09:10):
like this is awesome, amazing. I got a text from
my boss and he was like, it was like nine
thirty at night. He's like, read about your fifty to
fifty pledge. Really cool idea. But when you're going to
make a big announcement like that, you should probably tell
your boss. And there's the Edgar Rimmer. I know, yeah,
(09:31):
that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And just to give context too, because I think for
those who are not as familiar with the sort of
components of the fifty fifty pledge, it was for every
dollar you were investing from a media investment capacity on
the men's side, you were going to match it dollar
for dollar on the women's side within a specific period
of time. Remember, we started to develop our relationship and understanding. Obviously,
(10:03):
having grown up as a buyer, two of the biggest
barriers of entry in women's sports is they're hard to
find and they're hard to buy.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And I remember talking with people.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
On your team, Stephanie Marciano specifically, and saying, there's actually
not enough inventory for us to fulfill the pledge.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
And so you talk about that coverage number.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That coverage number begets why the sponsorship number is so
low and the industry just making it difficult to achieve.
As you started peeling back the layers, you make this bold,
audacious announcement that is absolutely going to move the needle.
What did you start to cover and realizing like, we
actually have a systems on systems issue here.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
This isn't just about spending the money.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
We actually have to rewire the way we operate as
an industry.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, it was massive. It was so much harder than
I thought it was going to be. I thought it
would be easy. I really thought when we made this
pledge that we would be flooded with media companies running
to us saying, okay, great, you made this pledge. Here's
how we're going to help you get there all the
media that we have. And honestly, it was crickets, which
was crazy, right. There was no system to build into
(11:08):
and we literally had to create it. And you know,
it's funny. I remember my team's first reaction was, we
need to go ask the company, our company for incremental money.
We need to go get ten to twenty million dollars
of incrementality to get us on our way, And I
was like, well, you guys were not going to ask
for any additional money. We're going to optimize out of
(11:30):
lower performing things and into women's sports if we truly
believe the thesis that this is a good place for
us to be, and if we don't, we probably shouldn't
have made the pledge. And so honestly, it started with
breaking down barriers inside of our company. And still it's
a little bit of something that I have to overcome
on a pretty regular basis, which is we still get
(11:51):
the fights of this compartmentalization of that's the women's sports
budget and here's everything else, and it's like, no, let's
think about it as a total media budget, and how
much of that should we actually put into this emerging
media or into these women's sponsorships or these other things.
So I think that's one of the first motes, if
you will, that I bet a lot of marketers struggle with.
(12:11):
And then the second one was, as you said, creating
the media understanding that you have to think differently about
the valuation of the CPAs and the way that you
think about the cost, and the way that you think
about how you do the valuations. You know, there's so
many times where we get a proposal and it's like
this big number and we're like, that just doesn't really
(12:33):
value out. But you can't use the same method of
valuation on the women's side as you can the men's
because it's apples and oranges.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, this is where I think one of the biggest
gaps exists and institutional knowledge about how advertising and media works. Right,
there's a currency in which we all operate and buy
on this cost per thousand metric, which is largely rooted
in scale and efficiency. Well, if you're only getting five
percent of total coverage, how the hell can you evaluate
something on a metric that it doesn't actually have access to,
(13:02):
which is scale and efficiency. And so I really applaud
you for that because I know people coming with these
bulk numbers but they can't back into it. And I
know you get this question a thousand times, as does
your team from other colleagues in the industry who are
interested to get into the space but are struggling to
make the business case. Andrea, what do you advise them?
And I know you've been pretty forthcoming on even some
(13:24):
of the tangible results you've seen based on these early investments.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You have to just take a leap and believe the
thesis that this is a good place for your brand
to be and that this is a growing and evergreen space.
And while some of the valuation may not pencil out
in the early years, the long tail of it absolutely
is a creative to growth. And so for us, what
we've seen is just incredible results relative to the actual
(13:51):
business case. Last year, our brand valuation increased thirty five percent,
and the category of financial service this has dropped three percent.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Is that isolated to your investment or is that just
a collective role up, a collective roll up.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And I'll tell you that was in a really hard
fiscal year for us. While I can't say Women's Sports
takes the total credit for it, you can say it
certainly took a lot of the credit for it. Our
trust grew. Only four banking brands grew in terms of
trust last year. You know, we had major banking failures
in the past couple of years with SVB and others.
Our brand trust grew, and it grew faster than any
(14:30):
brand in the category. Our positive brand sentiment is in
the ninety plus range the category is in the mid
thirties to low thirties, so we're three times the category
and fans of women's sports are six times more likely
to open an ally account and grow the relationship with us.
And then when you look at favorability, you look at
(14:50):
like our general market favorability. Our general market favorability is
about sixty percent. Our favorability in the women's sportspace is
over ninety percent. And we know empirically, we did a
study with eight hundred and fifty thousand consumers. We know
when we have stronger favorability, we convert at an eighty
(15:11):
five percent more efficient ratio than when favorability is lower.
And we know that we deepen relationships at three times
the ones that don't have the same level of favorability.
So all of the thesis is there in terms of
the hard metrics. And honestly, Lauren, we've overpaid for certain
things where we've just said, you know what, we're going
(15:32):
to invest now on the income that this is going
to be something in the future, and I will do
that all day long in this space, and it paid out.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I feel like I could just hang up now because
those are the numbers that we have so much more
to cover, But those are the numbers that I think
the industry is so desperate for as a proof point,
and I think to your point, just get in now.
The other thing I would say, and I think is
a testament to you and your team, you're not just
coming in buying, logo, slapping and converting. You're actually students
(16:01):
of the industry, students of the game, your participants of
the industry, participants in the game.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You're present in and.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Around to your point earlier in the conversation, the athletes
understanding what makes things tick. I truly believe, and I'm
curious to at your perspective this. I don't know you
achieved these ninety percent plus rates by just buying and badging.
