December 1, 2025 • 44 mins
Andrea Brimmer, Chief Marketing and Public Relations Officer for Ally Financial, joins Sarah to talk about the company’s groundbreaking 50/50 Pledge to reach equal spend in media across men's and women's sports, (and why folks need to see ROI differently in the two spaces), her favorite “I told you so” moments and why Ally leaned into its sponsorship of the NWSL in its darkest moment, instead of abandoning it. Plus, a hoops lifer breaks her own record, heartbreak for one Olympic hopeful, and ruin a family dinner for just $36.
SHOW NOTES:
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You can read Fair.org’s piece on the sexist coverage of the WNBA CBA negotiations here
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Use the code CYBERMONDAY to get 20% off the entire Good Game merch collection here
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Subtle conversation starter table runners are available here and here
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Leave us a voicemail at 872-204-5070 or send us a note at goodgame@wondermedianetwork.com
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Follow Sarah on social! Bluesky: @sarahspain.com Instagram: @Spain2323
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Follow producer Alex Azzi! Bluesky: @byalexazzi.bsky.social Instagram: @AzziArtwork
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where it's beginning
to look a lot like Christmas, and not just because
we're shoveling our way out of several inches of snow.
It's Monday, December first, and on today's show, we'll be
chatting with chief marketing and public relations officer for Ally Financial,
Andrea Brimmer. We sat down during NWSL Championship weekend to
talk about the company's groundbreaking fifty to fifty pledge to
(00:21):
reach equal spend in media across men's and women's sports,
and why folks need to see ROI.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Differently in the two spaces.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Her favorite I Told you So moments, her decision to
sponsor the NWSL Players Association after players came forward reporting
toxic environments and abuse, and why Ally leaned into its
sponsorship of the NWSL in its darkest moment instead of
abandoning it. This is a fascinating and super smart combo.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I think you're going to love it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Plus a hoops lifer breaks her own record, Nebraska finishes perfect,
and a holiday weekend heartbreaker for one Olympic hopeful. It's
all coming up right after this Welcome back slices. Hope
you had a great long holiday weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Here's what you need to know today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We'll start in the WNBA, where there's no new CBA
as of this recording Sunday night, assuming no last minute
deals were done by eleven fifty nine pm Eastern, than
the extended deadline for negotiations between the players Association and
the league on a new collective bargaining agreement has again expired.
A couple things could happen now, another agreed upon extension
(01:28):
for negotiations to continue, or a quote unquote status quo
period during which the league in the PA maintained the
working conditions of the current CBA, allowing players to receive
medical benefits, used team facilities, and more while both sides
continue negotiating despite not agreeing to another extension, or a
workstoppage that could be initiated either by a player strike
(01:49):
or an owner lockout.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
And negotiations for the last.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
WNBACBA required two extensions, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for
the league in the PA to announce another one. But
the longer the talks take, the more disruption there is
to this year's busy offseason, which includes an expansion draft
for the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, and free agency
signings for almost every single vet in the league. We'll
keep you updated as news comes in, and while we're waiting,
(02:14):
you can check out a great article on fair dot
org about the often sexist coverage that the CBA negotiations
are getting from the sports media.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
We'll link to the piece.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Sports press covers WNBA negotiations from owner's point of view
in the show notes to college hoops and a new
record with a pretty incredible twist.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Number five.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
LSU, led by head coach Kim Maulkey, set a new
NCAA record on Friday with its seventh consecutive one hundred
plus point game, a one thirteen to fifty three rout
of Merist in the Paradise Jam Tournament on the University
of Virgin Islands campus. The previous record of six straight
one hundred plus point games was set by the nineteen
eighty two Louisiana Tech squad led by point guard Kim Malke.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That's right, she broke her own record.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
On Saturday at the Tigers extended their streak to eight
straight with a remarkable one twelve to thirty five drubbing
of Washington State in the championship game of the tournament's
Reef Division. The seventy seven point margin of victory is
the largest on the road in program history and the
fourth largest all time. LSU is now eight to no,
but they haven't yet faced a ranked team, and based
(03:17):
on current rankings, they wouldn't until January first. Also this weekend,
Number four Texas beat number three UCLA seventy six sixty
five on Wednesday, then upset number two South Carolina sixty
six sixty four on a rory harmon last second shot
on Thanksgiving Thursday. Jordan Lee and Madison Booker led the
way for the Longhorns with nineteen and sixteen points respectively
(03:38):
in that one. On Sunday, Audie Crooks made nineteen of
twenty five field goal attempts for a career high forty
seven points to lead Number ten Iowa State past Indiana
one oh six ninety five. Indiana shay Chesky had thirty
eight points in the loss. Later on Sunday, a matchup
of two top fifteen teams, as number three UCLA defeated
(03:59):
number fourteen ten Tennesseee ninety nine seventy seven. Gabriella Hakez
had twenty nine points to lead the Bruins. Kiki Rice
added twenty points and eleven boards to college soccer. Unranked
Ohio State saw their Cinderella run end in the Elite
eight of the NCAA Tournament this weekend, falling to number
three Florida State four to one. On Friday, the Seminoles
(04:19):
advanced to take on number two TCU, who beat number
one seed North Carolina in a thriller. Unc was up
one nil with just six seconds to play when the
horn Frogs Cammeden Fuller even things up to force overtime.
After a scoreless extra session, TCU earned a four to
three advantage on penalty kicks to book their trip to
the Final four. On the other side of the bracket,
(04:41):
number one Stanford routed two seed Michigan five to one.
They'll meet number two Duke WU bested three seed Kansas
two nil. Both final four contests will be on Friday
to College Vibes, where the country's best team, Nebraska finished
off an unbeaten regular season with a sweep of Ohio
State in front of nearly eighty five five hundred people
(05:01):
at John Cook Arena Saturday night. It's the third unbeaten
regular season in Nebraska program history. They dropped just seven
sets all season, just one in Big Ten play. They'll
try to become just the sixth team in history to
finish a regular season undefeated and win a national title.
We're recording this before Sunday night's NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament
(05:22):
selection show, so we'll chat about the bracket in tomorrow show.
To the US women's national soccer team and their three
nail defeat of Italy and a friendly Friday night in Orlando,
Olivia Moultrie tally in the second minute of the contest
and Katerina Macario earned a brace, scoring in the sixty
fourth and seventy sixth minutes. Macario's goals were her sixth
and seventh on the year, making her Team USA's goal
(05:43):
scoring leader in twenty twenty five. Chicago Stars forward Jimmy's
Joseph and Washington Spirit defender Kate Weisner both subed on
in the match to make their international debuts. Fridays was
the first meeting between Team USA and Italy in fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
They'll meet again in Fort Lauderdale tonight.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's a seven pm Eastern kickoff on TBS and HBO
max to Skiing, and a sad update on our favorite
trio of Olympic hopefuls friends of the show, the Massuga Sisters.
Sister Lauren Massuga will miss the rest of the season,
including the Milan Courtina Olympics, after tearing her right acl
Friday morning during training for the World Cup in Copper Mountain, Colorado.
(06:21):
Missuga finished last season as the top American in both
downhill and super g and was expected to be a
top medal contender in Italy. Meantime, on Sunday, Masuga's teammate
Mikayla Schiffrin won her third straight World Cup slalom race
to start this Olympic season. It's a record extending one
hundred fourth overall Alpine World Cup race win, sixty seven
(06:41):
of them in slalom.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
The win on home.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Colorado snow also qualifies Schiffrin for her fourth Olympics to
the PWHL, where the two time defending walter Cup champion
Minnesota Frost spoiled the inaugural home opener for the expansion team,
the Seattle Torrent with a three nothn win at Climate
Pledge Arena Friday night, a new the US record crowd
of over sixteen thousand people watched as Minnesota's Kelly Panic
(07:05):
scored twice and Nicole Hensley pitched a thirty save shutout
to lead the Frost to the win. Elsewhere in the league,
Ottawa Charge head coach Carla McLeod, also head coach for
the CHECKI and national team, has revealed the statement that
she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Wrote McLeod in part, quote,
I'm incredibly fortunate to have an exceptional medical team guiding me,
(07:25):
and together we've built a treatment plan that gives me
tremendous confidence in the road ahead. There are still some
variables to be determined as we move forward, but my goal,
without question is to be behind the bench as often
as possible. McLeod went on quote, my medical team assured
me that my treatment should have minimal impact on being
present for the Charge season, and that I'll still be
able to coach check you at the Olympic Winter Games
(07:45):
in February.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
End quote.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
We're definitely wishing coach McLeod the best slices real quick.
While we're on the topic of mcclod's news, I just
wanted to share a sort of personal update just in
case it might help someone out there, And if you
followed me on social you probably already saw this, but
I haven't mentioned it on the show yet. So over
the summer, I had an abnormal mammogram, followed by an
(08:08):
ultrasound that still showed some abnormal cells, followed by a
biopsy that revealed ADH cells, which are a typical ductyal hyperplasia.
Now these are non cancerous cells, but they are atypical
and abnormal, and they increase your likelihood of getting breast cancer.
