October 30, 2025 • 38 mins
Women’s sports isn’t charity—it’s a growth market hiding in plain sight. Laura Correnti, founder and CEO of Deep Blue Sports & Entertainment, has built her career spotting the white space and turning it into business. She and Christian dig into the myths holding advertisers back, how athletes are seizing the white space with their own media platforms, and why the next billion-dollar sports opportunity will be led by women.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Possible Now Stories of Possibilities, the podcast where
we dive into the leadership frameworks, bold ideas, and personal
stories shaping the future of marketing, technology, and leadership. Some
people follow the playbook, others write an entirely new one.
My guest today is doing both and changing the game
(00:26):
along the way. I'm Christian Muchen and this is Possible
Now Stories of Possibilities, the podcast where we explore bold ideas,
those outstanding personalities and visionaries who are reshaping business, leadership,
culture and technology. My guest in today's episode is Laura
Currenti and she is the founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment, the world's first firm dedicated to
(00:48):
bringing serious commercial investment to women's sports. In less than
two years, she's launched the Business of Women's Sports Summit,
co created the Women's Sports Audient Network with Iart Media,
and build a joint venture with Olympic Icon Allison Phoenix.
Oh and she still finds time to post her own podcast,
court Side, where she interviews the woman driving the future
(01:10):
of the industry. Before Deep Blue, Laura was already rewriting
the rules of advertising a giant spoon, creating first the
industry had never seen before, the first branded podcast to
hit number one on Apple, the first live ad on CNN,
the first single advertiser takeover of The New York Times.
Her career has been all about seeing the white space
(01:31):
and then filling it with bold ideas that others said
were not possible. And we all know everything is possible.
So today I'm thrilled to have Laura here to talk
about sports leadership, business and why women's sports is not charity,
it's good business. A very warm welcome to you, Laura.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you for having me Christian. Have you ever considered
voiceover work? That was fabulous?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Good to know that there's another career waiting for me.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I love that. Yes, thank you so much for the warman.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Laura. I've mentioned your court Side podcast and you always
start with the one question and let's flip the script
and now it's your turn. When did you first fall
in love with sports?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I can very, very vividly remember a five year old
Laura who met under a willow tree with a bunch
of kids I grew up with in New Jersey, and
that willow tree was in the center of a large
sports complex at the time called Gunnaloval, which is where
all great sports dreams in the town I grew up
(02:33):
in in Carney, New Jersey, were born. And some of
those kids that I was gathering with in between our
games probably drinking.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
You who's eating orange slices? For all?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I remember wearing oversized T shirts I played for Carneo
Electronics when I was five years old, and I don't
even remember playing the game Christian. I remember feeling the
joy of just being with my friends in an environment
where I learned at the ripe age the importance of
community and what it meant to belong And I think
so much of what sports has given me is community
(03:05):
in a sense of belonging. And what started as I
would say, quick witted, you know, competitive kid at the
age of five, has served me well thirty five plus
years later in the advertising industry. And so I think
there has been the matics that sports have taught me.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
That's an awesome story. Was it always a kind of
team sport or different top of sports?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I was such a team sport. I mean, if you
could play it, I was doing it. But soccer, basketball
and softball were the sports that I focused on competitively.
I think basketball was probably my best sport, but soccer
was my first love. In the town I grew up
in in New Jersey, I thought the whole world knew
it as Soccertown, USA. But I came to learn later
in life that I think that's just what the people
I grew up with called it. But playing in soccer
(03:46):
town usay, soccer was what you lived and breathed, and
it was all around you. I remember playing everything from
kickball in the street to like weekend Manhunt games with
my neighbors. I just I love to be outside and
I love to play.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, as long as you connect, size and be with others,
I totally get it. I was the same. So which
position in the soccer team.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, this won't surprise anyone that knows me. Center, midfield.
I had to control the game at all angles.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I definitely you did and you're still doing. We will
talk about this in a second. So I was left defender.
So that was my position for years. Yeah, back, let's
talk about sports as leadership. And of course we now
have far more data available. And what I found out
is that we know that ninety four percent of women
in the C suite played sports and over half competed
at college level, which is impressive. So if this is
(04:31):
the number, what do you think the wheel guill transfer
is Is it great? Is it teamwork? Is it resilience?
Or is it something less or maybe more obvious, you know,
to learn how to lose and come back even stronger.
What is it?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And I think it's all the above, definitely a yes
and question. I think such a wide range, and you've
mentioned some of them, you know, teamwork, resilience, adversity, down
to the minu ship, just how to handle feedback and
constructive criticism, the will to win. I think that athletes
that are born with this sort of ingrained switch that
you know how to flip on without the prompting, because
you need to take it to the next gear and
(05:05):
the next level. But I have read something that speaking
to that ninety four percent statistic. There was a great
conversation that happened not too long ago at a conference
that Billy Jean King had hosted and Linda Gates was
featured on a panel, and they were talking about that
ninety four percent number and the number of female executives,
many of whom we would know by name, and certainly
the businesses that they've led, and they created a thesis
(05:27):
that the great unifier of the connection to sport is
that it had taught all of these women about failure,
how to embrace it, how to tackle it, how to
move on from it. And I think when you look
at all of the skills you alluded to, in addition
to that one, I do think it's interesting how being
unafraid to fail your show is called possible, right, leads
(05:49):
to so many great possibilities when you're unencumbered by not
what could happen, but what might happen.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And also because I would say, I mean we always
look at the winnows, right, those ones in the front row.
I mean, this is typically, but there are so many
and we've experienced this on our own. You have also
to learn, you know, to be on the sideline for
at least some time right or to start, you know,
when you join a team to watch, toait but also
to support others. Is that something you still see with
(06:16):
leaders in the boardroom that they learned from that as well,
or is it something you would say, no, they have
to take more over into the business world.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It's a great question and one that I watch on
a regular basis just the changing roles in dynamics of
team members and when you need to step up and
when you know, oftentimes you need to take a backseat.
I vividly remember, for the first let's call it ten
fifteen years of my sporting career, I only knew to
be the captain and a starter. I didn't even know
where the bench was, let alone what it felt like.
(06:44):
And I remember my transition to playing in college and
coming in as a freshman who was wildly in shape's
probably the best shape I'd ever been in, and showed
up with a very seasoned team. I was a young freshman,
a seventeen year old, going up against women who were
four or five years older than me, way more experience,
a ton more training, better skill sets, and for the
(07:05):
first time in my life, I've felt the bench. And
that is a really jolting experience when you come from
what you perceive to be as the best at what
you do, and then you arrive in different rooms or
on different teams and everyone's the best from where they
came from. And I think that those lessons are so
transferable in the boardroom coming into the women's sports space.
From a business perspective, there are people have been in
(07:27):
this space for decades longer than I have. I may
be a practitioner and expert in my craft through the
world of advertising media marketing, I have and still have
a ton to learn about what's worked, what hasn't, why
it hasn't, And so I think constantly being open and
being a student in the game. You know, I talked
to my team a lot about being coachable. I don't
think you can ever stop being coachable when you want
(07:47):
to be the best. And I mean you could point
to some of the greatest athletes of our time who
constantly reference the need for incremental gains, so absolutely transferable skill.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's a lesson you just talked about to be still coachable.
Is that the lesson you still use in your on
board room, you know, coming from your own experience, or
is there another lesson you would like to share with us,
you know, which you can still use in today's business.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I think being coach was probably one of the most
important skills. Never satisfied with being satisfied, you know. I
pride myself in being a student of the game literally
and figuratively. I think there's always something we can learn.
I mean, you even see what the industry is going through.
From an advertising media marketing perspective, From a technology standpoint,
I mean you host a conference that features so much
of what the future holds, and so resting on what
(08:30):
you know is not enough to compete.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
From my vantage point.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Let's talk about business and let's go over to Deep
Blue and your vision. When you create a Deep Blue,
when you would be on our possible stage with all
these you know, cemos and brand leaders in the room,
what would be a key message to them.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So much of the beginning stages of founding Deep Blue
was about really just having marketers recognize the value. In
just a short twelve to eighteen months since founding, the
company will turn two in December of this year. It's
now about right sizing the opportunity. I think people are
very well aware of understanding that there is something happening now,
how closely they're listening. What I have found to be
(09:10):
the most important part is making the business case through
right sizing. I think so much of what we are
focused on today is this is not apples to apples comparison.