You have to get in and understand the authentic connection
to the space and its fandom.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Would you agree on that? Absolutely? God, yeah, I would
tell you that fans have been craving brands that want
to come in and actually do the work. And as
you know, we've got this thesis around this notion of
allies don't sit on the sidelines, right and being in
and I think, really, we don't do a logo slap
on anything, even outside of women's sports. That's just always
been a remit that I've had across the team, which is,
(16:49):
you know, we're not just going to come in and
do a logo slap on anything. If we're going to
go in, we're going to leave it better than we
found it. And I would tell you, like if you
just look at the case study around what we've done
with NWSL, the double down on the Players Association, so
being on the league side and the player association side
is extremely unique in that space. We were the first
sponsor ever of the Players Association that gave the Players
(17:12):
Association the ability to grow and thrive and survive. The
things that we've done in NWSL, the program historically that
we've had where we've actually flown the families, bought tickets
and flown the families of the players in the championship
game to the championship games so they could see their
loved ones participate on the field. The things that we've
(17:33):
done to create more inertia around making sure fans have
the ability to come to the championship games, to participate
in fan zones, to do meaningful fun things. They're taking
early bets on things like unrivaled being the founding partner
on Unrivaled. We were in that we were having conversations
(17:54):
with Stuie and Fee and Alex and Mickey three years
ago while it was just a seed of an idea.
And so those are the ways that I think we've
shown up in meaningful and authentic ways. And fans recognize
that when we made our WMBA announcement, thirty percent of
all of our social media traffic that day from the
(18:16):
announcement where people saying allies in again, I'm going to
open an ally account as a commitment to them for
the commitment that they've made in this space and the
fact that they're doing real things. I get chills when
you say that, because it's just tangible value exchange. Let's
pivot to the players, because you've had such an incredible impact,
not only in obviously partnering with the PA, but aligning
(18:39):
the brands with generational talent as well as those that
are emerging NWSL Rookie of the Year alignment you align
with Pagebeckers coming in as a number one draft pick.
What is the expectation in partnering with these athletes beyond
social posts which I see too far and too often
as a one and done situation. Yeah, we look for
(19:00):
authentic relationships one with players that actually have an interest
in finance and really care about financial education and creating
this new economy and this new monetization system. That's one. Two.
We have created this notion that we call team ally,
and what team ally is is not just brand ambassadors,
(19:20):
but brand advisors and so actually holding sessions with players
to get input and have them push us where can
we be better? What are the things that we should
be thinking about that we're not doing today. Where should
we be investing, How can we show up better for players,
How can we show up better for leagues? What kind
of media should we be pushing on? And so really
(19:42):
listening to the players and getting their input and understanding
from like really big things to really small things. I'll
give you an example of a really small thing. You know,
we've got the NASCAR partnership on the forty eight car,
and we unrivaled played in Miami, and so we wanted
to do an unrivaled paint scheme at the Miami at
the Homestead Race. So we had Sophia Chang designed the car,
(20:05):
and we took Stewie and a couple of other players
out to see the car before the race. Stewie was like,
you know what would be really cool. What if you
put all the players in Unrivaled put their names on
the car. And we're like, we love that idea. So
we redid the entire paint scheme and for her it
was like, that's going to be a big moment for
these players. That's going to be something that was completely unexpected.
(20:27):
And so, like I said, it's the big thing from
the players advising us some things that we should be
thinking about relative to where we should invest to the
small things like that, and then deeds not words, you
actually have to do it.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Well. You talked earlier about pace not speed for the
fact of being reckless and just trying to be in it,
but like true precision and strategy moving through it with
efficacy but speed. I also believe it's one of the
biggest hang ups that women's sports suffers from, is the
inability to get pass and move through some of the
legacy or the way things have been done or applying
the men's playbook.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Are the things that still surprise you.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
You know, three plus years post fifty to fifty pledge
in which you would advise operationally, we need to get
more efficient around.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
If you agree with that at all, no, I totally
agree with it. I think there's still systemic things that
are problematic. Right just look at if you just step
back and like, look at the gross in terms of
valuation of these women's sports leagues and the fact that
while you're getting these big valuations, you're getting i mean
basically billionaires that are coming in as owners, the amount
(21:46):
of investment that's going in these media deals, Yet the
league offices aren't growing at a commensurate at pace. And
so I have a lot of empathy for the commissioners
in trying to keep pace with everything that's coming at
them and all those things they need to do without
the investments to be able to grow the ability of
the league office to grow at the same pace, and
(22:06):
especially when you compare that to the kind of the
male league counterparts. The second aspect that I see is
the promotion of women's sports. You've got these networks that
have come in and they've made these investments that theirness
still not promoting in a way that is commensurate with
what they're promoting in the men's leagues, and so you
still have too many fans that are having to do
(22:28):
an easter egg hunt to find the content for all
intent and purposes, You've got these emerging media platforms that
aren't getting I would say the same benefit of the
doubt right. Look at things like what Tolbeny Kristen are
doing with Remedia and Reink, or different podcasts that are happening,
or different platforms that are happening in the space, and
how hard they have to fight to get sponsorship dollars.
(22:51):
I'd venture to guests that if Lebron came knocking on
people's doors and was looking for sponsorship dollars for a podcast,
he'd be getting money flooding in. And a Sue Bird
comes in has to be on every call to make
sure that she's getting the level of investment she needs. Look,
one fact that still bothers the hell out of me
that I look at is that less than six percent
of the Fortune five hundred is investing in any types
(23:13):
of either media or sponsorship in women's sports. Right, how
can that be? How can it be as right?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And the industry needs to do a better job to
your point at really hitting the guess on addressing some
of these systemic issues. You know, you talk about the
promotion piece. I had a conversation with the head of
sales on one of the most recent emerging leagues.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Then they're like, Laura, were just.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Having a hard time driving the ratings, and I'm like, well,
I'm having a hard time finding how you're promoting it
right right. It's so many these things where you know,
if you build it, it's not going to come. There's
so much choice, there's so much optionality in terms of
media that you have to have a strategy around how
to drive people to it. And one of the things
that has also driven me crazy, which again I know
(23:57):
you're a sponsor of all these major leagues, but how
media rights deals are following and being a little bit
more long tail minded in terms of thinking about the
fan experience, discoverability, not just chasing the almighty dollar. I
understand how that helps and supports the league, but and
also being mindful of the disparate nature of what it's
creating when you're fragmenting it across multiple channels. So these
(24:18):
are all the things that I'm hopeful we'll catch up,
but I think it's a bit of a race to
the bottom right now when it really needs to be
more about building out the foundation.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, there's a lot of infrastructure work that needs
to happen. I liken it almost to a city that
grows really fast and they don't have the they don't
have the infrastructure dollars to build the roads and build
the schools and build all of the things that are
going to make it a thriving city. And I worry
that with the pace at which a lot of this
league growth is happening in the popular area around women's sports,
(24:50):
that the rest of the ecosystem isn't keeping up. And
that's what needs to happen, and we have to think differently.