So a couple weeks ago I went in and had
to get a lump back to me. The surgery went well,
(08:29):
no further ADH or cancer was found. All good news there.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I still have to figure out if I want to
take medication for a couple of years going forward.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
If anyone has had experience with demoxifen or otherwise, feel
free to reach out and help me make that decision
and figure out the next steps. But I just wanted
to share this because it was interesting. Several times during
this month's long process, I was actually recording our special
Novartist series of shows and ended up talking to several
breast cancer survivors.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You might remember that, and that.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Made things both scary because it was really real, and
also gave me a lot of whole because I was
talking to folks about their treatments and their recoveries. Anyway,
I'm sharing this because I just want to remind y'all
to get your mammograms.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I know a lot of people who put it off.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I know a lot of people who think it hurts,
it's not comfortable, but it's really not that bad, and
you really need to do that because you need to
find out what kind of breasts you have. Do you
have dense breasts, in which case you might need ultrasounds
or MRIs instead of just regular mammograms, And surprisingly, you
often have to ask for that yourself. Unfortunately, there is
a level of self advocacy that's necessary when it comes
(09:29):
to breast cancer. A lot of things are more expensive
for hospitals or insurance, so if you don't know that
you need them and to ask for them, they aren't
always going to volunteer that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So please do your research.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And all my slices with tatas be sure to get
them checked.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
All right, We're going to take a quick break. When
me come back, it's Andrea Brimmer joining us now.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
She's the Chief Marketing and public Relations officer for Ally Financial.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Since becoming CMO in twenty.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Fifteen, she's helped put Ally on the fast come any
brands that matter Less for three consecutive years. Was a
twenty twenty four Forbes CMO Hall of Fame inductee and
is a five time honoree on the Forbes list of
world's Most Influential cmos, a twenty twenty four Sports Business
Journal Game Changer, twenty twenty two ad Week Most Powerful
Woman in Sports, and the twenty twenty two Wise Woman
of the Year. She was a soccer player at Michigan State.
(10:18):
She's a pity mama and she has some human children too.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It's Andrea Brimmer.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Hi, Andrea pitty Mama. That's my favorite part of the
entire introduction there.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I am a pity me too, and I can tell
by your Instagram that you're as obsessed as obsessed.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I mean, I love that dog more Queen any thing
in the world. Queen is a queen, the Queen. I
actually just got a tattoo for her too, my Queen.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yes, I've I've memoralized her.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yes, I have three dogs and most of my Instagram
would be pictures of them if I didn't have to
post every show every day.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, it's great to see you, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I'm so excited to chat because I want to get
to this game changing work that you're doing in the
women's sports race.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
But I kind of want to know how you got.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
There, and I want to know your first exposure to
women's sports as a fan.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Do you remember seeing.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
It, whether it was small scale or on a big scale.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, that it like hit.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You absolutely, you know. I mean for me, honestly, it
was through soccer, and I played since I was a
little kid. I started playing in the YMCA League when
I was very young, and I just fell in love
with the national team, you know, and the players of
the national team. And that was really my first not
when I was young, because there was no yet national
(11:25):
team when I was young, but the women's national team
and the Julie Foudis of the world, the ninety nine ers.
That was when I really really really fell in love
with women's sports from a fandom standpoint. You know, as
a participant in playing, you don't really think about fandom,
and then when you can't play anymore and you fall
in love with watching other people play it. You know
that for me was it so having those people in
(11:47):
my orbit now has been pinched me moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Well, do you remember, you know, a pivot point in
your career when women's sports hit you over the head
and you were like, oh, this is something to invest
in as opposed to just see as aspirational or.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Inspirational, you know, I mean I think for me first,
like early lesson in life, even before I was in
my career. You mentioned Michigan State, which, by the way,
my girls won last night. They're going to Sweet sixteen.
Go ladies, Go Sparti. You know, I played on the
first ever varsity women's soccer team at Michigan State. And
that's when the Big Ten was actually ten schools, you know,
(12:21):
not however many it is now. And we were only
the second team in the Big Ten to have a
varsity program, and so we used to go to the
other eight schools and we would play exhibition matches on
our own time, and we would help them petition their
athletic boards to get varsity status. And so I just
that like something clicked in my brain at that point
(12:43):
in time, even as a college student of women helping
women how hard it was for women sports to break through,
and I just carried that with me for a long time.
When I finally got to a point where I was
in a position where I had the ability to make
discis visions and drive meaningful change, that's when I was like,
we need to be more intentional about this, because this
(13:05):
isn't something that's just going to happen on its own.
It's something that's going to take brands and women in
leadership positions to push it through. And the first thing
we did was the sponsorship of the WICC, which was
honestly like one of the first things you could do
in women's sports back in the day. So that was
really the first way we came in.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
What's the WICCA.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
It was the Women's International Friendlies, and they had brought
the men's friendlies and the women's friendlies to this country.
They played in soccer stadiums, big soccer stadiums, college football
stadiums all over the country, and we did a big
partnership with them. First one was in Miami, second one
was in Portland. And when you started to see the
number of people that were coming out in the fandom,
(13:47):
you knew that there was something percolating here.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
When you were at Michigan State and you were helping
these other schools, did you recognize it as any sort
of activism or did it just feel like, oh, this
is what we're doing. Because I remember in college, and
I've told the story before, the coaches of the football
team were trying to get our track team to not
wear whatever we wore to practice into the weight room
that we shared. We were supposed to change into something
(14:10):
that was less distracting for the football players. And I
started a petition and had everyone on the women's and
men's track team and our coaches sign it and be like,
we're not responsible for your team's lack of focus.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
This is what we wear to practice.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
We jump into sand pits, we jump over poles, like
we're gonna wear that into the weight room.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And the next day they were like, carry.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
On, never mind, We've just been told that it's this
very sexist and bullshit. And it wasn't in my mind like, oh,
I'm an activist, I'm fighting. I was just like, that's wrong,
We're not doing that and let's move on. Did you
think about it that way or is it not only
until upon reflection that you're like, oh, we were actually
doing something.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I think more it was more upon reflection. But I
think for us, when I went up to Michigan State
as a freshman, we were not varsity status yet, so
we had to fight for our own varsity status. We
had this coach I'll never forget. His name was Michael Taut.
He was a German guy, and he was instrumental like
you guys should be a varsity sport. And I remember
(15:06):
we fought and fought and fought, and he fought really
hard alongside with us. And then when the program got
its varsity status this year, they fired him. They said,
you're not going to be the coach that we're going
to make the men's soccer team coach coach both right,
And that was really more of when the whole activism
thing clicked of like, wow, we just fought so hard
(15:28):
to get our varsity status. He fought alongside with us,
and as soon as we got what we deserved and
he got what he deserved, he.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Got taken out.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
And that I think really emboldened us as a group
of like, we've got to figure out how to make
this okay at other schools.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So back in twenty twenty two, Ali made a big
splash announcing the fifty to fifty Pledge to spend equal
amounts in advertising with both men's and women's sports. What
percentage of the spend was ally dedicating to women at
the time when you boldly declared we're getting to fifty
to fifty, you know, I mean, I always say I
was part of the problem because the numbers back then
we were like ninety ten on a national basis, and
(16:08):
we had never looked at it, and so you know,
when I said, let's take a look and see what
we're spending, it was right around the national basis, it
was ninety percent going into men's sports and ten percent
going into women's sports.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
And then we we came up with that idea of
like what if we went for parody, what if we
worked towards getting to fifty to fifty?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Called Foudy and we Julie Foudy the new Billy Jean
King is what I always say. She's like, I've signed
her up to be the next generations BJK.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I love that. That's awesome and just and said, you know,
would you help us make this announcement And we didn't
have anything figured out there. We had no idea how
we were going to do it, and I remember because
the team was freaking out. Everyone was like, we're going
to have to go ask for extra money. We can't
not spend ninety percent of our budget in men's sports.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
All of our brand.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Health metrics are going to, you know, go down the drain.
And we had to go ask for all this second
extra money. And I'm like, no, we're not going to
do that. We're going to figure out how to optimize
out of things that aren't performing well, and we're going
to lean into this because if we are going to
make a promise like this, we have to believe it.
And so we made the pledge without any clue of
how we were going to do it, and here we are.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was actually at the SBNW Sumn. Of course, when
you announced the fifty to fifty pledge. You reportedly got
a text from your boss saying, it's a really good idea,
but you probably should have told.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Me first, Which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Was that the most of the pushback, or a little
bit more, a little bit more pushback at the time, that.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Was the most of it.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Honestly, I underestimated how big the reaction was going to be.
I just thought, Oh, we're going to make this and
you know it's not a thing, and it blew up.
You know, you were in the room. The room erupted.
There was tons of earned media that came out of it.
And then I was kind of like, oh shit, I
probably I didn't tell him blah blah blah, but I'm like, oh,
(17:55):
he's not going to see it.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That was my thought.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And then that night it was like eight o'clock night
and get a I got a text from one of
our board members who is a huge women's sports fan,
and she did a group message with me and my
boss and she attached one of the articles and she's like,
this is amazing. I've never been more proud to be
on the ALLY board. Blah blah, blah blah. And then
(18:17):
two seconds later he was like, this is a great idea,
but you should probably tell your boss before you make major.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Enounces like this.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
But that was it, And honestly, it is a huge
pride point with an Ally, like a massive pride point
to the point that in our earnings call, our CEO
will actually give updates on where we stand on the
fifty to fifty pledge amazing, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
There is a feeling of like like pit of your
stomach when you don't think anything's a big deal, you
put it out somewhere and then it's a huge deal
and you're.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Like, is this way? Is this good?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I want marketing, I.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Want earn meetia, but like, uh oh, I didn't really
consider how this reaction would be. How easy or difficult
did it prove to start that ramp up process.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It was a lot harder than I thought it was
going to be, and not because there wasn't the desire
from the team to do it. It was simply a
result of the unavailability of the media and candidly, what
we had to do was create it and it took
a lot of work. Everything from the multimillion dollar deal
that we did with ESPN and Disney and the idea
(19:19):
was that we were going to spend ninety five percent
of the dollars that we had committed in Disney Media
to whom Sports. But they had to move those sports
into better prime time slots and that was like a
six month process. We worked with the NWSL and CBS
to get the championship game moved into primetime A couple
of years ago, again that didn't exist, and so it
(19:41):
took work. So yeah, if you think about it, every
year we restarted zero. So if the year before we're
close to making the fifty to fifty, as soon as
you know, January one rolls around, you go right back
to zero and you got to go find that media.