I'll give you an example. In twenty twenty four, the
NWSL to the National Women's Soccer League reported that they
generated seventy five million dollars in sponsorship deals. Now you
would say that's a tremendous increase sixteen percent year over
(09:31):
year growth, continuing to show trajectory on the upward swing. However,
as somebody who grew up in the media industry, it's
really important to dimensionalize that number. Well, that number split
across four hundred and forty one brand partners. When you
do basic division, that means the average value of an
annual deal is one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. So
when you hear that as an advertiser, you're like, oh,
(09:52):
this is accessible, this is efficient. But then I take
it a step further and you really start to speak
media math and get under the hood with advertisers who
have to make the business case and are like, well,
is that a lot? Is that a little? What do
I even get for that? And when I quickly explain
to them, well, let's talk on average and what you
spend in sports. From a men's perspective, the average thirty
second spot in the Super Bowl last year was seven
(10:14):
to eight million, So for seven eight million, you could
own the whole damn thing. Further, microscopic example, a thirty
second spot in the Major League Baseball World Series with
no specific guarantees is four hundred and fifty to five
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So for a fourth of
the price you pay for thirty seconds of television time
during Major League Baseball World Series, of which you know,
if it's a blowout, you might not even see, one
(10:37):
hundred and seventy thousand dollars, I can own eight months
worth of inventory. That's the way we like to explain
it to advertisers. And so I think we're way past
the charity recognizing opportunity, and now how do you make
it so that it's an easy yes to get to
in terms of evaluating it as a real, tangible opportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You've mentioned that this came up in twenty four, this dator,
you found a deep blue in twenty three. So what
they're another key moment that you said, okay, now it's
time to do it. Were you approached by your network,
you know, mentors, whoever you knows that Okay, this is
something you have to do though, because you're the only
one you can do it. What was the moment maybe
or was it a process over the years that you decided, Okay,
(11:16):
now it's time to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Sure, there was a light bulb moment. It actually goes
back far beyond twenty three. It was pre COVID twenty nineteen.
During the Women's World Cup at twenty nineteen in France,
the US women's national team had lifted the trophy for
the fourth time, and it was also the same year
that they had sued their employer in US Soccer for
equal pay and won. And there was this climatic moment
where the crowd starts chanting equal pay instead of USA.
(11:40):
And I tell this story often about how the broadcasters
were really excited, but the advertising community didn't budge. I
was very curious as to why, for the second time
in as many decades ninety nine and now in twenty nineteen,
you're seeing consumer demand but advertisers paying little to no attention,
let alone interest and investing or getting under the hood.
(12:01):
And what we quickly realized, Christian is it wasn't a
story issue. The narratives were there, It wasn't a product
issue that US women's national team alone had been one
of the best to ever do it for decades.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was a systems issue.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
We had advertisers evaluating women's sports on the same currency
and metrics, which is reach and efficiency as they were mens.
And so if you have a dollar to spend and
your tasked with finding as many eyeballs as possible, as
efficiently as possible, and I present you Sunday Night football
versus the WNBA Playoffs, you don't have to justify one
of those decisions. And that's where your money's going nine,
(12:33):
if not ten out of ten times. And so it
was a systems issue, one of these things I'm sure
as an entrepreneur you can relate to. You go to
sleep thinking about, you wake up thinking about, and it's like,
I've got to put this to the test. And so
fast forward to twenty three. I ended up posting the
Business of Women's Sports on at the first annual in
April of that year, not knowing if anybody would even
(12:54):
show up, but knowing this could be a determinant as
to whether or not the advertising market would respond.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Not all these did people show up. We sold out
the room.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Marketers were flying from all over the country, and you
know this, to spend your own money and fly cross
country to spend a day on a subject matter that
isn't necessarily part of the mainstream, right, you know, there's interest,
there's intrigue, and so it was one of those I
walked off the stage and it was like, how much
more validation and signaling do I need to take a swing?
And so got to work, dusted off a business plan
(13:24):
and within six months, following a deep listening tour, launched
the business and thanks to the Final Four tournament in
April of twenty four when the world met Caitlin Clark
and Angel Reese, it's been lights out ever since. And
so a lot of work went into the founding of it.
But I don't think anyone, whether you were new or
in the space, could have predicted the trajectory of what
(13:45):
would have happened over the last eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What a great story, and I think you agree. Sometimes
it's not necessary to come up with the brand new
idea the world hasn't seen yet, But it's about timing, right,
and to come up with one hundred percent that year
about timing and you did it. You did it. What
is the hottest myth to break when you started to
talk to people and brands and decision makers, is it
that women's sports don't have the audience. Is it that
(14:09):
there is no money connected to this? What was the
hottest or the biggest hurdle to convince people to get
into the game.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
How much time do we have?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
All of the above, and I think again comes back
to well, what do you typically equate success with? And
then what are the barriers to achieving it? It's very
hard to say. And in classic chicken EG scenario, well,
you know women's sports, there's no money coming in. Well,
advertising dollars and media rights are determined based on audience.
But if the thing isn't on TV broadcast, let alone
(14:40):
in prime time, how do you develop the audience to
bring the money? And so it really had to require
champions who believed in the product, could see the vision,
could see the opportunity, who were listening to the rabbit
fans who have been part of this ecosystem for decades,
to play some early bets, and there were advertisers who did.
I always give credit to Andrew Brimmer and the team
(15:01):
at Ally Financial for placing a bet when this wasn't
the popular thing, saying a few years back, we're going
to commit for every dollar we spend in men's we're
going to spend in women's on an equal footing within
a determinate amount of years, creating a real tangible number
that they needed to achieve. Andrew tells us all the time,
you get into the space and there's actually not enough
inventory to buy, and so you know you've got this
(15:22):
systemic challenge that is multi layered and multifaceted that I
think really just require dedicated attention. When Andrew placed that bet,
you could probably hear a pin drop.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
People didn't really react.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Were they're reacting Now you can't even get in and
that's just a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Who else is following this example? Are these more than
your brands? The younger brands? Is that the mix of
bose Do you see a difference in terms of how
they behave.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
A mix of both.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
So there have been legacy brands who have I would
say always been and we're early believers in the space.
Although those brands now recognize they can't rest on their
first mover position. There is so much new money coming
in that's saying I here first or I was here early,
is no longer enough to keep up with the pace
in trajectory, especially when you have so many new and incremental
fans coming into the space. So those brands who were
(16:09):
there early you see really thinking about innovation and ingenuity.
How do they find incremental gains, new ways of showing
up to meet the modern market, the new market as
well as the new fans. And then you're seeing a
great number of net new brands, I would say, non
endemics to the women's sports or maybe sports space period
who are recognizing this growth, recognizing the get in price
(16:30):
of where they can align Today. I talked about that
one hundred and seventy thousand dollars to be a league sponsor.
You're not getting that type of inroad in men's sports.
We work with brands like Vagisil who first time ever
spending in the space. We broke it to deal with
them with the New York Liberty and the WNBA. The
same thing with Bumble last year as they were coming
in and around the w as well. And so these
are brands who had historically not spent in women's sports
(16:53):
and were now recognizing that not only was it part
of the cultural zeitgeist, that there were real tangible returns
in terms of the audience being there. I think everybody's
really trying to figure out the best opportunity to find
their lane and do it with staying power in.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Terms of media and media coverage and media business. And
you have a great experience in this as well. So
now is all the athletes having their own platforms and
media companies doesn't mean a massive change for your daily
work with them not being you know, just with a
single person in the room, but dealing with a whole
bunch of team members and probably different opinions.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
With athletes in particular. It's really interesting for a number
of reasons. So when you think about us living in
a media era where I would argue it's individual over institution,
the athletes absolutely hold the influence and the impact and
comparison to the leagues and the teams. I often cite
numbers like Angel Rees for example, has four point five
plus million followers on Instagram alone.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I think the WNBA has less than a third of that.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
So when you look at the sheer scale size and influence,
and these athletes, many of them because they have had to,
not many maybe because they wanted to, but it's how
they're bilding their businesses and their brands off the court,
are leveraging and disintermediating traditional media to bypass. Less than
fifteen percent coverage of total sports goes to women's sports.