One of the things that we've done that I think
is pretty unique is we've and we've opened up our
playbook and we've shared it even with competitors. Right. Two,
We've welcomed people into categories that I would say, historically
(25:10):
you'd lock up an entire category. So for instance, you
look at financial services and we did our NWSL deal.
When we did our reup a couple of years ago,
we said to them, monetize the mortgage category. We don't really,
even though we have a mortgage product, or used to
have a mortgage product. We don't anymore. We don't really
advertise it. So take the category and go sell it.
We're fine. There's an anomaly that you would not get
(25:32):
that anywhere else. No, it's a huge anomaly. I've had
conversations with Carlo Hassan about let's partner, let's do some
stuff together. Let's go in. We're a digital financial services company.
They're a big national bank, the biggest national bank. Let's
partner together and let's do some things differently unrivaled. We
did stuff with Morgan Stanley even though we've got an
invest product. So I think those are the things that
(25:52):
need to happen in women's sports if we're really going
to get the kind of momentum and the kind of
differentiation and the infrastructure investment that we really need. Totally.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We can go all day on how we need to
fix the plumbing, but take your bottom line hat off
for a second and go back to Andrew Bimmer the
center midfield. When you take a step back and you
do look at the progress fifty to fifty pledge on,
do you ever just sit home at night and like,
holy shit, like it's happening.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, I do, absolutely. I can't believe it's been three
years since we made a fifty to fifty pledge. We
just had the fifty third anniversary Final nine, and I
think pinch me moments for me. I'm on the board
of the Women's Sports Foundation, and I was sitting in
the last board meeting and I'm like, oh my god,
there's Billy Jean King, There's you know, Alana, there's ashl
and Harris. I'm sitting in this room with these incredible athletes,
(26:46):
these people that have this unbelievable position in industry athletic directors,
and I'm like, I can't believe I'm in this room.
I cannot believe I'm in this room.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I can, but yeah, yeah, I said, it's wild, Like
we're a like why are we here?
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And so I think it's pretty incredible. I know you
feel this deeply as well. I've always believed that if
you're given the privilege of a platform in life and
you don't use it, that's on you. And I've been
given the privilege of having a platform where I have
a career that has the ability to reach out and
do meaningful things, and a career where I can get
(27:26):
into the public space and speak and make meaningful change
and to be able to intersect something that's so near
and dear to my heart because of the kind of
person that it made me and the opportunities that gave me,
which is women's sports. And to be able to marry
that with a real business reason that has been a
creative for my company is like a dream come true
(27:47):
one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And you know, as I think about why a bank,
it's like, it's actually all right on time, right it
needed the champion who understood it, who played it, who
lived it to be able to translate it to the
other side. Everything right on time and exactly where you
should and need to be. You know, you have this
tattoo on your arm. I keep seen as a're looking
like a girl. And I remember when that campaign came
(28:09):
out and sort of was an exclamation point on being
proud of of that and owning that and really leveraging
the platform that you have and these athletes have as
role models to create paths that for you and I
growing up and as soccer players, like it wasn't visible.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Why do you have that tattoo?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And how are you thinking about this platform five ten
years into the future as Andrew Bimmer not just the marketer,
but really the trailblazer. You know.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I love this. I love this saying like a girl,
and I like it because to me, it is the
embodiment of taking our power back. It is the embodiment
of your damn right. I kick like a girl, Your
damn right, I throw like a girl, Your damn right,
I run like a girl, and your damn right, I
show up in a meeting like a girl. I was
about to say, don't leave that part out. I won't.
(28:57):
And I also think for me, it is the that
comes with being a woman, and the pride that comes
with being a woman in business, and the pride of
being a mom and a wife and a daughter. And
I can still do all those things and still show
up in a really badass way in the boardroom, in
a meeting room for my team, in any way that
(29:17):
I need to. And so to me, this is just
it's a constant reminder of what my obligation is to
make sure that I don't forget that and that I
don't create the path forward for the next generation. And honestly, like,
there's meetings that I'm in that they kind of start
to turn into a brofest. And I love like I
will literally I lean in, put my arm up like
(29:39):
this so they can see my forearm, to remind them
of like, yeah, okay, we're not going to go there
right now. And so for me, that's what it means.
And I wanted a visible symbol of that, not only
to remind myself of what I need to do every
single day, but to show my commitment externally. And when
I think down the path, look five ten years ago,
will I be Will I be sitting in this seat?
(30:01):
Probably not, But will I still be sitting in a
seat hopefully where I'm continuing to be on boards like
the Women's Sports Foundation, I don't know, who knows, maybe
running a league, maybe running a team, maybe investing in
a team, whatever it is, My fingers are still going
to be in it. They're definitely not going to be
out of it. Because it is the greatest passion point
part of my job.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Totally one of the greatest gifts I think that this
job has given me. In Deep Blue has had a
front row seat to what I would say is a
sense of obligation of community. I spoke at a high
school not that long ago. One of the questions that
came from one of the people in the audience was
is the previous generation angry or upset or bitter because
(30:44):
of the opportunities that the current generation is experiencing through
NIL And we were talking about basketball specifically, and my
answer was known in terms of the pay a forward,
leaving it better than you found it. And just to
underscore that, I found myself on stage, I can standing
up there, Alison Field, Meghan Rappino, sueberd Ashon, Harris Fornesa,
(31:04):
and these are women who are done on the field,
on the pitch, on the track, on the court, and
yet they're still motoring in terms of finding ways to leave,
to your point, the fingerprints on it. And so what
I am so proud of and so inspired by is
knowing that this is a community that is locked in.