And it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
We've talked about it on this show in part because
the iHeart Women's Sports Network was created to create more
inventory in the women's sports space. When you have brands
that want to get involved, there's not a lot of
shoulder programming, there's not a lot of digital content, TV shows,
radio shows, all the spaces that men's sports earn that money.
It's not just sponsoring a team jersey or even getting
(20:19):
involved with a TV package. There's so much more surrounding it,
and in women's sports that has been such a deficit,
and so part of the goal for this network and
for this show is to create more content that could
be invested in and sending more dollars the way of
women's leagues and sports and content and tipped ventures, which
I had fielding Jamison on the show recently talking about
(20:41):
that they're investing in everything around women's sports as opposed
to just straight down the middle on the leagues and teams,
and so there is a lot more money coming into
that space. But when you got into it, you had
to literally change the long time practices of the worldwide leader.
What did ESPN say when you said, Hey, we want
to give you all this money, but we're not doing
it at three am, and you need to move this
(21:03):
into primetime? And why haven't you had a championship game
ever played in linear prime time?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, it's crazy, right. I always call it the vicious cycle.
I think fundamentally you have this issue. If you think
about the components that make up the sports ecosystem, it
starts with the media.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
The media is what drives all of the revenue. It's
what drives all of the power because historically the media companies,
who have to be profitable and have to monetize, have
not been able to attract brands because they just brands
have fundamentally not thought that the engagement was there and
the eyeballs were there. They've just put women's sports and
lossy time slots, and as a result, the brands don't
(21:45):
want to buy that media, which trickles down to the
amount of rev share that goes to the leagues, which
ultimately then impacts what they play pay the players. And
so our thesis was in the vicious call, somebody has
to blink first, and the only one that can blink first.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Is the brands.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
The money is the money, and so when the money
comes to an ESPN or a Disney and says, all right,
we're willing to do this, but we have to work
together to make this happen, there was no resistance and
there was no pushback. And I mean I remember vividly,
like I went to dinner with Rita Farrow and we
had this conversation and she's like, this is amazing. Let's
(22:27):
sit down and we'll figure it out. And the team's
got to work. It's just there's so many pieces to it.
It's programming, as you know, it's time slots, it's and
the how do I bring other brands along? And so
it just fundamentally took a lot of work to do.
And I think once people started to see that we
had the receipts in terms of the actual results of
(22:49):
what it was driving, now you're seeing everybody right, or.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
At least a lot more people like you said, somebody
has to blink. And what always frustrated me was the
belief system in things like the Little League World Series
or the umpteenth iteration of the XFL were like, oh, pickleball,
like let's put it everywhere, and it's like, oh my god,
what we've been saying for decade, Like give us a shot.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
First, Thank you for blinking. We needed it.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You also were very thoughtful in how you sponsored. You
sponsored the NWSLPA, and you did that during the investigations
where the players who spoke up about toxic environments, sexual harassment,
and coercion were worried about the impact that they might
have on the league in which they played, and for
years that kind of stuff was able to exist because
(23:37):
players were scared into silence. So what benefit did you
see an adding a players union to your portfolio and
why did it matter to you to make sure that
you stepped in and increased your sponsorship in the league
at that moment where it was probably weakest or most challenged.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, you know, I remember that day so vividly, the
infamous Alex Morgan tweet that kind of broke it all
wide open. I was actually driving to Chicago for a
girl's weekend, and my phone just started blowing up and
everyone's like, have you seen the tweet? Have you seen
the tweet? And I called again Foudy, I do like
your new name for it. And I called Ali Wagner
(24:14):
and I said, do you have Megan Burk's number? I
had never met Megan.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Burke, executive director.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I should say, yeah, NWSLP.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And I knew as a former player that it won.
It took a lot of bravery for those players. But two,
I also knew that they were scared that they would
lose their league and that other sponsors would be like, well,
I don't you know, I don't want to touch this anymore.
They'd let them figure their stuff out. And part of
what was blowing up on my phone was other cmos
(24:42):
that were sponsors, like what are you guys going to do?
Are you going to stay in or are you going
to leave? And so I reached out to Megan. She
was a little bit busy that day, so I heard
from her a couple of days later and I just said, hey,
we want the players to know that as the biggest
sponsor the NWSL, we're not going anywhere and we're really
(25:03):
proud of what they did, and we want to invest
in the players Association. And we said, you come back,
tell us what you need, and we're going to make
it happen. And she came back and said, I'm a
staff of one. I think it was her and Tory
at the time. She's Tory Houster, president of the NWSI.
Thank you, and she said, we don't have any staff.
(25:29):
And so we made a monetary commitment to them to
staff up the PA, and then we extended our sponsorship
of the league because we wanted the players to know
that we weren't going anywhere. And then this is the
second part of what I did is I called literally
every CMO and I said, you cannot leave now. This
is the absolute worst signal. And what we have to
(25:51):
do is band together to force change in the league.
And that's the way we use our power. You can
either matter in that moment or not. And I wanted
our brand of matter well.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And I think it's an example of how you have
to look at your investment in spaces differently, understanding the
context in men's sports and most of the major investments
that you might be involved in. The power move is
leaving and saying we're taking our money out of this.
We do not stand with you in whatever problematic thing
(26:20):
you're going through, and the only way we think you'll
change your behavior.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Is if we take our money from you.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And in women's sports, that might feel like the move,
but what that actually does is continue to remove the
power from the players and their ability to speak on
things like that because there's no financial stability there. But
also having to still say we're holding the league accountable
and we're demanding change while our money is here. I
think that's so important right now in this pivot point
(26:47):
where there is a lot more investment coming in, is
for people to understand how to view investment and return
on investment differently in the men's versus women's space. How
important is it for folks who are familiar with the
space to be the ones negotiating and id eating and
creating activations and investment versus say, a standard agency that
(27:07):
repurposes their data for men's sports.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Or takes the things they're doing and just moves it over.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
It's massively critical. In fact, this is a conversation Laura
Corne and I from Deep Blue have all the time,
is you fundamentally have to use a different evaluation system
for women's sports than men's sports. You cannot apply the
two things. And oftentimes you also have to kind of
bet on the income and we have.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
If coome instead of outcome.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Yeah, like it's an outcome that might happen.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, because you don't have right, there's no guarantee. Like
we have over invested. We have overpaid candidly for certain sponsorships,
believing the thesis that right now the numbers look like this,
but two years the numbers are going to look like that.
Look at Unrivaled, that's a great example. We're the founding
(27:58):
partner in Unrivaled. Admitted to Unrivaled before they had players,
all they had was Fi and Stewey. They had no
players signed, they didn't know where they were going to play,
they had no media contract, they had nothing. We bet
on the fact that we fundamentally believed in the thesis
of it and that they needed one and that we
(28:18):
would be one that would help carry a lot of
weight given our position in women's sports, and that if
they could sign us and we could make the announcement
together that we were going to come in as the
founding partner, that that would be that would be the
spark that would help move the ball. And so if
I had just looked at that as a CMO and
(28:41):
looked at metrics, there would be no metrics for me
to look at. And that is, to your point, fundamentally
different than what you see in men's sports today. Men's
sports ecosystem has existed for hundreds of years. Women's sports
ecosystem is still in the infancy stage. Our oldest league
is the WNBA. It's not even thirty years old. And
so you're you are believing in what's to come and
(29:04):
helping drive those outcomes.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, and I think it's unfortunate that the product gets
blamed a lot for the failures of imagination or innovation
from often the standard agencies that are going in.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
To do the work on behalf of places.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
You know what speaks to that too, Sarah, Which is amazing.
I just read last year and it's just continues to
stick in my head and bother me. Less than six
percent of the Fortune five hundred is investing in women's sports.
So while we feel because we're both in the in
the ecosystem, right, so you've seen more brands and you
kind of feel the momentum and then when you really
(29:42):
look at the data and you step back, and I
have this conversation a lot with like Kristen Cook from
State Farm and Kate Johnson from Google, and the people
that are in the ecosystem kind of look at it.
It is the.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Same, Yes, a lot of the same brands.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
It's a lot of the same brands, which like props
to you, but also what is everyone else doing? And
I feel like the well is so poisoned that if
you gave them like a blind item and you said, Okay,
here's where this was on this year, here's where it
is now, here's where it's anticipated to be by this
Do you think it's a good investment?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They would all say yes.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And then you took the you know, like old man
Weather's from the amusement park. You took the bag off
the head and it's women's sports, and like, oh no, no,
I don't think that because they carry such terrible antiquated
ideas about it into the space and into the investment and.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
In the evaluation system. Like you said, right, they're looking
at the metrics, right, and.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's a different product, and it's a different market, and
it's a different demograph against different people that you're appealing to,
and it's a different income or outcome that you're looking for.
And I remember the first Sports Innovation Lab Fan Project research.
I read about brand affinity and change of behavior and
likelihood of purchase and all the things that are great
metrics beyond just awareness. And men's sports will give you
(30:53):
a ton of awareness, but all the other stuff is
so high on the women's side if you do it right.