So if you're not getting the airtime, you have to
(18:12):
create it, and they're going to platforms like social to
do so. That coupled with this next generation who I'm
so enamored by, who is taking the reins on the
nil ruling and running with it in every which direction
to maximize their returns during their college and now high
school years. It is interesting to see how you have
so many of these young, up and coming emerging athletes
(18:34):
who are becoming multi hyphenates before they become professionals. That's
very exciting because what it presents our athletes who have
business sensibility. They understand the value of partnership, sponsorship, building community,
building fan base.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
They know what their fans are looking for.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
There's a level of authenticity that they demand and that
makes for sharper advertising and more effective outputs.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Do you think it's more for brands to get even
better familiar with the newer platforms or the modern platforms
or the state of the air platforms, however we call it,
or is it still a kind of misunderstanding how to
actually connect with fans through women's sports. In other words,
do you see brands need to still learn about the
difference between you know, fans supporting women's sports than men's sports,
(19:29):
or is it more about the new platforms in general.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's a great question, the multi faster one. So what's
interesting about men's sports versus women's is there's actually relatively
low overlap. I just had the opportunity to go on
Alex Rodriguez's podcast, The Deal, and he asked a similar
question as the new owner of the WNBA Links in Minnesota,
and he was surprised to find out it was single
digit crossover between his men's and women's team. So there's
(19:53):
a lot of education that has to happen. And with
that lack of crossover, the need to understand, well, then,
who is this ninety percent plus debt new audience that
I'm going to achieve, perhaps in the same market of
a men's team I'm invested in. So I think yes,
learning the consumer, their habits, their likes, their dislikes. The
women's sports community is a very unforgiving one. These are
(20:13):
people who are rabid fans that have been here before
this was popular, and they drive accountability from those who
are coming into the space, holding brands to a level
of understanding that I haven't seen in many other industries
and verticals. So I think that's part one, and then
part two, how they're showing up in different capacities and
how these athletes are now leveraging the broader ecosystem. I'm
(20:34):
starting to see more female athletes on LinkedIn in the
last six to nine months than I've seen in my
entire life, and I think that's a signal.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
And the content that you see them engaging with their
and how they're trying to connect with the advertising community
or the business community wildly different than what they're doing
when they're dancing on TikTok. Right, it's not a one
size fits all, like anything, I think learning the audience
and what they're after. But then how do you segment
your messaging and your activation across the platforms to best
connect with the fan bases.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Which platform do you use most for your own kind
of content or sharing information? Is it LinkedIn?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It is LinkedIn? I'm not on TikTok, I am not
TikTok dancing. I don't think anybody wants to see that,
but obviously, as somebody in this industry, I'm very well
versed on all the different facets. But when I look
at what we're trying to build Deep Blue as a
B to B company, and so it's important for us
to support our community and our industry with as much thought, leadership, insights,
and guidance and examples as possible. And so I'm regularly
(21:31):
on there sharing what we're seeing in real time and
hopes that for someone that may be the difference between
spending nothing versus spending something.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
We talk about new brands, whether it's more the established brands,
but definitely the are brands coming into the women's sports
world now coming from different industries, right, not the traditional
linked industries. For could be finance, could be beauty, of course,
do they reshape the type of stories and campaigns we
are seeing because of their business background? Is that a
big shift because of their products and services to the
(22:00):
fans of women's sports?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
One hundred percent. And I'll even stay within a category
that has been endemic. So financial service is probably one
of the biggest most active categories in sports period, but
particularly in women's sports. It's definitely one of the higher
spending categories. I think many of them have shown up
historically in the space with the tried and true playbook,
and we know what that is, right, it's presenting sponsorships,
it's naming awards, it's showing up on led boards around
(22:24):
the court. But again, hard pressed to recognize that this
is a different audience in a different environment, certainly cultural
time that we're in. I had the opportunity to work
with mass Mutual on a campaign earlier this year. Mass
Mutual one hundred plus year olds financial institution focus on
protecting the ones you love and insurance, and came across
an insight that an alarming number of women.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Do not have financial confidence.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And when you marry that with the cultural zeitgeist, and
how do you take a statistic that's jarring but really
humanize it and bring it through in a way that
is relatable and accessible. Women's sports presents that approachability. I
think even unlike men's sports, there's a level of access
that exists in women's sports where you could get up
close to the athletes in ways that you know historically
(23:09):
in the sports industry we have not, and so it's disarming.
And so instead of coming out with your classic approach
to highlighting that number and talking about products and Services.
We went a different direction and we engage three athletes
at three different parts of their career, one being an
emerging collegiate superstar and Flage Johnson, who plays for LSU,
who's not only a basketball player, she's also a recording artist,
(23:31):
a true multi hyphen in every sense of the word.
We also had Madison Keys, who's been on the tennis
circuit for quite some time, who had just come off
the Australian Open victory, her first Grand Slam win, as
well as Kristin Press, who's been a veteran on the
US women's national team, a current player for Angel City,
and we start talking about the different stages of financial confidence,
the growth, the team that you need, and instead of
(23:54):
again coming out with a classic financial service ad, we
created something so cinematic that Parawai's these women for their journeys,
the work that they put in, the outputs that they achieve,
to demonstrate that through the rise of their careers, the
team that they would need to achieve their success not
only on the field or on the court, but off
of it as well, and that extends to their finances
(24:15):
as many of them are increasing their earning potential as
the space continues to grow. So we hired an incredible director,
We had an all female production team behind the scenes
and obviously in front of the camera with our talent,
tell this story in a way Christian that you know
you just hadn't seen done. And also to recognize that
this wasn't a women's sports ad. This was a brand
ad that featured female athletes, and so it didn't just
(24:37):
run in women's sports content. It ran across NCAA, March
Mandness tournament in general men's and women's competition. It was
on business platforms, news platforms, sports platforms all the way
through the NBA Finals, And it was really to send
a message in normalizing the conversation, certainly around the female
financial confidence gap, but to also leverage the influence of
these athletes not just because they were women who play sport,
(25:01):
but because they are talented athletes and business people on
a journey. And so I think that was just such
a great manifestation of what we're talking about and going
a layer deeper and developing strategy.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Talk about opportunities. Do you see or would you like
to see a complete new sponsorship opportunity and format to
be introduced using women's sports platforms which doesn't exist yet.
Do you have something in mind?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So I'm glad you asked this.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Quite okay, what is it?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Okay, we talked about the media model not serving the
current ecosystem in terms of where women's sports are today.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Historically haven't had the reach.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Historically, haven't had the technology, the data, all of the
things that we need to make the business case from
a media buying perspective. And so you're like, okay, well,
if it's not a CPM basis, what is it? And
something I would really love to push the media industry
on is right sizing the opportunity not just in terms
of what we're selling, but how we're selling it, and
thinking about ways we can engage advertisers to come in.
(25:56):
Perhaps it's through a flat fee, an engagement based model,
a product lead model. I would just love to see
ways that we can step outside the box and recognize
that we cannot sell something for what it inherently cannot
deliver on if you're going to gate keep it behind paywalls,
if you're not going to put it in prime time,
if the argument is we need more audience than it
(26:16):
needs to come from behind those barriers, and if it's
that there's not enough ad dollars coming in. Well, perhaps
we need more content and so just finding ways to
work with advertisers that goes beyond the system. That is
a very quick and easy sell that we're all very
comfortable and know in this industry to really create the
value versus just transacting in the limited version of it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Have you already identified those advertisers who are keen to
do this and to join you on this, Johnny.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, I give you a great example.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
We're going to be premiering a documentary called the Fastest
Six Weeks in Sports that Deep Blue co produced with Ensemble,
which is a company co founded by Ray focus on
the creator economy as well as Religion of Sports, which
best in class sports production company, and the heart and
fast rule. You have to put together brief and you
have to go get at finance. Then you have to
(27:03):
find a distributor. By the time you make the thing,
we are all the way over here. So in a
sort of roundabout way, understanding the brand market and the
desire for brands to get around more content and be
able to influence and shape it as well as their
narrative within it and alongside it, we decided to go
a different route, and that was to work directly with
brands and executive production roles to underwrite and finance the projects.
(27:27):
So now we are able to make the thing while
simultaneously meeting those production dollars with media dollars to ensure
not only we're making it, but that it's discoverable, so
that we're promoting it, we're driving tune in, building ancillary
content around it, et cetera to increase the likelihood of viewership.
So our first doc, The Fastest Six Weeks, which is
(27:48):
an incredible story about collegiate athletes coming from the final four.
There's literally six weeks between the time they finish that
tournament to the time they enter the league for the
WNBA tip off, which is just incredible. And thanks to
the brand partners we're working with on that, which include
Uncrustables as well as door Dash and a couple of
others will be announcing soon that have come on to
(28:09):
support that, and Roku who was quick to support as
a distribution partner alongside YouTube and a few others. So
just an example of ways to get and market quickly
with ideas and not be encumbered by legacy systems.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Do you feel that women today have more freedom all,
let's say flexibility, or feel more pressure to share multi
dimensional stories off the field, like around motherhood, activism, mental health.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Oh, I don't think they feel pressure at all. I
think they're asking for the microphone. I think that these
are stories that are inherently part of who we are.
