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This story is the seventh in a series on women leaders in sports and sports marketing. Read the rest of the profiles here and keep reading Marketing Brew for more profiles to come.<\/em><\/p>\nIn 2019, the US Women\u2019s National Team won its fourth FIFA World Cup title, and as the players prepared to accept their medals, the stadium in France erupted in cheers. It wasn\u2019t to chant \u201cUSA,\u201d though\u2014fans began to shout \u201cequal pay\u201d; earlier that year, the USWNT had filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against its governing body, the US Soccer Federation, seeking to be paid equally to the men\u2019s national team.<\/p>\n
Laura Correnti, a longtime media planner and partner at full-service ad agency Giant Spoon, remembers it well. She was watching the game from the Jersey Shore with her best friend, with whom she\u2019d grown up playing soccer, and says she got goosebumps at the historic moment. Not long after that, she began to wonder about the commercial viability of the NWSL, the league in which many of the USWNT players compete stateside. Correnti says she went to its website and found just four brand partners listed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that moment, I remember thinking that if this set of brands doesn\u2019t evolve, and the investment doesn\u2019t increase, I don\u2019t know how this league, and this system, or this infrastructure, can support the demand that we\u2019re seeing from consumers,\u201d Correnti told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n
So she set out to do something about it. After years of testing and planning, Correnti in January opened Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, a firm that she hopes will become \u201cthe leading agency of record for women\u2019s sports,\u201d she said, providing clients like MassMutual, the UCLA women\u2019s basketball team, and Ally Financial strategic counseling and other services as women\u2019s sports becomes an increasingly significant part of brands\u2019 marketing plans.<\/p>\n
Boots on the ground<\/h2>\n
Nowadays, the women\u2019s sports landscape looks quite different than it did in 2019; for one, the USWNT eventually prevailed in its suit against the US Soccer Federation and won pay parity. As athlete pay has increased and viewership has surged, brand interest in women\u2019s sports has grown, and there are several other companies in addition to Deep Blue dedicated exclusively to women\u2019s sports. But when Correnti first started thinking about the concept that would become Deep Blue, the business case for women\u2019s sports was less proven.<\/p>\n
During the early Covid era, Correnti spent her free time learning about the business of women\u2019s sports firsthand: In 2021, she helped found Paisley Athletic, a women\u2019s pre-professional soccer team based in Kearny, New Jersey, where where Correnti grew up, that competes in the USL W League.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so pumped to be back in and around the field experience,\u201d said Correnti, who played Division I soccer at American University. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting reacquainted with sports at the youth and grassroots level made Correnti optimistic about the possibility of creating organizations and systems that support women athletes, and affirmed to her that a firm like Deep Blue focused on increasing marketing and media investment in women\u2019s sports could show women and girls that \u201cthere\u2019s opportunity here should they play and stay in sport,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Birds of a feather<\/h2>\n
Before debuting Deep Blue, Correnti continued \u201cpressure-testing, thesis-building, [and] data collection,\u201d which included speaking with CMOs who played collegiate sports and attending women\u2019s sports conferences. Many of the conversations that were happening at the time, Correnti said, were focused on lessons learned in the years since Title IX was enacted in 1972, but she also wanted to foster conversations about the future of women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n
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So last year she started her own conference, the Business of Women\u2019s Sports Summit, alongside Reddit co-founder, Angel City FC investor, and husband of Serena Wiliams Alexis Ohanian.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s summit, held in late April in New York in partnership with Axios, featured a lineup of athletes like Sue Bird, Aliyah Boston, and Kiki Rice, plus marketing execs including Google\u2019s Kate Johnson, State Farm\u2019s Patty Morris, and MassMutual\u2019s Jennifer Halloran.<\/p>\n
Halloran said she\u2019s been working with Correnti for almost seven years, as Giant Spoon was MassMutual\u2019s media agency of record even before Halloran and her team enlisted further help from Deep Blue on MassMutual\u2019s women\u2019s sports strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great opportunity for me, and for all the brands who have been trying to figure out where and when we can really authentically play\u201d in women\u2019s sports, Halloran told us at the summit.<\/p>\n
Deep Blue clients have access to Correnti\u2019s guidance, and they can also enlist the help of former and current pro athletes: Bird is a partner at Deep Blue, its chief strategy officer, and sits on its athlete advisory council, along with a who\u2019s who of other women sports legends, including six-time Grand Slam champ Rennae Stubbs, former Australian women\u2019s national cricket team member Mel Jones, former Colombian women\u2019s national soccer team member Melissa Ortiz, and American pro golfer Shasta Averyhardt. The council members help provide strategic and creative insights for Deep Blue clients, Correnti said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill they come?\u201d<\/h2>\n
Deep Blue is an affiliate company of Giant Spoon, where Correnti still serves as a partner. They share a CFO\/COO in Nikita Malhotra, and Giant Spoon\u2019s co-founders provided Deep Blue\u2019s seed investment, according to Correnti.<\/p>\n
Though she has the support of that larger agency, Correnti said she\u2019s \u201cwilling to bet [her] career\u201d on Deep Blue. Brands and media companies are increasingly spending more on women\u2019s sports\u2014the NWSL in particular saw a 98% increase in commercial revenue from 2022 to 2023.<\/p>\n
Deep Blue is looking to eventually get into the branded entertainment space, and might also get involved with venture capital. \u201cWho\u2019s to say that Deep Blue couldn\u2019t own a women\u2019s sports team at some point?\u201d she said. On Tuesday, Correnti announced at the summit that the firm partnered with iHeartMedia on a soon-to-debut Women\u2019s Sports Audio Network.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, though, Correnti\u2019s focus is to \u201ckeep the conversation moving\u201d around women\u2019s sports at events like Cannes and the Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be successful if in fact, at the end of this year, more money via brand dollars moves into the women\u2019s sports space than when we started,\u201d Correnti said. \u201cThat is the ultimate marker of success.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is the seventh in a series on women leaders in sports and sports marketing. Read the rest of the profiles here and keep reading Marketing Brew for more profiles to come. In 2019, the US Women\u2019s National Team won its fourth FIFA World Cup title, and as the players prepared to accept their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\n
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