Is Ali currently eating the fifty to fifty commitment. We're
almost at the end of this year.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We will by the time that we get to the
end of this year, forty eight percent of our budget
will be spent in women's sports media fifty two and
men's sports media. Years when we don't have things like
a World Cup or Olympics are hard to the prior
conversation that we are having. I am hopeful that we're
going to hit it next year, which would be a
year ahead, which would be amazing. And then that doesn't
(31:23):
mean like, okay, then it's over and we're done. Then
it just becomes and it's an institutional part of our
metrics now, Like I literally have a scorecard that I
look at every quarter with all of our brand health
metrics and all of our account acquisition metrics and all
of our performance metrics. And one of the lines on
there is status on the fifty to fifty Pledge, and
we track it and talk about it all the time,
(31:44):
so it'll be over my dead body that we don't
hit it.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
And the pledge is a fifty to fifty money commitment.
So how far does marketing money get you in men's
sports versus women's these days? And have you noticed a
change even from when you first pledge to now?
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, you know, we have this conversation a lot. I'm like,
I could buy one spot in an NFL game on
Christmas Day, don't.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Go to the bathroom, don't go to the exactly.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Or I can buy an entire season of.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
You know, sort of like season tickets.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, it's wild, and so that's how we started to
think about it. And to your point, one of the
things that we really measure and think a lot about
is engagement, loyalty, favorability. Since we made the fifty to
fifty pledge, our brand favorability has gone up. So in
women's sports space, it's anywhere from twenty to forty percent
(32:37):
higher depending on the sport or the team that we're
sponsoring than it is against the general market, and our
overall brand favorability has gone up by thirty one percent
while the financial services category has dropped three percent since
a You know, that's a thirty five percent swing. And
(32:57):
you know, while I can't attribute all of that to
women's sports, I do attribute a big part of it
because you know, fans of women's sports, like they vote.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
With their feet one thousand percent, and it's been proven
over and over. You put women athletes in your ads,
you have them speaking about your brand, it changes people's
perception because they are relatable, they feel authentic, they feel
genuine and even when you know.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
You're being sold to, you're like happy.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
It's like a very weird thing when you support a
space that has been historically underfunded, is people want you
to show up in their social feeds and they're TV
watching because the ooh, look at they're doing something for
this thing I care about, as opposed to a lot
of other advertising that feels like a nuisance or a
big sell.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Absolutely, and you know the other thing. I mean, look,
I get asked, look, I'm on a public company, right
and I have a board we have shareholders. I have
a responsibility to manage our shareholders investment in our company appropriately.
You know, from time to time people will ask me, well,
did you just do this because you played soccer at
Michigan State and you love women's sports. No, the business
(34:04):
thesis for us is incredible. If you think about in
the next five to eight years, the wealth transference to
women in this country, he's going to be over twenty
trillion dollars. Women control eighty percent of all the purchase decisions.
Women are disproportionately going to college at rates higher than
young men right now, graduating at higher rates, getting married
(34:26):
later if at all, and hold a lot of the
money power. We had a guy by the name of
Joe Coughlin. He runs the MIT Aging Lab, really fascinating guy,
and he came in and he spoke to my team
and he said, as a company, if you don't have
a women's marketing strategy, you don't have a strategy. And
(34:47):
so when I marry the the growth of women's sports
with the just the wealth and the influenced potential of
women in this country, I look at the statistics of
what's happening to our brand, the favorability that I talked about,
sixty five percent of everybody that comes to our storefront
(35:08):
is female. Our account acquisition women are surging past men.
I mean, you could make a thesis for us to
be the bank of women. You really could, and I
think it would be highly accreative to our business. And
so there's really big business rationale behind what we did
what we did.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It also feels like there's a lot of research around
women's sports fans and their agility and fluidity, because it's
a necessity in the space you need to be able
to know and afford at this point to say I'm
going to watch games on Ion, Paramount plus Peacock, you know,
ESPN Scripts, like all those different subscriptions, all those different spaces,
(35:46):
and ally is an online only bank where you're anticipating
that you've got a client that's more modern and probably
younger and is happy and willing to participate in a
banking space that doesn't have brig and mortar buildings to
walk into. So you're also a peel to people that
are probably naturally suited to your product. Absolutely in a
space that you're attacking and going after, are there specific
(36:08):
moments of joy or like I told you, so I
was right that you want.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
To shout out. I love hearing those you know for me.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Honestly, I think the most emotional moment in this entire
journey was when we helped get the championship game moved
to prime time and the game was in DC, and
I remember being down on the field we did the
Rookie of the Year presentation. I think it was Nick
Nail mcgermo that year, and so it's down on the
field for the start of the game. We did the
Rookie of the Year presentation and then pivoted right to
(36:40):
time to sing the anthem. And I remember standing down
there and listening to the anthem play and looking around
the stadium and it was packed and how many people
were there, Moms with their little girls, dads with their
little girls, and boys and boys.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, And I got very emotional. I started crying, and
I said to myself, no little girl is ever going
to have to think she's not worth primetime anymore because
of us. And that was one of the biggest regrets
of my life.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Is there.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
When I graduated from college, there was no national team,
there was no path, there was no professional women's league.
It was just done something that I had done my
entire life, that I loved since I was five years old.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
It was just done.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
And then I thought that night, none these little girls
will never have to feel that dead end. So that
to me has been probably the biggest one. And then yes,
now like just the popularity of women's sports, just how
explosive it is, the conversation around it. I'm definitely striding
into board meetings feeling pretty proud.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And I think in a lot of ways, the brands
that have been leading this have been really sharing best
practices and talking to other brands about it, because it's
still is a rising tide lifts all boat situation. It's
not that beneficial to be the only You would think sometimes, oh,
we're really dominating the space, but you actually want it
to be more valued in general and have a higher
(38:11):
profile because of everybody contributing to the awareness around it
and knowing the players and the teams.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
In the league and everything else totally so that your
investment goes farther.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I've never shared a marketing playbook with other brands as
much as I do what we do in women's sports
for that very reason, and even people at competitive banks
that I'll sit down, who are like, how are you
guys doing it? What space do you see for us?
And the other aspect of what this journey has been
just for me so beautiful and amazing, And I know
(38:39):
you feel it because you're in the thick of it
as well. Is it's everybody. It's not just other brands,
it's the players. It's even if you're not I don't
have an athlete relationship with somebody, or you don't have
a PSA with somebody, like they are in your orbit
and they reach out and they're like, how can I help?
And you help them, and it's just different than anything
(39:00):
I've ever experienced, and it's honestly been the honor of
my career.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
We've got an idea for you on the show that
I just remembered.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
We had Ali Sentnor on the show and al Ali
is a sponsor of her team at the time, Utah,
and we were asking if she felt like she was
just constantly being personally sponsored. And I feel like you
could go around and find all the people named Ali.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
It's a great create a campaign around that.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I love that. Just something to think about before I
let you go.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I want to hear about your do it right mantra
and how that has led what you've been working on.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, So do it right has been when we launched
our brand, oh my gosh, seventeen eighteen years ago. Now,
do it right was one of our brand pillars. It
was talked straight, do right, and be obviously better. Those
were the strategic pillars for the company. And do it
right has just always been about the golden rule, do
onto others as you would do to yourself. And you know,
(39:52):
I would say historically financial services have not behaved in
a way you don't say.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Ever heard that?
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Are there any major stories we might have missed lately.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
That is as honorable as they should be? And so
do it Right was always about that. It was always
about how do we disrupt the category? How do we
honestly put the customer at the center of everything that
we do, and it drives our decision making. You know,
first bank to ever have twenty four by seven service,
first digital bank, first bank to wave completely wave overdraft fees.
(40:30):
Overdraft fees disproportionately affect those that can afford them least,
particularly people of color. You're not overdrafting because you're like, hey,
I want to wake up tomorrow and pay a bunch
of fifty dollars fees. You're overdrafting because you can't afford
or you don't know, and so it's just always been
a part of us. I'd say the fifty to fifty
pledge was part of do it right, what we did
with the PA, all of those things. It's just honestly
(40:53):
how we behave It is the reason that I've always
stayed at ally because it's not just a set of words,
it's the way we live.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Feels rarer and rarer these days to look around and
see people doing it right, So keep at it. It's
always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for
coming on.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Thank you, it's great seeing you.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Thanks again to Andrea for taking the time and for
being a badass leading the way. We got to take
another break when we come back, start a family fight
for just thirty six dollars.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Welcome back, slices.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too. So here's our
good game play of the day. It's cyber Monday, and
that means.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
There's a big sale on all good game with Sarah
Spain merch.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Now's the best time to get those holiday gifts for
your favorite slices.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
And soon to be slices.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
The classic orange on a slice tea, the Good Game
Good Game few shirt that you obviously need for any
and all rec and social LEADGA games, ask me about
women's sports and the versatile, always in style Unwable tea.
You can use the code cyber Monday on Breakingtea dot
com slash Spain to get twenty percent off your entire
Good Game purchase today and today's deal also includes twenty
(42:07):
percent off WNBPA and US Women's National Team PA shirts.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
We'll link to the site in our show notes.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
We always love to hear from you, so hit us
up on email Good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com or
leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two four
fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Rate and review.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
It's real easy watch a tablecloth that requires a closer
look rating ten out of ten passive aggressive stars review.
During a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with my family, my sister
Katie introduced me to holiday tablecloths and table runners that
are sure to spark conversation with your family.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Ah, look at this one.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
A lovely multicolored autumn leaves for Thanksgiving, and oh, on
second glance inside the leaves, there's a subtle message Trump.