I've heard so many athletes say sports aren't who I am,
It's what I do, and it's just one piece of
the layers of the people that we're talking about. Many
athletes are embracing the opportunity to tell your stories, and
there's been so many great examples athletes starting podcasts, starting
(28:56):
full on media companies, making sure that they are showing
the different dimensions of who they are as people off
the court, because the reality is, the on court component
of it has limitations. Currently where we are today, there
are real stealings in terms of the income earning potential
for female athletes as competitors off the court.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Whole different story.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I truly believe today women's sports is more valuable off
the court that it is on. And so when you
think about the need to create those exposure and access
points to bring in new fans, certainly but new brand
partners especially, I think it's a necessary part of the model.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
When scouts are looking for athletes, are there looking for
their voices and values as much as for their performance.
Is it Bose?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
It's such a great question and one that's interesting and
dependent by market.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
What we see in the US is one that.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Is highly highly commercial driven, and so on paper, the
ones that are driving the biggest stats aren't necessarily the
ones that are leading the charge commercially and vice versa,
and so it is interesting to think about what and
how athletes use to develop their business. I mean, look
at Alana mare Usa rugby. This is not a sport
in the US in particular that is part of the
(30:11):
mainstream cultural zeitgeist. Well, lon O mar got everybody thinking
about rugby and how she has leveraged that opportunity in
the Olympics in Paris to build a platform for herself
which is so multifaceted. This is a fantastic example of
where I think athletes who are commercially minded recognizing hey,
there's a shelf life to this thing. Women are showing
(30:32):
up and controlling the controllables by using their platforms and
their narrative to build their businesses is phenomenal different in
other parts of the world, you know, where you see
like football is Life, to quote one of my favorite shows,
Dead Lasso. But in the European markets, which I would
say at a different phase in terms of the commercialization
of the women's game performance rules above all else, I
(30:53):
think that is changing. I think the athletes are demanding
it and particularly keen to watch what happens in the
Women's Super League this year in Europe in the US
in their football season, soccer season for US in the
States to see how these athletes, particularly those who are
coming off winning the Euros and the Lions's that are
in that league, are going to use this platform in
this moment to absolutely build their off pitch brands and
(31:15):
commercial opportunities. Accordingly, I think it's a domino effect that's
happening across the world. I think the US has led
the way for so long, but thanks to social media
and the wide range of knowledge share that is happening
freely across the Internet and the networks that exist, I
do think you're going to see a continued rise that
will expand far beyond the borders here.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So I've mentioned Allison Felix and your partnership with her.
In my intro did a John venture was Always Alpha,
which is a company? Tell us about that, you know,
what do you have in mind with this partnership and
where will it be in New Year's time.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Always Alpha was founded by Alison Felix, as you alluded
to USA Track and Field Icon, along with her partners
West Felix and Cassette Chaput, and their ambition was to
create a talent management firm that was exclusively dedicated to
the needs of female athletes. When they came online earlier
last year, it presented a really interesting proposition in terms
(32:10):
of basically cornering the market. For lack of a better
way of saying it, Deep Blue was really focused on
the commercial side deal flow, thinking about how we get
brands involved in the space. And as somebody's in the industry,
you control the money, you control the market, and so
inasmuch as we could influence as well as educate where
brand investment was going, we would have a seat at
the table. Well, the other side of that coin is
(32:30):
influence and who's driving that, as we talked to earlier
in this episode, are the athletes. And so if you
could maintain a world where you had a vantage point
that included both where dollars were moving but also where
influence was commanding. Now, all of a sudden, you have
a vantage point in this industry in particular that has
never coexisted, and so it was a bit of a
(32:53):
no brainer after a series of conversations with the Always
Alpha leadership team to say, hey, not only can we
support you with deal flow strategy all the things that
we're seeing from a commercial perspective, you can also help
inform the way those deals are moving based on the influence,
trends and first looks that your athletes are seeing that
very few have the opportunity to do.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
In a first person basis.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So we formed a joint venture Shook Hands, with the
intent to become the world's largest firm dedicated to servicing
the women's sports commercial industry alongside the female athlete talent
management business.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Wow, that's an ambitious goal and I'm sure you will
be there very soon, sooner than later. Talk about partnerships
also with ATHLETs. Is there a dream partner could be
an athlet, could be maybe a brand or a leak.
Is there a dream partner for Deep Blue? You know
you're looking for you would like to partner with.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
For me, it's not individuals specific in as much as
it's about innovation and ingenuity, and it's finding and aligning
with partners who are going to push the bounds on
what confines the industry today. Really those who are not
just interested in getting in it for the short term,
but really vested in finding ways to extrapolate it for
the long term. And there's some great examples of athletes
(34:04):
I mentioned Flaje Johnson earlier.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Who're just doing it different.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
There's a very real path for this woman where she
could have a number one single and be a number
one draft picked in the same year. That is pushing
the bounds on how we think about the world and
influence of talent as it relates to the sports and
entertainment industry. And then when you look at some of
the brands that are in and around the space who
are actively looking again not just to transact, but to transform.
(34:30):
Speaking back to that ally example, I mean there's so
many others who are thinking creatively.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Love to partner with them.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Also looking at people who are not just trying to
come in for a season, but really thinking about multi
year deals I think is important to drive longevity and
then just those that have complete abandon for doing things
the way they've been done. Great example of this is
what Nofisa Collier and Brandi Storret had built with unrivaled
feeling a real business need to create opportunities for their
peers in the WNBA and professional basketball to not have
(34:59):
to go overseas in the off season, not have to
leave their families to supplement their income, and in doing
so created a product that surpassed every metric they set
out to.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Achieve in Your one alone.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
And so the amount of innovation and blank canvas that
exists here is what excites me. Christian and anybody who's
willing to come along for that ride.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
We're absolutely game to lock in with.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I love it. So we talked a lot about what
you're currently doing and looking back, you've built platforms, You've
built podcasts and summits and even soccer clubs. I mean,
what a range once one thing which is still missing
in women's sports that you would love to intend maybe
as part of D Blue, maybe outside of D Blue,
is anything else?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I intend to own teams.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
I absolutely love the idea of an endgame being not
just building a portfolio of assets, whether that includes content, media,
certainly consulting, business and services, but the ability to get
back on the pitch, be around the athletes, to influence
the game day experience, really be part of the fabric
of what influencing from the outside right now. But building
(36:02):
it from the inside out is something that is not
just a matter of if. It really is a when
and so for me, it's a through line that isn't
just a vertical in nature. It's one that we absolutely
are thinking horizontally in terms of getting in and around
other ways we can impact and demonstrate proof of concept
to show the true tangible returns of what we believe
this industry delivers on Laura.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Let's say in five years time, when a young woman
is asked when she first fell in love with sports,
what do you hope her answer says about the future
you've built, we've built altogether for women's sports, Will it
be a different answer than today.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
It's fascinating that you asked this question.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I literally just posted or reposted a quote from Alex Morgan,
who is just on the Call Her Daddy podcast. Alex
has a young daughter, and she talked about how she
hopes one day when her daughter is of age and
asked that question, presumably she will only ever have known
a world that is equal. I get chills saying that
out loud, because I think when you look at the
(36:59):
numbers today, but the steady progression of where they're moving,
and the conviction of what the women's sports industry and
community is committed to, and you'll hear it endlessly anybody
you ask, it's leave it better than we found it.
It very much is a pay it forward mentality, one
that certainly didn't start with Deep Blue. I mean, you
can go back fifty plus years thinking about all of
those who came before us and making bets and doing
(37:21):
the hard thing to ensure that the next generation has
what they need to be set up to succeed. And
so that quote that Alex shared sums it up quite beautifully.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
All Right, thank you so much for this exciting and
super inspiring conversation. It was so much fun for me
and I'm sure everybody who's listening, and you know, you
remind us that women's sports isn't just about equally at time,
for sure not. It's about unleashing leadership. It's about rewriting
business models. It's about building movements that last. And you
are superstar and you're such a big mentor for so
(37:51):
many people, especially women. Of course, Thanks again for your
vision and voice, and to my audience out there. Keep
questioning the playbook, keep pushing the boundaries as Laura does,
and above all, keep turning possibilities into reality. This is
all about I see you all soon back for the
next episodes. Thank you so much, Laura, Thank you Christian,
Thanks thanks for tuning in everyone. Once again, I'm your host,
(38:16):
Christian More. If you have a question or suggestion to me,
reach out, send me the m on LinkedIn. If you're
curious to learn more about Possible, sign up for our newsletter,
or if you want to join us at the Possible
Show in Miami, visit possibleevent dot com. Possible Now is
a co production of iHeartMedia and Possible. Our executive producers
(38:36):
are Ryan Martz and Yasmin Melendez. Our supervising producer is
Meredith Barnes. Special thanks to Colleen Lawrence Mac from our
programming team. Our theme music is composed by Anthony Keatcoli.