(31:24):
But I think you know you said it, Beth Comstock
from GUS to say to me, you know, if you
see a better way, you have an obligation to do it,
And I think what a waste of time and talent
to not be able to take this skill set and
platform that we have to do it. So I'm just
honored to know you, honored to be in your orbit,
and just grateful for your relentless pursuit to make sure
that this thing keeps moving, because without it would be
(31:44):
in a much different position in the women's sports space.
So thank you for all that you do. Thank you
for spending the time with me today. I can't wait
to see what you do next.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Thank you for the kind words. And look, it definitely
takes a village, and I've got an amazing village around me.
My team is in both the men and the women
on the team that have the same amount of passion
for it, which I love. You know, great partners like you,
and then, like you said, this incredible ecosystem. And that's
one of the things that I've found so unique and
so fulfilling in this women's sports space is all of
(32:15):
these women that you can pick up the phone and
you can call any CMO that's in the space, any
female athlete that's in the space, take your call. They
want to work with you, they want to figure it out.
And that's pretty unique. It's different than any other kind
of space I've been involved in my life. So thank
you for all you're doing and the focus of Deep Blue.
You're definitely changing the game. I appreciate it. Parting words
(32:35):
for the industry. One thing you need to do in
women's sports this year? What is it? Get in the game?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Mike trop Thank you, Andrew Bremmer, You're the best. We
appreciate you. 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 the social your producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman.
(33:03):
Quart Side is an Iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with
Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Want more, follow, rate.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
And review qurt 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
Rewind to three years ago. It was the fiftieth anniversary
of Title nine, myself being a product of Title nine,
feeling very passionate about Title nine and wanting to protect it.
And we talked a lot as a team about Oh,
we could do a tribute at or we could do this,
or we could do that, or we could make a donation.
And I remember saying, none of that's going to do shit, Like,
it's not going to do anything. It's not going to
(00:25):
do anything to change anything. We have to do something real,
and we have to do something big. And the stat
that really jumped out to me was that less than
five percent of the media coverage was going to women's
sports and less than one percent of sponsorship dollars. And
that's when we came up with the idea of the
fifty to fifty Pledge.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome back to Courtside, where we break down the business
of women's sports with the people rewriting the rules. I'm
your host, Laura Krante, and today we're talking about what
it takes to turn a promise into a movement and
a marketing budget into a blueprint for equity. My guest
is Andrew Brimmer, the chief marketing and PR officer at Ally,
and if you know women's sports, you know Ali. Andrew
(01:03):
Brimmer is a former collegiate soccer player, herself a marketing
pioneer and the architect behind one of the boldest brand
commitments in sports, the fifty to fifty pledge. This pledge
was a game changer back in twenty twenty two when
Ali committed to spending equal media investment across men's and
women's sports inventory and sponsorships. In this conversation, Andrew and
I get into the strategy behind that commitment. The real
(01:25):
business upside Ally has achieved based on its investment in
women's sports and the things that still need to change
for fans to be able to find and access women's
sports and really ignite the industry as a whole.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And we are back courtside.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
With none other than not only the pioneer and architect
of the modern marketing that is women's sports today, but
someone who has known and played the game since her
early days.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Welcome to the show, Andrea Brimmer. Thanks, Elsie. That's that's
quite the intro.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I like, guess I could have kept going, but I
didn't want you to cut me off. But what I
know to be true, is before there was Andrew Brimmer's
CMO of ally, before there was Andrew Brimmer, architect of
the fifty to fifty Pledge, there was Andrew Brimmer, the player,
the standout star at Michigan State, and probably goes back
well beyond that. So I wanted to ask you, when
(02:16):
did you first fall in love with the game? You know,
I actually fell in love with it when I was
in third grade. I've always been like a total jock.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I was always the one where all my girl cousins
were inside playing with barbies, and I was outside with
all the boys playing t ball or tag or whatever
they were playing. And I started playing soccer when I
was in third grade and just absolutely fell in love
with it. I played everything. I played softball, I played soccer,
I played volleyball, I ran track, but soccer was and
(02:45):
always will be my first love. I don't know if
I ever asked you what position did you play? I
was a center mid. I was center mid my whole life,
of course, right, you and me, both you and me, both,
I know. And I made the varsity team in high
school as a sophomore. We didn't have freshman back then.
Was you didn't go to high school till you were
sophomore and made the varsity team as a sophomore, and
they pulled me up. They had me play forward because
(03:06):
there was a senior in the center mid position, and
I scored thirty one goals my sophomore year on the
varsity team, and they wanted to keep me at forward,
but I love that midi position, so I wanted to
drop back. Yeah, controlling the game, that's right. Obviously, scoring
thirty one goals as a sophomore is no small feet,
But how did you take the leap from that to
playing at Michigan State at a bigger stage collegiately? For me,
(03:27):
my dream, an unfulfilled dream that I still have to
this day, was to play in the Olympics. And I
was in an ODP program, but there was really no
Olympic team and I wanted to play. I really didn't
want to play in college, to be honest with you.
I was burned out and there was no real professional
women's soccer, so there's no path, you know, it was
a dead end after college. But I got recruited from
(03:48):
about three or four different colleges, and I wanted to
go to Michigan State just because I wanted to get
a degree up there in comm Arts. And I went
up there in my freshman year and I wasn't going
to play, and the coach I could still remember, came
to my dorm and he was like, you have to play.
Just come to a couple of practices and if you
like it, you can play. If you don't, nothing venture,
nothing gained. And then just being back out on that
(04:09):
field and really like the honor of being able to
represent your school. I was like, Wow, this is this
is pretty badass.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, well you may not have played in the Olympics,
but you sure shit are shaping what is the Olympics
of women's sports marketing today. So you played through Michigan State.