And look at this one, a red table runner with
lovely white snowflakes inside them.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Ah yes, Trump.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Now you won't be surprised to learn that there are
several designs offered by several sellers.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
This seems to be very popular this season. We'll link
to a few of them in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
If you want to start a fight at your next
family gathering, now it's your turn. Y'all rate and review,
Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Andrea, Good Game,
Mikayla Schiffren you acls. How many times do we have
to say it can? Weak ass ligaments? Good Game with
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
(43:34):
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are alex Azie
Grace Lynch, Taylor Williamson, and Lucy Jones. Our executive producers
are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, and Gianna Palmer.
Production assistants from Avery Loftus and I'm Your Host Sarah
Spain
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where it's beginning
to look a lot like Christmas, and not just because
we're shoveling our way out of several inches of snow.
It's Monday, December first, and on today's show, we'll be
chatting with chief marketing and public relations officer for Ally Financial,
Andrea Brimmer. We sat down during NWSL Championship weekend to
talk about the company's groundbreaking fifty to fifty pledge to
(00:21):
reach equal spend in media across men's and women's sports,
and why folks need to see ROI.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Differently in the two spaces.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Her favorite I Told you So moments, her decision to
sponsor the NWSL Players Association after players came forward reporting
toxic environments and abuse, and why Ally leaned into its
sponsorship of the NWSL in its darkest moment instead of
abandoning it. This is a fascinating and super smart combo.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I think you're going to love it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Plus a hoops lifer breaks her own record, Nebraska finishes perfect,
and a holiday weekend heartbreaker for one Olympic hopeful. It's
all coming up right after this Welcome back slices. Hope
you had a great long holiday weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Here's what you need to know today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We'll start in the WNBA, where there's no new CBA
as of this recording Sunday night, assuming no last minute
deals were done by eleven fifty nine pm Eastern, than
the extended deadline for negotiations between the players Association and
the league on a new collective bargaining agreement has again expired.
A couple things could happen now, another agreed upon extension
(01:28):
for negotiations to continue, or a quote unquote status quo
period during which the league in the PA maintained the
working conditions of the current CBA, allowing players to receive
medical benefits, used team facilities, and more while both sides
continue negotiating despite not agreeing to another extension, or a
workstoppage that could be initiated either by a player strike
(01:49):
or an owner lockout.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
And negotiations for the last.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
WNBACBA required two extensions, so it wouldn't be unprecedented for
the league in the PA to announce another one. But
the longer the talks take, the more disruption there is
to this year's busy offseason, which includes an expansion draft
for the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, and free agency
signings for almost every single vet in the league. We'll
keep you updated as news comes in, and while we're waiting,
(02:14):
you can check out a great article on fair dot
org about the often sexist coverage that the CBA negotiations
are getting from the sports media.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
We'll link to the piece.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Sports press covers WNBA negotiations from owner's point of view
in the show notes to college hoops and a new
record with a pretty incredible twist.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Number five.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
LSU, led by head coach Kim Maulkey, set a new
NCAA record on Friday with its seventh consecutive one hundred
plus point game, a one thirteen to fifty three rout
of Merist in the Paradise Jam Tournament on the University
of Virgin Islands campus. The previous record of six straight
one hundred plus point games was set by the nineteen
eighty two Louisiana Tech squad led by point guard Kim Malke.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That's right, she broke her own record.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
On Saturday at the Tigers extended their streak to eight
straight with a remarkable one twelve to thirty five drubbing
of Washington State in the championship game of the tournament's
Reef Division. The seventy seven point margin of victory is
the largest on the road in program history and the
fourth largest all time. LSU is now eight to no,
but they haven't yet faced a ranked team, and based
(03:17):
on current rankings, they wouldn't until January first. Also this weekend,
Number four Texas beat number three UCLA seventy six sixty
five on Wednesday, then upset number two South Carolina sixty
six sixty four on a rory harmon last second shot
on Thanksgiving Thursday. Jordan Lee and Madison Booker led the
way for the Longhorns with nineteen and sixteen points respectively
(03:38):
in that one. On Sunday, Audie Crooks made nineteen of
twenty five field goal attempts for a career high forty
seven points to lead Number ten Iowa State past Indiana
one oh six ninety five. Indiana shay Chesky had thirty
eight points in the loss. Later on Sunday, a matchup
of two top fifteen teams, as number three UCLA defeated
(03:59):
number fourteen ten Tennesseee ninety nine seventy seven. Gabriella Hakez
had twenty nine points to lead the Bruins. Kiki Rice
added twenty points and eleven boards to college soccer. Unranked
Ohio State saw their Cinderella run end in the Elite
eight of the NCAA Tournament this weekend, falling to number
three Florida State four to one. On Friday, the Seminoles
(04:19):
advanced to take on number two TCU, who beat number
one seed North Carolina in a thriller. Unc was up
one nil with just six seconds to play when the
horn Frogs Cammeden Fuller even things up to force overtime.
After a scoreless extra session, TCU earned a four to
three advantage on penalty kicks to book their trip to
the Final four. On the other side of the bracket,
(04:41):
number one Stanford routed two seed Michigan five to one.
They'll meet number two Duke WU bested three seed Kansas
two nil. Both final four contests will be on Friday
to College Vibes, where the country's best team, Nebraska finished
off an unbeaten regular season with a sweep of Ohio
State in front of nearly eighty five five hundred people
(05:01):
at John Cook Arena Saturday night. It's the third unbeaten
regular season in Nebraska program history. They dropped just seven
sets all season, just one in Big Ten play. They'll
try to become just the sixth team in history to
finish a regular season undefeated and win a national title.
We're recording this before Sunday night's NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament
(05:22):
selection show, so we'll chat about the bracket in tomorrow show.
To the US women's national soccer team and their three
nail defeat of Italy and a friendly Friday night in Orlando,
Olivia Moultrie tally in the second minute of the contest
and Katerina Macario earned a brace, scoring in the sixty
fourth and seventy sixth minutes. Macario's goals were her sixth
and seventh on the year, making her Team USA's goal
(05:43):
scoring leader in twenty twenty five. Chicago Stars forward Jimmy's
Joseph and Washington Spirit defender Kate Weisner both subed on
in the match to make their international debuts. Fridays was
the first meeting between Team USA and Italy in fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
They'll meet again in Fort Lauderdale tonight.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's a seven pm Eastern kickoff on TBS and HBO
max to Skiing, and a sad update on our favorite
trio of Olympic hopefuls friends of the show, the Massuga Sisters.
Sister Lauren Massuga will miss the rest of the season,
including the Milan Courtina Olympics, after tearing her right acl
Friday morning during training for the World Cup in Copper Mountain, Colorado.
(06:21):
Missuga finished last season as the top American in both
downhill and super g and was expected to be a
top medal contender in Italy. Meantime, on Sunday, Masuga's teammate
Mikayla Schiffrin won her third straight World Cup slalom race
to start this Olympic season. It's a record extending one
hundred fourth overall Alpine World Cup race win, sixty seven
(06:41):
of them in slalom.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
The win on home.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Colorado snow also qualifies Schiffrin for her fourth Olympics to
the PWHL, where the two time defending walter Cup champion
Minnesota Frost spoiled the inaugural home opener for the expansion team,
the Seattle Torrent with a three nothn win at Climate
Pledge Arena Friday night, a new the US record crowd
of over sixteen thousand people watched as Minnesota's Kelly Panic
(07:05):
scored twice and Nicole Hensley pitched a thirty save shutout
to lead the Frost to the win. Elsewhere in the league,
Ottawa Charge head coach Carla McLeod, also head coach for
the CHECKI and national team, has revealed the statement that
she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Wrote McLeod in part, quote,
I'm incredibly fortunate to have an exceptional medical team guiding me,
(07:25):
and together we've built a treatment plan that gives me
tremendous confidence in the road ahead. There are still some
variables to be determined as we move forward, but my goal,
without question is to be behind the bench as often
as possible. McLeod went on quote, my medical team assured
me that my treatment should have minimal impact on being
present for the Charge season, and that I'll still be
able to coach check you at the Olympic Winter Games
(07:45):
in February.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
End quote.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
We're definitely wishing coach McLeod the best slices real quick.
While we're on the topic of mcclod's news, I just
wanted to share a sort of personal update just in
case it might help someone out there, And if you
followed me on social you probably already saw this, but
I haven't mentioned it on the show yet. So over
the summer, I had an abnormal mammogram, followed by an
(08:08):
ultrasound that still showed some abnormal cells, followed by a
biopsy that revealed ADH cells, which are a typical ductyal hyperplasia.
Now these are non cancerous cells, but they are atypical
and abnormal, and they increase your likelihood of getting breast cancer.
So a couple weeks ago I went in and had
to get a lump back to me. The surgery went well,
(08:29):
no further ADH or cancer was found. All good news there.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I still have to figure out if I want to
take medication for a couple of years going forward.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
If anyone has had experience with demoxifen or otherwise, feel
free to reach out and help me make that decision
and figure out the next steps. But I just wanted
to share this because it was interesting. Several times during
this month's long process, I was actually recording our special
Novartist series of shows and ended up talking to several
breast cancer survivors.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You might remember that, and that.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Made things both scary because it was really real, and
also gave me a lot of whole because I was
talking to folks about their treatments and their recoveries. Anyway,
I'm sharing this because I just want to remind y'all
to get your mammograms.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I know a lot of people who put it off.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I know a lot of people who think it hurts,
it's not comfortable, but it's really not that bad, and
you really need to do that because you need to
find out what kind of breasts you have. Do you
have dense breasts, in which case you might need ultrasounds
or MRIs instead of just regular mammograms, And surprisingly, you
often have to ask for that yourself. Unfortunately, there is
a level of self advocacy that's necessary when it comes
(09:29):
to breast cancer. A lot of things are more expensive
for hospitals or insurance, so if you don't know that
you need them and to ask for them, they aren't
always going to volunteer that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So please do your research.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And all my slices with tatas be sure to get
them checked.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
All right, We're going to take a quick break. When
me come back, it's Andrea Brimmer joining us now.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
She's the Chief Marketing and public Relations officer for Ally Financial.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Since becoming CMO in twenty.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Fifteen, she's helped put Ally on the fast come any
brands that matter Less for three consecutive years. Was a
twenty twenty four Forbes CMO Hall of Fame inductee and
is a five time honoree on the Forbes list of
world's Most Influential cmos, a twenty twenty four Sports Business
Journal Game Changer, twenty twenty two ad Week Most Powerful
Woman in Sports, and the twenty twenty two Wise Woman
of the Year. She was a soccer player at Michigan State.