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart app Apple
podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Welcome to Possible Now Stories of Possibilities, the podcast where
we dive into the leadership frameworks, bold ideas, and personal
stories shaping the future of marketing, technology, and leadership. Some
people follow the playbook, others write an entirely new one.
My guest today is doing both and changing the game
(00:26):
along the way. I'm Christian Muchen and this is Possible
Now Stories of Possibilities, the podcast where we explore bold ideas,
those outstanding personalities and visionaries who are reshaping business, leadership,
culture and technology. My guest in today's episode is Laura
Currenti and she is the founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment, the world's first firm dedicated to
(00:48):
bringing serious commercial investment to women's sports. In less than
two years, she's launched the Business of Women's Sports Summit,
co created the Women's Sports Audient Network with Iart Media,
and build a joint venture with Olympic Icon Allison Phoenix.
Oh and she still finds time to post her own podcast,
court Side, where she interviews the woman driving the future
(01:10):
of the industry. Before Deep Blue, Laura was already rewriting
the rules of advertising a giant spoon, creating first the
industry had never seen before, the first branded podcast to
hit number one on Apple, the first live ad on CNN,
the first single advertiser takeover of The New York Times.
Her career has been all about seeing the white space
(01:31):
and then filling it with bold ideas that others said
were not possible. And we all know everything is possible.
So today I'm thrilled to have Laura here to talk
about sports leadership, business and why women's sports is not charity,
it's good business. A very warm welcome to you, Laura.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you for having me Christian. Have you ever considered
voiceover work? That was fabulous?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Good to know that there's another career waiting for me.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I love that. Yes, thank you so much for the warman.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Laura. I've mentioned your court Side podcast and you always
start with the one question and let's flip the script
and now it's your turn. When did you first fall
in love with sports?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I can very, very vividly remember a five year old
Laura who met under a willow tree with a bunch
of kids I grew up with in New Jersey, and
that willow tree was in the center of a large
sports complex at the time called Gunnaloval, which is where
all great sports dreams in the town I grew up
(02:33):
in in Carney, New Jersey, were born. And some of
those kids that I was gathering with in between our
games probably drinking.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
You who's eating orange slices? For all?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I remember wearing oversized T shirts I played for Carneo
Electronics when I was five years old, and I don't
even remember playing the game Christian. I remember feeling the
joy of just being with my friends in an environment
where I learned at the ripe age the importance of
community and what it meant to belong And I think
so much of what sports has given me is community
(03:05):
in a sense of belonging. And what started as I
would say, quick witted, you know, competitive kid at the
age of five, has served me well thirty five plus
years later in the advertising industry. And so I think
there has been the matics that sports have taught me.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
That's an awesome story. Was it always a kind of
team sport or different top of sports?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I was such a team sport. I mean, if you
could play it, I was doing it. But soccer, basketball
and softball were the sports that I focused on competitively.
I think basketball was probably my best sport, but soccer
was my first love. In the town I grew up
in in New Jersey, I thought the whole world knew
it as Soccertown, USA. But I came to learn later
in life that I think that's just what the people
I grew up with called it. But playing in soccer
(03:46):
town usay, soccer was what you lived and breathed, and
it was all around you. I remember playing everything from
kickball in the street to like weekend Manhunt games with
my neighbors. I just I love to be outside and
I love to play.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, as long as you connect, size and be with others,
I totally get it. I was the same. So which
position in the soccer team.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, this won't surprise anyone that knows me. Center, midfield.
I had to control the game at all angles.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I definitely you did and you're still doing. We will
talk about this in a second. So I was left defender.
So that was my position for years. Yeah, back, let's
talk about sports as leadership. And of course we now
have far more data available. And what I found out
is that we know that ninety four percent of women
in the C suite played sports and over half competed
at college level, which is impressive. So if this is
(04:31):
the number, what do you think the wheel guill transfer
is Is it great? Is it teamwork? Is it resilience?
Or is it something less or maybe more obvious, you know,
to learn how to lose and come back even stronger.
What is it?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And I think it's all the above, definitely a yes
and question. I think such a wide range, and you've
mentioned some of them, you know, teamwork, resilience, adversity, down
to the minu ship, just how to handle feedback and
constructive criticism, the will to win. I think that athletes
that are born with this sort of ingrained switch that
you know how to flip on without the prompting, because
you need to take it to the next gear and
(05:05):
the next level. But I have read something that speaking
to that ninety four percent statistic. There was a great
conversation that happened not too long ago at a conference
that Billy Jean King had hosted and Linda Gates was
featured on a panel, and they were talking about that
ninety four percent number and the number of female executives,
many of whom we would know by name, and certainly
the businesses that they've led, and they created a thesis
(05:27):
that the great unifier of the connection to sport is
that it had taught all of these women about failure,
how to embrace it, how to tackle it, how to
move on from it. And I think when you look
at all of the skills you alluded to, in addition
to that one, I do think it's interesting how being
unafraid to fail your show is called possible, right, leads
(05:49):
to so many great possibilities when you're unencumbered by not
what could happen, but what might happen.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And also because I would say, I mean we always
look at the winnows, right, those ones in the front row.
I mean, this is typically, but there are so many
and we've experienced this on our own. You have also
to learn, you know, to be on the sideline for
at least some time right or to start, you know,
when you join a team to watch, toait but also
to support others. Is that something you still see with
(06:16):
leaders in the boardroom that they learned from that as well,
or is it something you would say, no, they have
to take more over into the business world.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It's a great question and one that I watch on
a regular basis just the changing roles in dynamics of
team members and when you need to step up and
when you know, oftentimes you need to take a backseat.
I vividly remember, for the first let's call it ten
fifteen years of my sporting career, I only knew to
be the captain and a starter. I didn't even know
where the bench was, let alone what it felt like.
(06:44):
And I remember my transition to playing in college and
coming in as a freshman who was wildly in shape's
probably the best shape I'd ever been in, and showed
up with a very seasoned team. I was a young freshman,
a seventeen year old, going up against women who were
four or five years older than me, way more experience,
a ton more training, better skill sets, and for the
(07:05):
first time in my life, I've felt the bench. And
that is a really jolting experience when you come from
what you perceive to be as the best at what
you do, and then you arrive in different rooms or
on different teams and everyone's the best from where they
came from. And I think that those lessons are so
transferable in the boardroom coming into the women's sports space.
From a business perspective, there are people have been in
(07:27):
this space for decades longer than I have. I may
be a practitioner and expert in my craft through the
world of advertising media marketing, I have and still have
a ton to learn about what's worked, what hasn't, why
it hasn't, And so I think constantly being open and
being a student in the game. You know, I talked
to my team a lot about being coachable. I don't
think you can ever stop being coachable when you want
(07:47):
to be the best. And I mean you could point
to some of the greatest athletes of our time who
constantly reference the need for incremental gains, so absolutely transferable skill.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's a lesson you just talked about to be still coachable.
Is that the lesson you still use in your on
board room, you know, coming from your own experience, or
is there another lesson you would like to share with us,
you know, which you can still use in today's business.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I think being coach was probably one of the most
important skills. Never satisfied with being satisfied, you know. I
pride myself in being a student of the game literally
and figuratively. I think there's always something we can learn.
I mean, you even see what the industry is going through.
From an advertising media marketing perspective, From a technology standpoint,
I mean you host a conference that features so much
of what the future holds, and so resting on what
(08:30):
you know is not enough to compete.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
From my vantage point.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Let's talk about business and let's go over to Deep
Blue and your vision. When you create a Deep Blue,
when you would be on our possible stage with all
these you know, cemos and brand leaders in the room,
what would be a key message to them.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So much of the beginning stages of founding Deep Blue
was about really just having marketers recognize the value. In
just a short twelve to eighteen months since founding, the
company will turn two in December of this year. It's
now about right sizing the opportunity. I think people are
very well aware of understanding that there is something happening now,
how closely they're listening. What I have found to be
(09:10):
the most important part is making the business case through
right sizing. I think so much of what we are
focused on today is this is not apples to apples comparison.