Obviously you get your degree. You've had an unbelievable career
pre ally in the world of auto et cetera. Can
you talk about before you got to Ally in your
current role. You know, maybe it wasn't so present or
pronounced then, but what you realize now of the skills
(04:38):
that you learned along the way, being in that leadership position,
controlling the center of the field, and some of those
things that you think have been transferable over the course
of your career.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, look, there's always the basic things
that everybody says, being on a team, having to show
up for your teammates every single day, understanding how to
operate within a system. But I think for me more
transformative as a collegiate athlete and as an athlete, my
whole entire life was well, we're a few things. One
the pace at which you need to run to be
(05:08):
a successful executive, and that is very analogous to being
a collegiate athlete, right, especially when you played a nonprofit sport.
We actually had to keep a grade point up, right,
We didn't have a choice, and so I had to
keep my grades up. I was at practice every single day,
up at school a month before school started, two a days,
staying in shape the entirety of the year, you know,
(05:31):
staying physically fit, mentally fit, and trying to balance my
life be a student, have fun. So those things had
probably a bigger impact than anything. And then I think
the second thing was really the formation of learning how
to really be brave and take risks and push yourself
beyond what you think you're mentally and physically capable of
(05:53):
in your job. And obviously what you've done with Deep Blue,
the risks that we have to take every single day,
and the way that you have to push yourself, and
the ability that you need to have to compartmentalize like
real life from work life and mom life and partner
life and all those things. Those were skills that I
didn't know I was learning at the time. But those
(06:15):
are the things that I think have made me what
I am today in terms of the type of executive
that I am. Totally, I mean high performance, high functioning.
These things are invaluable.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I totally agree that you learn along the way, but
speak about high risk, high reward tremendous segue into your
current role as a CMO at ally, in addition to
all of the great marketing you do outside of women's sports,
pulling on that thread of bravery you jumped in the
game before women's sports was in the vernacular. In twenty
(06:44):
twenty two, you announce the fifty to fifty pledge. You
stand up on a stage at the espnW summit, and
you do something that was so bold and audacious. Quite frankly, Andrew,
I don't even think people really understood it because it
was so far out in front of where we are today.
I wanted to set this conversation up with the backstory
because for me and I know for you, this is
(07:04):
the intersection of passion meeting profession, the ability you might
not have played, as I said, on that Olympic team,
but the ability now to impact sport in a capacity
that is so desperately needed on the women's side. Where
did the vision come from, and more importantly, the guts
to see it through.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I think the formation of it began through our sponsorship
of NWSL and being early on and riding through the
emotional rollercoaster of some of the harassment scandals in that
whole period of time, and then really realizing in that
moment that we had to get really proximate with the players,
(07:42):
and ultimately then doing our sponsorship of the Players Association
and starting to really listen to the story from the
side of the players, and realizing that there was something
really deep and important that was happening in women's sports
and that people just weren't seeing it. And so rewind
to three years ago, it was the fiftieth anniversary of
Title nine. Myself being a product of Title nine, feeling
(08:04):
very passionate about Title nine and wanting to protect it.
And we talked a lot as a team about Oh,
we could do a tribute at or we could do this,
or we could do that, or we could make a donation.
And I remember saying, none of that's going to do shit, Like,
it's not going to do anything. It's not going to
do anything to change anything. We have to do something real,
and we have to do something big. And the stat
(08:26):
that really jumped out to me was that less than
five percent of the media coverage was going to women's
sports and less than one percent of the sponsorship dollars.
And that's when we came up with the idea of
the fifty to fifty pledge. It was literally like a
Thursday we came up with the idea. The SPNW summit
was Tuesday. I called Foudy and I said, Hey, we've
got this big announcement that we want to make. Can
(08:48):
we live stream in? She's like fine by me, but
you got to get cleared from Disney. We reached out
to Rita Farroh. She's like, love it. We live streamed in.
Foudy interviewed me. We made the announcement against the backdrop
of my entire team, who had no idea. We were
making the announcement, made the announcement, and then that night
I get a text for my boss. I was feeling good,
(09:10):
like this is awesome, amazing. I got a text from
my boss and he was like, it was like nine
thirty at night. He's like, read about your fifty to
fifty pledge. Really cool idea. But when you're going to
make a big announcement like that, you should probably tell
your boss. And there's the Edgar Rimmer. I know, yeah,
(09:31):
that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And just to give context too, because I think for
those who are not as familiar with the sort of
components of the fifty fifty pledge, it was for every
dollar you were investing from a media investment capacity on
the men's side, you were going to match it dollar
for dollar on the women's side within a specific period
of time. Remember, we started to develop our relationship and understanding. Obviously,
(10:03):
having grown up as a buyer, two of the biggest
barriers of entry in women's sports is they're hard to
find and they're hard to buy.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And I remember talking with people.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
On your team, Stephanie Marciano specifically, and saying, there's actually
not enough inventory for us to fulfill the pledge.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
And so you talk about that coverage number.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That coverage number begets why the sponsorship number is so
low and the industry just making it difficult to achieve.
As you started peeling back the layers, you make this bold,
audacious announcement that is absolutely going to move the needle.
What did you start to cover and realizing like, we
actually have a systems on systems issue here.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
This isn't just about spending the money.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
We actually have to rewire the way we operate as
an industry.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, it was massive. It was so much harder than
I thought it was going to be. I thought it
would be easy. I really thought when we made this
pledge that we would be flooded with media companies running
to us saying, okay, great, you made this pledge. Here's
how we're going to help you get there all the
media that we have. And honestly, it was crickets, which
was crazy, right. There was no system to build into
(11:08):
and we literally had to create it. And you know,
it's funny. I remember my team's first reaction was, we
need to go ask the company, our company for incremental money.