(10:18):
She's a pity mama and she has some human children too.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It's Andrea Brimmer.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Hi, Andrea pitty Mama. That's my favorite part of the
entire introduction there.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I am a pity me too, and I can tell
by your Instagram that you're as obsessed as obsessed.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I mean, I love that dog more Queen any thing
in the world. Queen is a queen, the Queen. I
actually just got a tattoo for her too, my Queen.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yes, I've I've memoralized her.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yes, I have three dogs and most of my Instagram
would be pictures of them if I didn't have to
post every show every day.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, it's great to see you, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I'm so excited to chat because I want to get
to this game changing work that you're doing in the
women's sports race.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
But I kind of want to know how you got.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
There, and I want to know your first exposure to
women's sports as a fan.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Do you remember seeing.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
It, whether it was small scale or on a big scale.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, that it like hit.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You absolutely, you know. I mean for me, honestly, it
was through soccer, and I played since I was a
little kid. I started playing in the YMCA League when
I was very young, and I just fell in love
with the national team, you know, and the players of
the national team. And that was really my first not
when I was young, because there was no yet national
(11:25):
team when I was young, but the women's national team
and the Julie Foudis of the world, the ninety nine ers.
That was when I really really really fell in love
with women's sports from a fandom standpoint. You know, as
a participant in playing, you don't really think about fandom,
and then when you can't play anymore and you fall
in love with watching other people play it. You know
that for me was it so having those people in
(11:47):
my orbit now has been pinched me moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Well, do you remember, you know, a pivot point in
your career when women's sports hit you over the head
and you were like, oh, this is something to invest
in as opposed to just see as aspirational or.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Inspirational, you know, I mean I think for me first,
like early lesson in life, even before I was in
my career. You mentioned Michigan State, which, by the way,
my girls won last night. They're going to Sweet sixteen.
Go ladies, Go Sparti. You know, I played on the
first ever varsity women's soccer team at Michigan State. And
that's when the Big Ten was actually ten schools, you know,
(12:21):
not however many it is now. And we were only
the second team in the Big Ten to have a
varsity program, and so we used to go to the
other eight schools and we would play exhibition matches on
our own time, and we would help them petition their
athletic boards to get varsity status. And so I just
that like something clicked in my brain at that point
(12:43):
in time, even as a college student of women helping
women how hard it was for women sports to break through,
and I just carried that with me for a long time.
When I finally got to a point where I was
in a position where I had the ability to make
discis visions and drive meaningful change, that's when I was like,
we need to be more intentional about this, because this
(13:05):
isn't something that's just going to happen on its own.
It's something that's going to take brands and women in
leadership positions to push it through. And the first thing
we did was the sponsorship of the WICC, which was
honestly like one of the first things you could do
in women's sports back in the day. So that was
really the first way we came in.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
What's the WICCA.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
It was the Women's International Friendlies, and they had brought
the men's friendlies and the women's friendlies to this country.
They played in soccer stadiums, big soccer stadiums, college football
stadiums all over the country, and we did a big
partnership with them. First one was in Miami, second one
was in Portland. And when you started to see the
number of people that were coming out in the fandom,
(13:47):
you knew that there was something percolating here.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
When you were at Michigan State and you were helping
these other schools, did you recognize it as any sort
of activism or did it just feel like, oh, this
is what we're doing. Because I remember in college, and
I've told the story before, the coaches of the football
team were trying to get our track team to not
wear whatever we wore to practice into the weight room
that we shared. We were supposed to change into something
(14:10):
that was less distracting for the football players. And I
started a petition and had everyone on the women's and
men's track team and our coaches sign it and be like,
we're not responsible for your team's lack of focus.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
This is what we wear to practice.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
We jump into sand pits, we jump over poles, like
we're gonna wear that into the weight room.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And the next day they were like, carry.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
On, never mind, We've just been told that it's this
very sexist and bullshit. And it wasn't in my mind like, oh,
I'm an activist, I'm fighting. I was just like, that's wrong,
We're not doing that and let's move on. Did you
think about it that way or is it not only
until upon reflection that you're like, oh, we were actually
doing something.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I think more it was more upon reflection. But I
think for us, when I went up to Michigan State
as a freshman, we were not varsity status yet, so
we had to fight for our own varsity status. We
had this coach I'll never forget. His name was Michael Taut.
He was a German guy, and he was instrumental like
you guys should be a varsity sport. And I remember
(15:06):
we fought and fought and fought, and he fought really
hard alongside with us. And then when the program got
its varsity status this year, they fired him. They said,
you're not going to be the coach that we're going
to make the men's soccer team coach coach both right,
And that was really more of when the whole activism
thing clicked of like, wow, we just fought so hard
(15:28):
to get our varsity status. He fought alongside with us,
and as soon as we got what we deserved and
he got what he deserved, he.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Got taken out.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
And that I think really emboldened us as a group
of like, we've got to figure out how to make
this okay at other schools.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So back in twenty twenty two, Ali made a big
splash announcing the fifty to fifty Pledge to spend equal
amounts in advertising with both men's and women's sports. What
percentage of the spend was ally dedicating to women at
the time when you boldly declared we're getting to fifty
to fifty, you know, I mean, I always say I
was part of the problem because the numbers back then
we were like ninety ten on a national basis, and
(16:08):
we had never looked at it, and so you know,
when I said, let's take a look and see what
we're spending, it was right around the national basis, it
was ninety percent going into men's sports and ten percent
going into women's sports.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
And then we we came up with that idea of
like what if we went for parody, what if we
worked towards getting to fifty to fifty?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Called Foudy and we Julie Foudy the new Billy Jean
King is what I always say. She's like, I've signed
her up to be the next generations BJK.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I love that. That's awesome and just and said, you know,
would you help us make this announcement And we didn't
have anything figured out there. We had no idea how
we were going to do it, and I remember because
the team was freaking out. Everyone was like, we're going
to have to go ask for extra money. We can't
not spend ninety percent of our budget in men's sports.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
All of our brand.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Health metrics are going to, you know, go down the drain.
And we had to go ask for all this second
extra money. And I'm like, no, we're not going to
do that. We're going to figure out how to optimize
out of things that aren't performing well, and we're going
to lean into this because if we are going to
make a promise like this, we have to believe it.
And so we made the pledge without any clue of
how we were going to do it, and here we are.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was actually at the SBNW Sumn. Of course, when
you announced the fifty to fifty pledge. You reportedly got
a text from your boss saying, it's a really good idea,
but you probably should have told.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Me first, Which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Was that the most of the pushback, or a little
bit more, a little bit more pushback at the time, that.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Was the most of it.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Honestly, I underestimated how big the reaction was going to be.
I just thought, Oh, we're going to make this and
you know it's not a thing, and it blew up.
You know, you were in the room. The room erupted.
There was tons of earned media that came out of it.
And then I was kind of like, oh shit, I
probably I didn't tell him blah blah blah, but I'm like, oh,
(17:55):
he's not going to see it.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That was my thought.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And then that night it was like eight o'clock night
and get a I got a text from one of
our board members who is a huge women's sports fan,
and she did a group message with me and my
boss and she attached one of the articles and she's like,
this is amazing. I've never been more proud to be
on the ALLY board. Blah blah, blah blah. And then
(18:17):
two seconds later he was like, this is a great idea,
but you should probably tell your boss before you make major.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Enounces like this.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
But that was it, And honestly, it is a huge
pride point with an Ally, like a massive pride point
to the point that in our earnings call, our CEO
will actually give updates on where we stand on the
fifty to fifty pledge amazing, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
There is a feeling of like like pit of your
stomach when you don't think anything's a big deal, you
put it out somewhere and then it's a huge deal
and you're.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Like, is this way? Is this good?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I want marketing, I.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Want earn meetia, but like, uh oh, I didn't really
consider how this reaction would be. How easy or difficult
did it prove to start that ramp up process.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It was a lot harder than I thought it was
going to be, and not because there wasn't the desire
from the team to do it. It was simply a
result of the unavailability of the media and candidly, what
we had to do was create it and it took
a lot of work. Everything from the multimillion dollar deal
that we did with ESPN and Disney and the idea
(19:19):
was that we were going to spend ninety five percent
of the dollars that we had committed in Disney Media
to whom Sports. But they had to move those sports
into better prime time slots and that was like a
six month process. We worked with the NWSL and CBS
to get the championship game moved into primetime A couple
of years ago, again that didn't exist, and so it
(19:41):
took work. So yeah, if you think about it, every
year we restarted zero. So if the year before we're
close to making the fifty to fifty, as soon as
you know, January one rolls around, you go right back
to zero and you got to go find that media.