I'll give you an example. In twenty twenty four, the
NWSL to the National Women's Soccer League reported that they
generated seventy five million dollars in sponsorship deals. Now you
would say that's a tremendous increase sixteen percent year over
(09:31):
year growth, continuing to show trajectory on the upward swing. However,
as somebody who grew up in the media industry, it's
really important to dimensionalize that number. Well, that number split
across four hundred and forty one brand partners. When you
do basic division, that means the average value of an
annual deal is one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. So
when you hear that as an advertiser, you're like, oh,
(09:52):
this is accessible, this is efficient. But then I take
it a step further and you really start to speak
media math and get under the hood with advertisers who
have to make the business case and are like, well,
is that a lot? Is that a little? What do
I even get for that? And when I quickly explain
to them, well, let's talk on average and what you
spend in sports. From a men's perspective, the average thirty
second spot in the Super Bowl last year was seven
(10:14):
to eight million, So for seven eight million, you could
own the whole damn thing. Further, microscopic example, a thirty
second spot in the Major League Baseball World Series with
no specific guarantees is four hundred and fifty to five
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So for a fourth of
the price you pay for thirty seconds of television time
during Major League Baseball World Series, of which you know,
if it's a blowout, you might not even see, one
(10:37):
hundred and seventy thousand dollars, I can own eight months
worth of inventory. That's the way we like to explain
it to advertisers. And so I think we're way past
the charity recognizing opportunity, and now how do you make
it so that it's an easy yes to get to
in terms of evaluating it as a real, tangible opportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You've mentioned that this came up in twenty four, this dator,
you found a deep blue in twenty three. So what
they're another key moment that you said, okay, now it's
time to do it. Were you approached by your network,
you know, mentors, whoever you knows that Okay, this is
something you have to do though, because you're the only
one you can do it. What was the moment maybe
or was it a process over the years that you decided, Okay,
(11:16):
now it's time to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Sure, there was a light bulb moment. It actually goes
back far beyond twenty three. It was pre COVID twenty nineteen.
During the Women's World Cup at twenty nineteen in France,
the US women's national team had lifted the trophy for
the fourth time, and it was also the same year
that they had sued their employer in US Soccer for
equal pay and won. And there was this climatic moment
where the crowd starts chanting equal pay instead of USA.
(11:40):
And I tell this story often about how the broadcasters
were really excited, but the advertising community didn't budge. I
was very curious as to why, for the second time
in as many decades ninety nine and now in twenty nineteen,
you're seeing consumer demand but advertisers paying little to no attention,
let alone interest and investing or getting under the hood.
(12:01):
And what we quickly realized, Christian is it wasn't a
story issue. The narratives were there, It wasn't a product
issue that US women's national team alone had been one
of the best to ever do it for decades.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was a systems issue.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
We had advertisers evaluating women's sports on the same currency
and metrics, which is reach and efficiency as they were mens.
And so if you have a dollar to spend and
your tasked with finding as many eyeballs as possible, as
efficiently as possible, and I present you Sunday Night football
versus the WNBA Playoffs, you don't have to justify one
of those decisions. And that's where your money's going nine,
(12:33):
if not ten out of ten times. And so it
was a systems issue, one of these things I'm sure
as an entrepreneur you can relate to. You go to
sleep thinking about, you wake up thinking about, and it's like,
I've got to put this to the test. And so
fast forward to twenty three. I ended up posting the
Business of Women's Sports on at the first annual in
April of that year, not knowing if anybody would even
(12:54):
show up, but knowing this could be a determinant as
to whether or not the advertising market would respond.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Not all these did people show up. We sold out
the room.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Marketers were flying from all over the country, and you
know this, to spend your own money and fly cross
country to spend a day on a subject matter that
isn't necessarily part of the mainstream, right, you know, there's interest,
there's intrigue, and so it was one of those I
walked off the stage and it was like, how much
more validation and signaling do I need to take a swing?
And so got to work, dusted off a business plan
(13:24):
and within six months, following a deep listening tour, launched
the business and thanks to the Final Four tournament in
April of twenty four when the world met Caitlin Clark
and Angel Reese, it's been lights out ever since. And
so a lot of work went into the founding of it.
But I don't think anyone, whether you were new or
in the space, could have predicted the trajectory of what
(13:45):
would have happened over the last eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What a great story, and I think you agree. Sometimes
it's not necessary to come up with the brand new
idea the world hasn't seen yet, But it's about timing, right,
and to come up with one hundred percent that year
about timing and you did it. You did it. What
is the hottest myth to break when you started to
talk to people and brands and decision makers, is it
that women's sports don't have the audience. Is it that
(14:09):
there is no money connected to this? What was the
hottest or the biggest hurdle to convince people to get
into the game.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
How much time do we have?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
All of the above, and I think again comes back
to well, what do you typically equate success with? And
then what are the barriers to achieving it? It's very
hard to say. And in classic chicken EG scenario, well,
you know women's sports, there's no money coming in. Well,
advertising dollars and media rights are determined based on audience.
But if the thing isn't on TV broadcast, let alone
(14:40):
in prime time, how do you develop the audience to
bring the money? And so it really had to require
champions who believed in the product, could see the vision,
could see the opportunity, who were listening to the rabbit
fans who have been part of this ecosystem for decades,
to play some early bets, and there were advertisers who did.
I always give credit to Andrew Brimmer and the team
(15:01):
at Ally Financial for placing a bet when this wasn't
the popular thing, saying a few years back, we're going
to commit for every dollar we spend in men's we're
going to spend in women's on an equal footing within
a determinate amount of years, creating a real tangible number
that they needed to achieve. Andrew tells us all the time,
you get into the space and there's actually not enough
inventory to buy, and so you know you've got this
(15:22):
systemic challenge that is multi layered and multifaceted that I
think really just require dedicated attention. When Andrew placed that bet,
you could probably hear a pin drop.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
People didn't really react.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Were they're reacting Now you can't even get in and
that's just a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Who else is following this example? Are these more than
your brands? The younger brands? Is that the mix of
bose Do you see a difference in terms of how
they behave.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
A mix of both.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
So there have been legacy brands who have I would
say always been and we're early believers in the space.
Although those brands now recognize they can't rest on their
first mover position. There is so much new money coming
in that's saying I here first or I was here early,
is no longer enough to keep up with the pace
in trajectory, especially when you have so many new and incremental
fans coming into the space. So those brands who were
(16:09):
there early you see really thinking about innovation and ingenuity.
How do they find incremental gains, new ways of showing
up to meet the modern market, the new market as
well as the new fans. And then you're seeing a
great number of net new brands, I would say, non
endemics to the women's sports or maybe sports space period
who are recognizing this growth, recognizing the get in price
(16:30):
of where they can align Today. I talked about that
one hundred and seventy thousand dollars to be a league sponsor.
You're not getting that type of inroad in men's sports.
We work with brands like Vagisil who first time ever
spending in the space. We broke it to deal with
them with the New York Liberty and the WNBA. The
same thing with Bumble last year as they were coming
in and around the w as well. And so these
are brands who had historically not spent in women's sports
(16:53):
and were now recognizing that not only was it part
of the cultural zeitgeist, that there were real tangible returns
in terms of the audience being there. I think everybody's
really trying to figure out the best opportunity to find
their lane and do it with staying power in.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Terms of media and media coverage and media business. And
you have a great experience in this as well. So
now is all the athletes having their own platforms and
media companies doesn't mean a massive change for your daily
work with them not being you know, just with a
single person in the room, but dealing with a whole
bunch of team members and probably different opinions.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
With athletes in particular. It's really interesting for a number
of reasons. So when you think about us living in
a media era where I would argue it's individual over institution,
the athletes absolutely hold the influence and the impact and
comparison to the leagues and the teams. I often cite
numbers like Angel Rees for example, has four point five
plus million followers on Instagram alone.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I think the WNBA has less than a third of that.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
So when you look at the sheer scale size and influence,
and these athletes, many of them because they have had to,
not many maybe because they wanted to, but it's how
they're bilding their businesses and their brands off the court,
are leveraging and disintermediating traditional media to bypass. Less than
fifteen percent coverage of total sports goes to women's sports.