We need to go get ten to twenty million dollars
of incrementality to get us on our way, And I
was like, well, you guys were not going to ask
for any additional money. We're going to optimize out of
(11:30):
lower performing things and into women's sports if we truly
believe the thesis that this is a good place for
us to be, and if we don't, we probably shouldn't
have made the pledge. And so honestly, it started with
breaking down barriers inside of our company. And still it's
a little bit of something that I have to overcome
on a pretty regular basis, which is we still get
(11:51):
the fights of this compartmentalization of that's the women's sports
budget and here's everything else, and it's like, no, let's
think about it as a total media budget, and how
much of that should we actually put into this emerging
media or into these women's sponsorships or these other things.
So I think that's one of the first motes, if
you will, that I bet a lot of marketers struggle with.
(12:11):
And then the second one was, as you said, creating
the media understanding that you have to think differently about
the valuation of the CPAs and the way that you
think about the cost, and the way that you think
about how you do the valuations. You know, there's so
many times where we get a proposal and it's like
this big number and we're like, that just doesn't really
(12:33):
value out. But you can't use the same method of
valuation on the women's side as you can the men's
because it's apples and oranges.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, this is where I think one of the biggest
gaps exists and institutional knowledge about how advertising and media works. Right,
there's a currency in which we all operate and buy
on this cost per thousand metric, which is largely rooted
in scale and efficiency. Well, if you're only getting five
percent of total coverage, how the hell can you evaluate
something on a metric that it doesn't actually have access to,
(13:02):
which is scale and efficiency. And so I really applaud
you for that because I know people coming with these
bulk numbers but they can't back into it. And I
know you get this question a thousand times, as does
your team from other colleagues in the industry who are
interested to get into the space but are struggling to
make the business case. Andrea, what do you advise them?
And I know you've been pretty forthcoming on even some
(13:24):
of the tangible results you've seen based on these early investments.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You have to just take a leap and believe the
thesis that this is a good place for your brand
to be and that this is a growing and evergreen space.
And while some of the valuation may not pencil out
in the early years, the long tail of it absolutely
is a creative to growth. And so for us, what
we've seen is just incredible results relative to the actual
(13:51):
business case. Last year, our brand valuation increased thirty five percent,
and the category of financial service this has dropped three percent.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Is that isolated to your investment or is that just
a collective role up, a collective roll up.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And I'll tell you that was in a really hard
fiscal year for us. While I can't say Women's Sports
takes the total credit for it, you can say it
certainly took a lot of the credit for it. Our
trust grew. Only four banking brands grew in terms of
trust last year. You know, we had major banking failures
in the past couple of years with SVB and others.
Our brand trust grew, and it grew faster than any
(14:30):
brand in the category. Our positive brand sentiment is in
the ninety plus range the category is in the mid
thirties to low thirties, so we're three times the category
and fans of women's sports are six times more likely
to open an ally account and grow the relationship with us.
And then when you look at favorability, you look at
(14:50):
like our general market favorability. Our general market favorability is
about sixty percent. Our favorability in the women's sportspace is
over ninety percent. And we know empirically, we did a
study with eight hundred and fifty thousand consumers. We know
when we have stronger favorability, we convert at an eighty
(15:11):
five percent more efficient ratio than when favorability is lower.
And we know that we deepen relationships at three times
the ones that don't have the same level of favorability.
So all of the thesis is there in terms of
the hard metrics. And honestly, Lauren, we've overpaid for certain
things where we've just said, you know what, we're going
(15:32):
to invest now on the income that this is going
to be something in the future, and I will do
that all day long in this space, and it paid out.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I feel like I could just hang up now because
those are the numbers that we have so much more
to cover, But those are the numbers that I think
the industry is so desperate for as a proof point,
and I think to your point, just get in now.
The other thing I would say, and I think is
a testament to you and your team, you're not just
coming in buying, logo, slapping and converting. You're actually students
(16:01):
of the industry, students of the game, your participants of
the industry, participants in the game.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You're present in and.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Around to your point earlier in the conversation, the athletes
understanding what makes things tick. I truly believe, and I'm
curious to at your perspective this. I don't know you
achieved these ninety percent plus rates by just buying and badging.
You have to get in and understand the authentic connection
to the space and its fandom.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Would you agree on that? Absolutely? God, yeah, I would
tell you that fans have been craving brands that want
to come in and actually do the work. And as
you know, we've got this thesis around this notion of
allies don't sit on the sidelines, right and being in
and I think, really, we don't do a logo slap
on anything, even outside of women's sports. That's just always
been a remit that I've had across the team, which is,
(16:49):
you know, we're not just going to come in and
do a logo slap on anything. If we're going to
go in, we're going to leave it better than we
found it. And I would tell you, like if you
just look at the case study around what we've done
with NWSL, the double down on the Players Association, so
being on the league side and the player association side
is extremely unique in that space. We were the first
sponsor ever of the Players Association that gave the Players
(17:12):
Association the ability to grow and thrive and survive. The
things that we've done in NWSL, the program historically that
we've had where we've actually flown the families, bought tickets
and flown the families of the players in the championship
game to the championship games so they could see their
loved ones participate on the field. The things that we've
(17:33):
done to create more inertia around making sure fans have
the ability to come to the championship games, to participate
in fan zones, to do meaningful fun things. They're taking
early bets on things like unrivaled being the founding partner
on Unrivaled. We were in that we were having conversations
(17:54):
with Stuie and Fee and Alex and Mickey three years
ago while it was just a seed of an idea.
And so those are the ways that I think we've
shown up in meaningful and authentic ways. And fans recognize
that when we made our WMBA announcement, thirty percent of
all of our social media traffic that day from the
(18:16):
announcement where people saying allies in again, I'm going to
open an ally account as a commitment to them for
the commitment that they've made in this space and the
fact that they're doing real things. I get chills when
you say that, because it's just tangible value exchange. Let's
pivot to the players, because you've had such an incredible impact,
not only in obviously partnering with the PA, but aligning
(18:39):
the brands with generational talent as well as those that
are emerging NWSL Rookie of the Year alignment you align
with Pagebeckers coming in as a number one draft pick.