And it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
We've talked about it on this show in part because
the iHeart Women's Sports Network was created to create more
inventory in the women's sports space. When you have brands
that want to get involved, there's not a lot of
shoulder programming, there's not a lot of digital content, TV shows,
radio shows, all the spaces that men's sports earn that money.
It's not just sponsoring a team jersey or even getting
(20:19):
involved with a TV package. There's so much more surrounding it,
and in women's sports that has been such a deficit,
and so part of the goal for this network and
for this show is to create more content that could
be invested in and sending more dollars the way of
women's leagues and sports and content and tipped ventures, which
I had fielding Jamison on the show recently talking about
(20:41):
that they're investing in everything around women's sports as opposed
to just straight down the middle on the leagues and teams,
and so there is a lot more money coming into
that space. But when you got into it, you had
to literally change the long time practices of the worldwide leader.
What did ESPN say when you said, Hey, we want
to give you all this money, but we're not doing
it at three am, and you need to move this
(21:03):
into primetime? And why haven't you had a championship game
ever played in linear prime time?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, it's crazy, right. I always call it the vicious cycle.
I think fundamentally you have this issue. If you think
about the components that make up the sports ecosystem, it
starts with the media.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
The media is what drives all of the revenue. It's
what drives all of the power because historically the media companies,
who have to be profitable and have to monetize, have
not been able to attract brands because they just brands
have fundamentally not thought that the engagement was there and
the eyeballs were there. They've just put women's sports and
lossy time slots, and as a result, the brands don't
(21:45):
want to buy that media, which trickles down to the
amount of rev share that goes to the leagues, which
ultimately then impacts what they play pay the players. And
so our thesis was in the vicious call, somebody has
to blink first, and the only one that can blink first.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Is the brands.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
The money is the money, and so when the money
comes to an ESPN or a Disney and says, all right,
we're willing to do this, but we have to work
together to make this happen, there was no resistance and
there was no pushback. And I mean I remember vividly,
like I went to dinner with Rita Farrow and we
had this conversation and she's like, this is amazing. Let's
(22:27):
sit down and we'll figure it out. And the team's
got to work. It's just there's so many pieces to it.
It's programming, as you know, it's time slots, it's and
the how do I bring other brands along? And so
it just fundamentally took a lot of work to do.
And I think once people started to see that we
had the receipts in terms of the actual results of
(22:49):
what it was driving, now you're seeing everybody right, or.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
At least a lot more people like you said, somebody
has to blink. And what always frustrated me was the
belief system in things like the Little League World Series
or the umpteenth iteration of the XFL were like, oh, pickleball,
like let's put it everywhere, and it's like, oh my god,
what we've been saying for decade, Like give us a shot.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
First, Thank you for blinking. We needed it.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You also were very thoughtful in how you sponsored. You
sponsored the NWSLPA, and you did that during the investigations
where the players who spoke up about toxic environments, sexual harassment,
and coercion were worried about the impact that they might
have on the league in which they played, and for
years that kind of stuff was able to exist because
(23:37):
players were scared into silence. So what benefit did you
see an adding a players union to your portfolio and
why did it matter to you to make sure that
you stepped in and increased your sponsorship in the league
at that moment where it was probably weakest or most challenged.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, you know, I remember that day so vividly, the
infamous Alex Morgan tweet that kind of broke it all
wide open. I was actually driving to Chicago for a
girl's weekend, and my phone just started blowing up and
everyone's like, have you seen the tweet? Have you seen
the tweet? And I called again Foudy, I do like
your new name for it. And I called Ali Wagner
(24:14):
and I said, do you have Megan Burk's number? I
had never met Megan.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Burke, executive director.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I should say, yeah, NWSLP.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And I knew as a former player that it won.
It took a lot of bravery for those players. But two,
I also knew that they were scared that they would
lose their league and that other sponsors would be like, well,
I don't you know, I don't want to touch this anymore.
They'd let them figure their stuff out. And part of
what was blowing up on my phone was other cmos
(24:42):
that were sponsors, like what are you guys going to do?
Are you going to stay in or are you going
to leave? And so I reached out to Megan. She
was a little bit busy that day, so I heard
from her a couple of days later and I just said, hey,
we want the players to know that as the biggest
sponsor the NWSL, we're not going anywhere and we're really
(25:03):
proud of what they did, and we want to invest
in the players Association. And we said, you come back,
tell us what you need, and we're going to make
it happen. And she came back and said, I'm a
staff of one. I think it was her and Tory
at the time. She's Tory Houster, president of the NWSI.
Thank you, and she said, we don't have any staff.
(25:29):
And so we made a monetary commitment to them to
staff up the PA, and then we extended our sponsorship
of the league because we wanted the players to know
that we weren't going anywhere. And then this is the
second part of what I did is I called literally
every CMO and I said, you cannot leave now. This
is the absolute worst signal. And what we have to
(25:51):
do is band together to force change in the league.
And that's the way we use our power. You can
either matter in that moment or not. And I wanted
our brand of matter well.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And I think it's an example of how you have
to look at your investment in spaces differently, understanding the
context in men's sports and most of the major investments
that you might be involved in. The power move is
leaving and saying we're taking our money out of this.
We do not stand with you in whatever problematic thing
(26:20):
you're going through, and the only way we think you'll
change your behavior.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Is if we take our money from you.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And in women's sports, that might feel like the move,
but what that actually does is continue to remove the
power from the players and their ability to speak on
things like that because there's no financial stability there. But
also having to still say we're holding the league accountable
and we're demanding change while our money is here. I
think that's so important right now in this pivot point
(26:47):
where there is a lot more investment coming in, is
for people to understand how to view investment and return
on investment differently in the men's versus women's space. How
important is it for folks who are familiar with the
space to be the ones negotiating and id eating and
creating activations and investment versus say, a standard agency that
(27:07):
repurposes their data for men's sports.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Or takes the things they're doing and just moves it over.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
It's massively critical. In fact, this is a conversation Laura
Corne and I from Deep Blue have all the time,
is you fundamentally have to use a different evaluation system
for women's sports than men's sports. You cannot apply the
two things. And oftentimes you also have to kind of
bet on the income and we have.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
If coome instead of outcome.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Yeah, like it's an outcome that might happen.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, because you don't have right, there's no guarantee. Like
we have over invested. We have overpaid candidly for certain sponsorships,
believing the thesis that right now the numbers look like this,
but two years the numbers are going to look like that.
Look at Unrivaled, that's a great example. We're the founding
(27:58):
partner in Unrivaled. Admitted to Unrivaled before they had players,
all they had was Fi and Stewey. They had no
players signed, they didn't know where they were going to play,
they had no media contract, they had nothing. We bet
on the fact that we fundamentally believed in the thesis
of it and that they needed one and that we
(28:18):
would be one that would help carry a lot of
weight given our position in women's sports, and that if
they could sign us and we could make the announcement
together that we were going to come in as the
founding partner, that that would be that would be the
spark that would help move the ball. And so if
I had just looked at that as a CMO and
(28:41):
looked at metrics, there would be no metrics for me
to look at. And that is, to your point, fundamentally
different than what you see in men's sports today. Men's
sports ecosystem has existed for hundreds of years. Women's sports
ecosystem is still in the infancy stage. Our oldest league
is the WNBA. It's not even thirty years old. And
so you're you are believing in what's to come and
(29:04):
helping drive those outcomes.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, and I think it's unfortunate that the product gets
blamed a lot for the failures of imagination or innovation
from often the standard agencies that are going in.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
To do the work on behalf of places.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
You know what speaks to that too, Sarah, Which is amazing.
I just read last year and it's just continues to
stick in my head and bother me. Less than six
percent of the Fortune five hundred is investing in women's sports.
So while we feel because we're both in the in
the ecosystem, right, so you've seen more brands and you
kind of feel the momentum and then when you really
(29:42):
look at the data and you step back, and I
have this conversation a lot with like Kristen Cook from
State Farm and Kate Johnson from Google, and the people
that are in the ecosystem kind of look at it.
It is the.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Same, Yes, a lot of the same brands.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
It's a lot of the same brands, which like props
to you, but also what is everyone else doing? And
I feel like the well is so poisoned that if
you gave them like a blind item and you said, Okay,
here's where this was on this year, here's where it
is now, here's where it's anticipated to be by this
Do you think it's a good investment?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They would all say yes.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And then you took the you know, like old man
Weather's from the amusement park. You took the bag off
the head and it's women's sports, and like, oh no, no,
I don't think that because they carry such terrible antiquated
ideas about it into the space and into the investment and.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
In the evaluation system. Like you said, right, they're looking
at the metrics, right, and.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
It's a different product, and it's a different market, and
it's a different demograph against different people that you're appealing to,
and it's a different income or outcome that you're looking for.
And I remember the first Sports Innovation Lab Fan Project research.
I read about brand affinity and change of behavior and
likelihood of purchase and all the things that are great
metrics beyond just awareness. And men's sports will give you
(30:53):
a ton of awareness, but all the other stuff is
so high on the women's side if you do it right.
Is Ali currently eating the fifty to fifty commitment. We're
almost at the end of this year.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We will by the time that we get to the
end of this year, forty eight percent of our budget
will be spent in women's sports media fifty two and
men's sports media. Years when we don't have things like
a World Cup or Olympics are hard to the prior
conversation that we are having. I am hopeful that we're
going to hit it next year, which would be a
year ahead, which would be amazing. And then that doesn't
(31:23):
mean like, okay, then it's over and we're done. Then
it just becomes and it's an institutional part of our
metrics now, Like I literally have a scorecard that I
look at every quarter with all of our brand health
metrics and all of our account acquisition metrics and all
of our performance metrics. And one of the lines on
there is status on the fifty to fifty Pledge, and
we track it and talk about it all the time,
(31:44):
so it'll be over my dead body that we don't
hit it.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
And the pledge is a fifty to fifty money commitment.