So if you're not getting the airtime, you have to
(18:12):
create it, and they're going to platforms like social to
do so. That coupled with this next generation who I'm
so enamored by, who is taking the reins on the
nil ruling and running with it in every which direction
to maximize their returns during their college and now high
school years. It is interesting to see how you have
so many of these young, up and coming emerging athletes
(18:34):
who are becoming multi hyphenates before they become professionals. That's
very exciting because what it presents our athletes who have
business sensibility. They understand the value of partnership, sponsorship, building community,
building fan base.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
They know what their fans are looking for.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
There's a level of authenticity that they demand and that
makes for sharper advertising and more effective outputs.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Do you think it's more for brands to get even
better familiar with the newer platforms or the modern platforms
or the state of the air platforms, however we call it,
or is it still a kind of misunderstanding how to
actually connect with fans through women's sports. In other words,
do you see brands need to still learn about the
difference between you know, fans supporting women's sports than men's sports,
(19:29):
or is it more about the new platforms in general.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's a great question, the multi faster one. So what's
interesting about men's sports versus women's is there's actually relatively
low overlap. I just had the opportunity to go on
Alex Rodriguez's podcast, The Deal, and he asked a similar
question as the new owner of the WNBA Links in Minnesota,
and he was surprised to find out it was single
digit crossover between his men's and women's team. So there's
(19:53):
a lot of education that has to happen. And with
that lack of crossover, the need to understand, well, then,
who is this ninety percent plus debt new audience that
I'm going to achieve, perhaps in the same market of
a men's team I'm invested in. So I think yes,
learning the consumer, their habits, their likes, their dislikes. The
women's sports community is a very unforgiving one. These are
(20:13):
people who are rabid fans that have been here before
this was popular, and they drive accountability from those who
are coming into the space, holding brands to a level
of understanding that I haven't seen in many other industries
and verticals. So I think that's part one, and then
part two, how they're showing up in different capacities and
how these athletes are now leveraging the broader ecosystem. I'm
(20:34):
starting to see more female athletes on LinkedIn in the
last six to nine months than I've seen in my
entire life, and I think that's a signal.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
And the content that you see them engaging with their
and how they're trying to connect with the advertising community
or the business community wildly different than what they're doing
when they're dancing on TikTok. Right, it's not a one
size fits all, like anything, I think learning the audience
and what they're after. But then how do you segment
your messaging and your activation across the platforms to best
connect with the fan bases.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Which platform do you use most for your own kind
of content or sharing information? Is it LinkedIn?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It is LinkedIn? I'm not on TikTok, I am not
TikTok dancing. I don't think anybody wants to see that,
but obviously, as somebody in this industry, I'm very well
versed on all the different facets. But when I look
at what we're trying to build Deep Blue as a
B to B company, and so it's important for us
to support our community and our industry with as much thought, leadership, insights,
and guidance and examples as possible. And so I'm regularly
(21:31):
on there sharing what we're seeing in real time and
hopes that for someone that may be the difference between
spending nothing versus spending something.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
We talk about new brands, whether it's more the established brands,
but definitely the are brands coming into the women's sports
world now coming from different industries, right, not the traditional
linked industries. For could be finance, could be beauty, of course,
do they reshape the type of stories and campaigns we
are seeing because of their business background? Is that a
big shift because of their products and services to the
(22:00):
fans of women's sports?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
One hundred percent. And I'll even stay within a category
that has been endemic. So financial service is probably one
of the biggest most active categories in sports period, but
particularly in women's sports. It's definitely one of the higher
spending categories. I think many of them have shown up
historically in the space with the tried and true playbook,
and we know what that is, right, it's presenting sponsorships,
it's naming awards, it's showing up on led boards around
(22:24):
the court. But again, hard pressed to recognize that this
is a different audience in a different environment, certainly cultural
time that we're in. I had the opportunity to work
with mass Mutual on a campaign earlier this year. Mass
Mutual one hundred plus year olds financial institution focus on
protecting the ones you love and insurance, and came across
an insight that an alarming number of women.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Do not have financial confidence.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And when you marry that with the cultural zeitgeist, and
how do you take a statistic that's jarring but really
humanize it and bring it through in a way that
is relatable and accessible. Women's sports presents that approachability. I
think even unlike men's sports, there's a level of access
that exists in women's sports where you could get up
close to the athletes in ways that you know historically
(23:09):
in the sports industry we have not, and so it's disarming.
And so instead of coming out with your classic approach
to highlighting that number and talking about products and Services.
We went a different direction and we engage three athletes
at three different parts of their career, one being an
emerging collegiate superstar and Flage Johnson, who plays for LSU,
who's not only a basketball player, she's also a recording artist,
(23:31):
a true multi hyphen in every sense of the word.
We also had Madison Keys, who's been on the tennis
circuit for quite some time, who had just come off
the Australian Open victory, her first Grand Slam win, as
well as Kristin Press, who's been a veteran on the
US women's national team, a current player for Angel City,
and we start talking about the different stages of financial confidence,
the growth, the team that you need, and instead of
(23:54):
again coming out with a classic financial service ad, we
created something so cinematic that Parawai's these women for their journeys,
the work that they put in, the outputs that they achieve,
to demonstrate that through the rise of their careers, the
team that they would need to achieve their success not
only on the field or on the court, but off
of it as well, and that extends to their finances
(24:15):
as many of them are increasing their earning potential as
the space continues to grow. So we hired an incredible director,
We had an all female production team behind the scenes
and obviously in front of the camera with our talent,
tell this story in a way Christian that you know
you just hadn't seen done. And also to recognize that
this wasn't a women's sports ad. This was a brand
ad that featured female athletes, and so it didn't just
(24:37):
run in women's sports content. It ran across NCAA, March
Mandness tournament in general men's and women's competition. It was
on business platforms, news platforms, sports platforms all the way
through the NBA Finals, And it was really to send
a message in normalizing the conversation, certainly around the female
financial confidence gap, but to also leverage the influence of
these athletes not just because they were women who play sport,
(25:01):
but because they are talented athletes and business people on
a journey. And so I think that was just such
a great manifestation of what we're talking about and going
a layer deeper and developing strategy.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Talk about opportunities. Do you see or would you like
to see a complete new sponsorship opportunity and format to
be introduced using women's sports platforms which doesn't exist yet.
Do you have something in mind?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So I'm glad you asked this.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Quite okay, what is it?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Okay, we talked about the media model not serving the
current ecosystem in terms of where women's sports are today.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Historically haven't had the reach.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Historically, haven't had the technology, the data, all of the
things that we need to make the business case from
a media buying perspective. And so you're like, okay, well,
if it's not a CPM basis, what is it? And
something I would really love to push the media industry
on is right sizing the opportunity not just in terms
of what we're selling, but how we're selling it, and
thinking about ways we can engage advertisers to come in.
(25:56):
Perhaps it's through a flat fee, an engagement based model,
a product lead model. I would just love to see
ways that we can step outside the box and recognize
that we cannot sell something for what it inherently cannot
deliver on if you're going to gate keep it behind paywalls,
if you're not going to put it in prime time,
if the argument is we need more audience than it
(26:16):
needs to come from behind those barriers, and if it's
that there's not enough ad dollars coming in. Well, perhaps
we need more content and so just finding ways to
work with advertisers that goes beyond the system. That is
a very quick and easy sell that we're all very
comfortable and know in this industry to really create the
value versus just transacting in the limited version of it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Have you already identified those advertisers who are keen to
do this and to join you on this, Johnny.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, I give you a great example.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
We're going to be premiering a documentary called the Fastest
Six Weeks in Sports that Deep Blue co produced with Ensemble,
which is a company co founded by Ray focus on
the creator economy as well as Religion of Sports, which
best in class sports production company, and the heart and
fast rule. You have to put together brief and you
have to go get at finance. Then you have to
(27:03):
find a distributor. By the time you make the thing,
we are all the way over here. So in a
sort of roundabout way, understanding the brand market and the
desire for brands to get around more content and be
able to influence and shape it as well as their
narrative within it and alongside it, we decided to go
a different route, and that was to work directly with
brands and executive production roles to underwrite and finance the projects.
(27:27):
So now we are able to make the thing while
simultaneously meeting those production dollars with media dollars to ensure
not only we're making it, but that it's discoverable, so
that we're promoting it, we're driving tune in, building ancillary
content around it, et cetera to increase the likelihood of viewership.
So our first doc, The Fastest Six Weeks, which is
(27:48):
an incredible story about collegiate athletes coming from the final four.
There's literally six weeks between the time they finish that
tournament to the time they enter the league for the
WNBA tip off, which is just incredible. And thanks to
the brand partners we're working with on that, which include
Uncrustables as well as door Dash and a couple of
others will be announcing soon that have come on to
(28:09):
support that, and Roku who was quick to support as
a distribution partner alongside YouTube and a few others. So
just an example of ways to get and market quickly
with ideas and not be encumbered by legacy systems.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Do you feel that women today have more freedom all,
let's say flexibility, or feel more pressure to share multi
dimensional stories off the field, like around motherhood, activism, mental health.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Oh, I don't think they feel pressure at all. I
think they're asking for the microphone. I think that these
are stories that are inherently part of who we are.