What is the expectation in partnering with these athletes beyond
social posts which I see too far and too often
as a one and done situation. Yeah, we look for
(19:00):
authentic relationships one with players that actually have an interest
in finance and really care about financial education and creating
this new economy and this new monetization system. That's one. Two.
We have created this notion that we call team ally,
and what team ally is is not just brand ambassadors,
(19:20):
but brand advisors and so actually holding sessions with players
to get input and have them push us where can
we be better? What are the things that we should
be thinking about that we're not doing today. Where should
we be investing, How can we show up better for players,
How can we show up better for leagues? What kind
of media should we be pushing on? And so really
(19:42):
listening to the players and getting their input and understanding
from like really big things to really small things. I'll
give you an example of a really small thing. You know,
we've got the NASCAR partnership on the forty eight car,
and we unrivaled played in Miami, and so we wanted
to do an unrivaled paint scheme at the Miami at
the Homestead Race. So we had Sophia Chang designed the car,
(20:05):
and we took Stewie and a couple of other players
out to see the car before the race. Stewie was like,
you know what would be really cool. What if you
put all the players in Unrivaled put their names on
the car. And we're like, we love that idea. So
we redid the entire paint scheme and for her it
was like, that's going to be a big moment for
these players. That's going to be something that was completely unexpected.
(20:27):
And so, like I said, it's the big thing from
the players advising us some things that we should be
thinking about relative to where we should invest to the
small things like that, and then deeds not words, you
actually have to do it.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Well. You talked earlier about pace not speed for the
fact of being reckless and just trying to be in it,
but like true precision and strategy moving through it with
efficacy but speed. I also believe it's one of the
biggest hang ups that women's sports suffers from, is the
inability to get pass and move through some of the
legacy or the way things have been done or applying
the men's playbook.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Are the things that still surprise you.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
You know, three plus years post fifty to fifty pledge
in which you would advise operationally, we need to get
more efficient around.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
If you agree with that at all, no, I totally
agree with it. I think there's still systemic things that
are problematic. Right just look at if you just step
back and like, look at the gross in terms of
valuation of these women's sports leagues and the fact that
while you're getting these big valuations, you're getting i mean
basically billionaires that are coming in as owners, the amount
(21:46):
of investment that's going in these media deals, Yet the
league offices aren't growing at a commensurate at pace. And
so I have a lot of empathy for the commissioners
in trying to keep pace with everything that's coming at
them and all those things they need to do without
the investments to be able to grow the ability of
the league office to grow at the same pace, and
(22:06):
especially when you compare that to the kind of the
male league counterparts. The second aspect that I see is
the promotion of women's sports. You've got these networks that
have come in and they've made these investments that theirness
still not promoting in a way that is commensurate with
what they're promoting in the men's leagues, and so you
still have too many fans that are having to do
(22:28):
an easter egg hunt to find the content for all
intent and purposes, You've got these emerging media platforms that
aren't getting I would say the same benefit of the
doubt right. Look at things like what Tolbeny Kristen are
doing with Remedia and Reink, or different podcasts that are happening,
or different platforms that are happening in the space, and
how hard they have to fight to get sponsorship dollars.
(22:51):
I'd venture to guests that if Lebron came knocking on
people's doors and was looking for sponsorship dollars for a podcast,
he'd be getting money flooding in. And a Sue Bird
comes in has to be on every call to make
sure that she's getting the level of investment she needs. Look,
one fact that still bothers the hell out of me
that I look at is that less than six percent
of the Fortune five hundred is investing in any types
(23:13):
of either media or sponsorship in women's sports. Right, how
can that be? How can it be as right?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And the industry needs to do a better job to
your point at really hitting the guess on addressing some
of these systemic issues. You know, you talk about the
promotion piece. I had a conversation with the head of
sales on one of the most recent emerging leagues.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Then they're like, Laura, were just.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Having a hard time driving the ratings, and I'm like, well,
I'm having a hard time finding how you're promoting it
right right. It's so many these things where you know,
if you build it, it's not going to come. There's
so much choice, there's so much optionality in terms of
media that you have to have a strategy around how
to drive people to it. And one of the things
that has also driven me crazy, which again I know
(23:57):
you're a sponsor of all these major leagues, but how
media rights deals are following and being a little bit
more long tail minded in terms of thinking about the
fan experience, discoverability, not just chasing the almighty dollar. I
understand how that helps and supports the league, but and
also being mindful of the disparate nature of what it's
creating when you're fragmenting it across multiple channels. So these
(24:18):
are all the things that I'm hopeful we'll catch up,
but I think it's a bit of a race to
the bottom right now when it really needs to be
more about building out the foundation.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, there's a lot of infrastructure work that needs
to happen. I liken it almost to a city that
grows really fast and they don't have the they don't
have the infrastructure dollars to build the roads and build
the schools and build all of the things that are
going to make it a thriving city. And I worry
that with the pace at which a lot of this
league growth is happening in the popular area around women's sports,
(24:50):
that the rest of the ecosystem isn't keeping up. And
that's what needs to happen, and we have to think differently.
One of the things that we've done that I think
is pretty unique is we've and we've opened up our
playbook and we've shared it even with competitors. Right. Two,
We've welcomed people into categories that I would say, historically
(25:10):
you'd lock up an entire category. So for instance, you
look at financial services and we did our NWSL deal.
When we did our reup a couple of years ago,
we said to them, monetize the mortgage category. We don't really,
even though we have a mortgage product, or used to
have a mortgage product. We don't anymore. We don't really
advertise it. So take the category and go sell it.
We're fine. There's an anomaly that you would not get
(25:32):
that anywhere else. No, it's a huge anomaly. I've had
conversations with Carlo Hassan about let's partner, let's do some
stuff together. Let's go in. We're a digital financial services company.
