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This story is the latest in our series on women leaders in sports and sports marketing. Read the rest of the profiles here.<\/em><\/p>\nIn a conference room at the headquarters of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League on Madison Avenue one afternoon in late October, Julie Haddon, the league\u2019s chief marketing and commercial officer, had just sat down for an interview when she had an idea for this weekend\u2019s championship festivities. It couldn\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatch me work for one second,\u201d she said, picking up her phone to make a call.<\/p>\n
For Haddon, turning off-the-cuff ideas into reality is par for the course. She didn\u2019t land marketing leadership roles at companies including PayPal, Twitter, eBay, SoFi, and the NFL without a little multitasking\u2014as well as a lot of passion and some heavy lifting to boot.<\/p>\n
She joined the NWSL as CMO in 2022, and in the two years since, the league expanded from 12 to 14 teams (with moreset to join for the 2025 season), signed a four-year media rights deal worth a reported $240 million (its previous three-year deal was worth $4.5 million), and has seen regular-season attendance climb from just over 1 million to 2 million.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a far cry from when Haddon watched her first live women\u2019s soccer game at the 2019 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup, when fans, merchandise, and hype seemed scarce, and the women\u2019s sports landscape looked much different than it does today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no depth, there was no breath, there was no accessibility to find [women\u2019s soccer],\u201d Haddon told Marketing Brew. \u201cIt was hard to experience like a fan\u2026and I got obsessed with fixing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wake-up call<\/h2>\n
When Haddon was SVP of global brand and consumer marketing for the NFL in 2019, she attended a Women\u2019s World Cup game at Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice, France, around the time of Cannes Lions, she said. While it was women\u2019s soccer at the highest level, Haddon said she was surprised to see plenty of empty seats and the absence of merch for sale.<\/p>\n
It was something of a turning point for Haddon, who acknowledged she didn\u2019t even know there was a league where so many of the USWNT\u2019s stars played in the states. A week later, she made a promise to herself to \u201cmake the world a better place for women through sport,\u201d she said, writing down the pledge in a notebook that she has to this day.<\/p>\n
In 2021, she got directly involved, becoming an owner of the Chicago Red Stars, though she eventually gave up her stake in the team to join the league\u2019s front office the next year. There, she personally recruited much of the rest of the marketing department.<\/p>\n
Haddon still likes to maintain relationships with those recruits, and during last year\u2019s championship weekend in San Diego, she invited every league employee who traveled there for the event to her hotel room for pizza after the game, Director of Marketing and Commercial Operations Caroline Chagares recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew her as this baller businesswoman,\u201d Chagares said. \u201cShe has this incredible r\u00e9sum\u00e9 working at all these different companies\u2014big companies, startup companies\u2014in different roles, but the fact that she put that on after an event that there was so much time put into\u2026really says a lot about her as a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up close and personal<\/h2>\n
One of Haddon\u2019s first projects as CMO was changing the content coming out of the league. At the time, she said, it was largely wide-angle shots from broadcasts of games, as opposed to close-ups or behind-the-scenes moments that many sports marketers have come to realize can help make fans feel more connected to athletes. At the NFL, Haddon called it \u201chelmets off\u201d content, and she wanted to replicate the strategy at the NWSL, she said.<\/p>\n
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Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In September 2022, San Diego Wave FC sold out a game against rival Angel City FC, and the 32,000 tickets sold broke an NWSL record at the time. Haddon \u201cwanted the world to see that,\u201d she said, so she hired a videographer and some sideline correspondents to cover the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt probably cost $2,000 all in,\u201d Haddon recalled. \u201cBut from that, 15 million people were able to see the game, versus the 32,000 people who were there, or the small audience that might have seen it at the time when we didn\u2019t have a bigger broadcast deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
That initiative evolved into \u201cPitchside with Pixel,\u201d a social-first content series sponsored by Google Pixel as part of its multiyear partnership with the league.<\/p>\n
There have been other efforts to introduce the league to new fans. At the start of Haddon\u2019s first full season with the NWSL in 2023, she spearheaded the \u201cWe Play Here\u201d campaign, which she said was inspired by her experience at the 2019 World Cup. Not only did it introduce the league to new fans, but it helped boost brand metrics, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has such a vision,\u201d Chagares said. \u201cShe can come up with a creative idea within 10 seconds\u2026She brings these huge ideas to a more growing company, and it really makes us better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marketers have layers<\/h2>\n
Even before her contributions to the NWSL, Haddon\u2019s list of professional accomplishments was long.<\/p>\n
As acting head of marketing and business development at Twitter in the late aughts, she pitched co-founder Jack Dorsey on the idea of the verified badge (and she still has the email as proof). In the late \u201990s and early 2000s, she worked at DreamWorks Animation, where she helped market movies like Ants<\/em> and Shrek<\/em>. And her first job out of college was for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the closest she got to living out her childhood dream of playing baseball in the major leagues.<\/p>\nBut it\u2019s her current work at the NWSL that evoked a smile as she glanced around the league\u2019s office walls, adorned with scarves representing each of the NWSL\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of how we\u2019ve woven ourselves in culture, how women\u2019s sports has found a moment that is so pervasive,\u201d Haddon said. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of the ability to help shape culture and the conversation\u2026I look around this building and I think, \u2018Those scarves are there because of me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is the latest in our series on women leaders in sports and sports marketing. Read the rest of the profiles here. In a conference room at the headquarters of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League on Madison Avenue one afternoon in late October, Julie Haddon, the league\u2019s chief marketing and commercial officer, had just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21735","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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