I've heard so many athletes say sports aren't who I am,
It's what I do, and it's just one piece of
the layers of the people that we're talking about. Many
athletes are embracing the opportunity to tell your stories, and
there's been so many great examples athletes starting podcasts, starting
(28:56):
full on media companies, making sure that they are showing
the different dimensions of who they are as people off
the court, because the reality is, the on court component
of it has limitations. Currently where we are today, there
are real stealings in terms of the income earning potential
for female athletes as competitors off the court.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Whole different story.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I truly believe today women's sports is more valuable off
the court that it is on. And so when you
think about the need to create those exposure and access
points to bring in new fans, certainly but new brand
partners especially, I think it's a necessary part of the model.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
When scouts are looking for athletes, are there looking for
their voices and values as much as for their performance.
Is it Bose?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
It's such a great question and one that's interesting and
dependent by market.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
What we see in the US is one that.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Is highly highly commercial driven, and so on paper, the
ones that are driving the biggest stats aren't necessarily the
ones that are leading the charge commercially and vice versa,
and so it is interesting to think about what and
how athletes use to develop their business. I mean, look
at Alana mare Usa rugby. This is not a sport
in the US in particular that is part of the
(30:11):
mainstream cultural zeitgeist. Well, lon O mar got everybody thinking
about rugby and how she has leveraged that opportunity in
the Olympics in Paris to build a platform for herself
which is so multifaceted. This is a fantastic example of
where I think athletes who are commercially minded recognizing hey,
there's a shelf life to this thing. Women are showing
(30:32):
up and controlling the controllables by using their platforms and
their narrative to build their businesses is phenomenal different in
other parts of the world, you know, where you see
like football is Life, to quote one of my favorite shows,
Dead Lasso. But in the European markets, which I would
say at a different phase in terms of the commercialization
of the women's game performance rules above all else, I
(30:53):
think that is changing. I think the athletes are demanding
it and particularly keen to watch what happens in the
Women's Super League this year in Europe in the US
in their football season, soccer season for US in the
States to see how these athletes, particularly those who are
coming off winning the Euros and the Lions's that are
in that league, are going to use this platform in
this moment to absolutely build their off pitch brands and
(31:15):
commercial opportunities. Accordingly, I think it's a domino effect that's
happening across the world. I think the US has led
the way for so long, but thanks to social media
and the wide range of knowledge share that is happening
freely across the Internet and the networks that exist, I
do think you're going to see a continued rise that
will expand far beyond the borders here.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So I've mentioned Allison Felix and your partnership with her.
In my intro did a John venture was Always Alpha,
which is a company? Tell us about that, you know,
what do you have in mind with this partnership and
where will it be in New Year's time.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Always Alpha was founded by Alison Felix, as you alluded
to USA Track and Field Icon, along with her partners
West Felix and Cassette Chaput, and their ambition was to
create a talent management firm that was exclusively dedicated to
the needs of female athletes. When they came online earlier
last year, it presented a really interesting proposition in terms
(32:10):
of basically cornering the market. For lack of a better
way of saying it, Deep Blue was really focused on
the commercial side deal flow, thinking about how we get
brands involved in the space. And as somebody's in the industry,
you control the money, you control the market, and so
inasmuch as we could influence as well as educate where
brand investment was going, we would have a seat at
the table. Well, the other side of that coin is
(32:30):
influence and who's driving that, as we talked to earlier
in this episode, are the athletes. And so if you
could maintain a world where you had a vantage point
that included both where dollars were moving but also where
influence was commanding. Now, all of a sudden, you have
a vantage point in this industry in particular that has
never coexisted, and so it was a bit of a
(32:53):
no brainer after a series of conversations with the Always
Alpha leadership team to say, hey, not only can we
support you with deal flow strategy all the things that
we're seeing from a commercial perspective, you can also help
inform the way those deals are moving based on the influence,
trends and first looks that your athletes are seeing that
very few have the opportunity to do.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
In a first person basis.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So we formed a joint venture Shook Hands, with the
intent to become the world's largest firm dedicated to servicing
the women's sports commercial industry alongside the female athlete talent
management business.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Wow, that's an ambitious goal and I'm sure you will
be there very soon, sooner than later. Talk about partnerships
also with ATHLETs. Is there a dream partner could be
an athlet, could be maybe a brand or a leak.
Is there a dream partner for Deep Blue? You know
you're looking for you would like to partner with.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
For me, it's not individuals specific in as much as
it's about innovation and ingenuity, and it's finding and aligning
with partners who are going to push the bounds on
what confines the industry today. Really those who are not
just interested in getting in it for the short term,
but really vested in finding ways to extrapolate it for
the long term. And there's some great examples of athletes
(34:04):
I mentioned Flaje Johnson earlier.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Who're just doing it different.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
There's a very real path for this woman where she
could have a number one single and be a number
one draft picked in the same year. That is pushing
the bounds on how we think about the world and
influence of talent as it relates to the sports and
entertainment industry. And then when you look at some of
the brands that are in and around the space who
are actively looking again not just to transact, but to transform.
(34:30):
Speaking back to that ally example, I mean there's so
many others who are thinking creatively.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Love to partner with them.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Also looking at people who are not just trying to
come in for a season, but really thinking about multi
year deals I think is important to drive longevity and
then just those that have complete abandon for doing things
the way they've been done. Great example of this is
what Nofisa Collier and Brandi Storret had built with unrivaled
feeling a real business need to create opportunities for their
peers in the WNBA and professional basketball to not have
(34:59):
to go overseas in the off season, not have to
leave their families to supplement their income, and in doing
so created a product that surpassed every metric they set
out to.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Achieve in Your one alone.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
And so the amount of innovation and blank canvas that
exists here is what excites me. Christian and anybody who's
willing to come along for that ride.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
We're absolutely game to lock in with.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I love it. So we talked a lot about what
you're currently doing and looking back, you've built platforms, You've
built podcasts and summits and even soccer clubs. I mean,
what a range once one thing which is still missing
in women's sports that you would love to intend maybe
as part of D Blue, maybe outside of D Blue,
is anything else?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I intend to own teams.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
I absolutely love the idea of an endgame being not
just building a portfolio of assets, whether that includes content, media,
certainly consulting, business and services, but the ability to get
back on the pitch, be around the athletes, to influence
the game day experience, really be part of the fabric
of what influencing from the outside right now. But building
(36:02):
it from the inside out is something that is not
just a matter of if. It really is a when
and so for me, it's a through line that isn't
just a vertical in nature. It's one that we absolutely
are thinking horizontally in terms of getting in and around
other ways we can impact and demonstrate proof of concept
to show the true tangible returns of what we believe
this industry delivers on Laura.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Let's say in five years time, when a young woman
is asked when she first fell in love with sports,
what do you hope her answer says about the future
you've built, we've built altogether for women's sports, Will it
be a different answer than today.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
It's fascinating that you asked this question.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I literally just posted or reposted a quote from Alex Morgan,
who is just on the Call Her Daddy podcast. Alex
has a young daughter, and she talked about how she
hopes one day when her daughter is of age and
asked that question, presumably she will only ever have known
a world that is equal. I get chills saying that
out loud, because I think when you look at the
(36:59):
numbers today, but the steady progression of where they're moving,
and the conviction of what the women's sports industry and
community is committed to, and you'll hear it endlessly anybody
you ask, it's leave it better than we found it.
It very much is a pay it forward mentality, one
that certainly didn't start with Deep Blue. I mean, you
can go back fifty plus years thinking about all of
those who came before us and making bets and doing
(37:21):
the hard thing to ensure that the next generation has
what they need to be set up to succeed. And
so that quote that Alex shared sums it up quite beautifully.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
All Right, thank you so much for this exciting and
super inspiring conversation. It was so much fun for me
and I'm sure everybody who's listening, and you know, you
remind us that women's sports isn't just about equally at time,
for sure not. It's about unleashing leadership. It's about rewriting
business models. It's about building movements that last. And you
are superstar and you're such a big mentor for so
(37:51):
many people, especially women. Of course, Thanks again for your
vision and voice, and to my audience out there. Keep
questioning the playbook, keep pushing the boundaries as Laura does,
and above all, keep turning possibilities into reality. This is
all about I see you all soon back for the
next episodes. Thank you so much, Laura, Thank you Christian,
Thanks thanks for tuning in everyone. Once again, I'm your host,
(38:16):
Christian More. If you have a question or suggestion to me,
reach out, send me the m on LinkedIn. If you're
curious to learn more about Possible, sign up for our newsletter,
or if you want to join us at the Possible
Show in Miami, visit possibleevent dot com. Possible Now is
a co production of iHeartMedia and Possible. Our executive producers
(38:36):
are Ryan Martz and Yasmin Melendez. Our supervising producer is
Meredith Barnes. Special thanks to Colleen Lawrence Mac from our
programming team. Our theme music is composed by Anthony Keatcoli.
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