They're a big national bank, the biggest national bank. Let's
partner together and let's do some things differently unrivaled. We
did stuff with Morgan Stanley even though we've got an
invest product. So I think those are the things that
(25:52):
need to happen in women's sports if we're really going
to get the kind of momentum and the kind of
differentiation and the infrastructure investment that we really need. Totally.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We can go all day on how we need to
fix the plumbing, but take your bottom line hat off
for a second and go back to Andrew Bimmer the
center midfield. When you take a step back and you
do look at the progress fifty to fifty pledge on,
do you ever just sit home at night and like,
holy shit, like it's happening.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, I do, absolutely. I can't believe it's been three
years since we made a fifty to fifty pledge. We
just had the fifty third anniversary Final nine, and I
think pinch me moments for me. I'm on the board
of the Women's Sports Foundation, and I was sitting in
the last board meeting and I'm like, oh my god,
there's Billy Jean King, There's you know, Alana, there's ashl
and Harris. I'm sitting in this room with these incredible athletes,
(26:46):
these people that have this unbelievable position in industry athletic directors,
and I'm like, I can't believe I'm in this room.
I cannot believe I'm in this room.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I can, but yeah, yeah, I said, it's wild, Like
we're a like why are we here?
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And so I think it's pretty incredible. I know you
feel this deeply as well. I've always believed that if
you're given the privilege of a platform in life and
you don't use it, that's on you. And I've been
given the privilege of having a platform where I have
a career that has the ability to reach out and
do meaningful things, and a career where I can get
(27:26):
into the public space and speak and make meaningful change
and to be able to intersect something that's so near
and dear to my heart because of the kind of
person that it made me and the opportunities that gave me,
which is women's sports. And to be able to marry
that with a real business reason that has been a
creative for my company is like a dream come true
(27:47):
one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And you know, as I think about why a bank,
it's like, it's actually all right on time, right it
needed the champion who understood it, who played it, who
lived it to be able to translate it to the
other side. Everything right on time and exactly where you
should and need to be. You know, you have this
tattoo on your arm. I keep seen as a're looking
like a girl. And I remember when that campaign came
(28:09):
out and sort of was an exclamation point on being
proud of of that and owning that and really leveraging
the platform that you have and these athletes have as
role models to create paths that for you and I
growing up and as soccer players, like it wasn't visible.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Why do you have that tattoo?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And how are you thinking about this platform five ten
years into the future as Andrew Bimmer not just the marketer,
but really the trailblazer. You know.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I love this. I love this saying like a girl,
and I like it because to me, it is the
embodiment of taking our power back. It is the embodiment
of your damn right. I kick like a girl, Your
damn right, I throw like a girl, Your damn right,
I run like a girl, and your damn right, I
show up in a meeting like a girl. I was
about to say, don't leave that part out. I won't.
(28:57):
And I also think for me, it is the that
comes with being a woman, and the pride that comes
with being a woman in business, and the pride of
being a mom and a wife and a daughter. And
I can still do all those things and still show
up in a really badass way in the boardroom, in
a meeting room for my team, in any way that
(29:17):
I need to. And so to me, this is just
it's a constant reminder of what my obligation is to
make sure that I don't forget that and that I
don't create the path forward for the next generation. And honestly, like,
there's meetings that I'm in that they kind of start
to turn into a brofest. And I love like I
will literally I lean in, put my arm up like
(29:39):
this so they can see my forearm, to remind them
of like, yeah, okay, we're not going to go there
right now. And so for me, that's what it means.
And I wanted a visible symbol of that, not only
to remind myself of what I need to do every
single day, but to show my commitment externally. And when
I think down the path, look five ten years ago,
will I be Will I be sitting in this seat?
(30:01):
Probably not, But will I still be sitting in a
seat hopefully where I'm continuing to be on boards like
the Women's Sports Foundation, I don't know, who knows, maybe
running a league, maybe running a team, maybe investing in
a team, whatever it is, My fingers are still going
to be in it. They're definitely not going to be
out of it. Because it is the greatest passion point
part of my job.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Totally one of the greatest gifts I think that this
job has given me. In Deep Blue has had a
front row seat to what I would say is a
sense of obligation of community. I spoke at a high
school not that long ago. One of the questions that
came from one of the people in the audience was
is the previous generation angry or upset or bitter because
(30:44):
of the opportunities that the current generation is experiencing through
NIL And we were talking about basketball specifically, and my
answer was known in terms of the pay a forward,
leaving it better than you found it. And just to
underscore that, I found myself on stage, I can standing
up there, Alison Field, Meghan Rappino, sueberd Ashon, Harris Fornesa,
(31:04):
and these are women who are done on the field,
on the pitch, on the track, on the court, and
yet they're still motoring in terms of finding ways to leave,
to your point, the fingerprints on it. And so what
I am so proud of and so inspired by is
knowing that this is a community that is locked in.
(31:24):
But I think you know you said it, Beth Comstock
from GUS to say to me, you know, if you
see a better way, you have an obligation to do it,
And I think what a waste of time and talent
to not be able to take this skill set and
platform that we have to do it. So I'm just
honored to know you, honored to be in your orbit,
and just grateful for your relentless pursuit to make sure
that this thing keeps moving, because without it would be
(31:44):
in a much different position in the women's sports space.
So thank you for all that you do. Thank you
for spending the time with me today. I can't wait
to see what you do next.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Thank you for the kind words. And look, it definitely
takes a village, and I've got an amazing village around me.
My team is in both the men and the women
on the team that have the same amount of passion
for it, which I love. You know, great partners like you,
and then, like you said, this incredible ecosystem. And that's
one of the things that I've found so unique and
so fulfilling in this women's sports space is all of
(32:15):
these women that you can pick up the phone and
you can call any CMO that's in the space, any
female athlete that's in the space, take your call. They
want to work with you, they want to figure it out.
And that's pretty unique. It's different than any other kind
of space I've been involved in my life. So thank
you for all you're doing and the focus of Deep Blue.
You're definitely changing the game. I appreciate it. Parting words
(32:35):
for the industry. One thing you need to do in
women's sports this year? What is it? Get in the game?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Mike trop Thank you, Andrew Bremmer, You're the best. We
appreciate you. 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 the social your producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman.
(33:03):
Quart Side is an Iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with
Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Want more, follow, rate.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
And review qurt 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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