So how far does marketing money get you in men's
sports versus women's these days? And have you noticed a
change even from when you first pledge to now?
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, you know, we have this conversation a lot. I'm like,
I could buy one spot in an NFL game on
Christmas Day, don't.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Go to the bathroom, don't go to the exactly.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Or I can buy an entire season of.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
You know, sort of like season tickets.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, it's wild, and so that's how we started to
think about it. And to your point, one of the
things that we really measure and think a lot about
is engagement, loyalty, favorability. Since we made the fifty to
fifty pledge, our brand favorability has gone up. So in
women's sports space, it's anywhere from twenty to forty percent
(32:37):
higher depending on the sport or the team that we're
sponsoring than it is against the general market, and our
overall brand favorability has gone up by thirty one percent
while the financial services category has dropped three percent since
a You know, that's a thirty five percent swing. And
(32:57):
you know, while I can't attribute all of that to
women's sports, I do attribute a big part of it
because you know, fans of women's sports, like they vote.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
With their feet one thousand percent, and it's been proven
over and over. You put women athletes in your ads,
you have them speaking about your brand, it changes people's
perception because they are relatable, they feel authentic, they feel
genuine and even when you know.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
You're being sold to, you're like happy.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
It's like a very weird thing when you support a
space that has been historically underfunded, is people want you
to show up in their social feeds and they're TV
watching because the ooh, look at they're doing something for
this thing I care about, as opposed to a lot
of other advertising that feels like a nuisance or a
big sell.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Absolutely, and you know the other thing. I mean, look,
I get asked, look, I'm on a public company, right
and I have a board we have shareholders. I have
a responsibility to manage our shareholders investment in our company appropriately.
You know, from time to time people will ask me, well,
did you just do this because you played soccer at
Michigan State and you love women's sports. No, the business
(34:04):
thesis for us is incredible. If you think about in
the next five to eight years, the wealth transference to
women in this country, he's going to be over twenty
trillion dollars. Women control eighty percent of all the purchase decisions.
Women are disproportionately going to college at rates higher than
young men right now, graduating at higher rates, getting married
(34:26):
later if at all, and hold a lot of the
money power. We had a guy by the name of
Joe Coughlin. He runs the MIT Aging Lab, really fascinating guy,
and he came in and he spoke to my team
and he said, as a company, if you don't have
a women's marketing strategy, you don't have a strategy. And
(34:47):
so when I marry the the growth of women's sports
with the just the wealth and the influenced potential of
women in this country, I look at the statistics of
what's happening to our brand, the favorability that I talked about,
sixty five percent of everybody that comes to our storefront
(35:08):
is female. Our account acquisition women are surging past men.
I mean, you could make a thesis for us to
be the bank of women. You really could, and I
think it would be highly accreative to our business. And
so there's really big business rationale behind what we did
what we did.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It also feels like there's a lot of research around
women's sports fans and their agility and fluidity, because it's
a necessity in the space you need to be able
to know and afford at this point to say I'm
going to watch games on Ion, Paramount plus Peacock, you know,
ESPN Scripts, like all those different subscriptions, all those different spaces,
(35:46):
and ally is an online only bank where you're anticipating
that you've got a client that's more modern and probably
younger and is happy and willing to participate in a
banking space that doesn't have brig and mortar buildings to
walk into. So you're also a peel to people that
are probably naturally suited to your product. Absolutely in a
space that you're attacking and going after, are there specific
(36:08):
moments of joy or like I told you, so I
was right that you want.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
To shout out. I love hearing those you know for me.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Honestly, I think the most emotional moment in this entire
journey was when we helped get the championship game moved
to prime time and the game was in DC, and
I remember being down on the field we did the
Rookie of the Year presentation. I think it was Nick
Nail mcgermo that year, and so it's down on the
field for the start of the game. We did the
Rookie of the Year presentation and then pivoted right to
(36:40):
time to sing the anthem. And I remember standing down
there and listening to the anthem play and looking around
the stadium and it was packed and how many people
were there, Moms with their little girls, dads with their
little girls, and boys and boys.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, And I got very emotional. I started crying, and
I said to myself, no little girl is ever going
to have to think she's not worth primetime anymore because
of us. And that was one of the biggest regrets
of my life.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Is there.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
When I graduated from college, there was no national team,
there was no path, there was no professional women's league.
It was just done something that I had done my
entire life, that I loved since I was five years old.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
It was just done.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
And then I thought that night, none these little girls
will never have to feel that dead end. So that
to me has been probably the biggest one. And then yes,
now like just the popularity of women's sports, just how
explosive it is, the conversation around it. I'm definitely striding
into board meetings feeling pretty proud.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And I think in a lot of ways, the brands
that have been leading this have been really sharing best
practices and talking to other brands about it, because it's
still is a rising tide lifts all boat situation. It's
not that beneficial to be the only You would think sometimes, oh,
we're really dominating the space, but you actually want it
to be more valued in general and have a higher
(38:11):
profile because of everybody contributing to the awareness around it
and knowing the players and the teams.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
In the league and everything else totally so that your
investment goes farther.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I've never shared a marketing playbook with other brands as
much as I do what we do in women's sports
for that very reason, and even people at competitive banks
that I'll sit down, who are like, how are you
guys doing it? What space do you see for us?
And the other aspect of what this journey has been
just for me so beautiful and amazing, And I know
(38:39):
you feel it because you're in the thick of it
as well. Is it's everybody. It's not just other brands,
it's the players. It's even if you're not I don't
have an athlete relationship with somebody, or you don't have
a PSA with somebody, like they are in your orbit
and they reach out and they're like, how can I help?
And you help them, and it's just different than anything
(39:00):
I've ever experienced, and it's honestly been the honor of
my career.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
We've got an idea for you on the show that
I just remembered.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
We had Ali Sentnor on the show and al Ali
is a sponsor of her team at the time, Utah,
and we were asking if she felt like she was
just constantly being personally sponsored. And I feel like you
could go around and find all the people named Ali.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
It's a great create a campaign around that.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I love that. Just something to think about before I
let you go.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I want to hear about your do it right mantra
and how that has led what you've been working on.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, So do it right has been when we launched
our brand, oh my gosh, seventeen eighteen years ago. Now,
do it right was one of our brand pillars. It
was talked straight, do right, and be obviously better. Those
were the strategic pillars for the company. And do it
right has just always been about the golden rule, do
onto others as you would do to yourself. And you know,
(39:52):
I would say historically financial services have not behaved in
a way you don't say.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Ever heard that?
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Are there any major stories we might have missed lately.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
That is as honorable as they should be? And so
do it Right was always about that. It was always
about how do we disrupt the category? How do we
honestly put the customer at the center of everything that
we do, and it drives our decision making. You know,
first bank to ever have twenty four by seven service,
first digital bank, first bank to wave completely wave overdraft fees.
(40:30):
Overdraft fees disproportionately affect those that can afford them least,
particularly people of color. You're not overdrafting because you're like, hey,
I want to wake up tomorrow and pay a bunch
of fifty dollars fees. You're overdrafting because you can't afford
or you don't know, and so it's just always been
a part of us. I'd say the fifty to fifty
pledge was part of do it right, what we did
with the PA, all of those things. It's just honestly
(40:53):
how we behave It is the reason that I've always
stayed at ally because it's not just a set of words,
it's the way we live.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Feels rarer and rarer these days to look around and
see people doing it right, So keep at it. It's
always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for
coming on.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Thank you, it's great seeing you.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Thanks again to Andrea for taking the time and for
being a badass leading the way. We got to take
another break when we come back, start a family fight
for just thirty six dollars.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Welcome back, slices.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too. So here's our
good game play of the day. It's cyber Monday, and
that means.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
There's a big sale on all good game with Sarah
Spain merch.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Now's the best time to get those holiday gifts for
your favorite slices.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
And soon to be slices.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
The classic orange on a slice tea, the Good Game
Good Game few shirt that you obviously need for any
and all rec and social LEADGA games, ask me about
women's sports and the versatile, always in style Unwable tea.
You can use the code cyber Monday on Breakingtea dot
com slash Spain to get twenty percent off your entire
Good Game purchase today and today's deal also includes twenty
(42:07):
percent off WNBPA and US Women's National Team PA shirts.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
We'll link to the site in our show notes.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
We always love to hear from you, so hit us
up on email Good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com or
leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two four
fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Rate and review.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
It's real easy watch a tablecloth that requires a closer
look rating ten out of ten passive aggressive stars review.
During a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with my family, my sister
Katie introduced me to holiday tablecloths and table runners that
are sure to spark conversation with your family.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Ah, look at this one.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
A lovely multicolored autumn leaves for Thanksgiving, and oh, on
second glance inside the leaves, there's a subtle message Trump.
And look at this one, a red table runner with
lovely white snowflakes inside them.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Ah yes, Trump.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Now you won't be surprised to learn that there are
several designs offered by several sellers.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
This seems to be very popular this season. We'll link
to a few of them in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
If you want to start a fight at your next
family gathering, now it's your turn. Y'all rate and review,
Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Andrea, Good Game,
Mikayla Schiffren you acls. How many times do we have
to say it can? Weak ass ligaments? Good Game with
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
(43:34):
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are alex Azie
Grace Lynch, Taylor Williamson, and Lucy Jones. Our executive producers
are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, and Gianna Palmer.
Production assistants from Avery Loftus and I'm Your Host Sarah
Spain
Host
Sarah Spain
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