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When Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal of the World Cup for the 1999 US Women\u2019s National Soccer Team during penalty kicks, she celebrated by taking off her jersey and falling to her knees. It didn\u2019t take long before her celebration became an instantly recognizable moment in sports history.<\/p>\n
The USWNT star was subsequently courted by brands like Nike, Gatorade, and Bud Light, and she appeared in commercials for those brands in the years afterward, but even then, she recalled, she was the exception, not the rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe landscape wasn\u2019t ready for us,\u201d Chastain told Marketing Brew. \u201cWe had good soccer, but we didn\u2019t have a good stadium, we didn\u2019t have great sponsorships, we certainly didn\u2019t have media outlets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The landscape certainly looks different now compared to when Chastain was playing. More fans and sponsors are paying attention to women\u2019s soccer than ever before, and NWSL team valuations are approaching a collective $1.5 billion as expansion teams like the Utah Royals and Bay FC join the league. Chastain is a co-founder of Bay FC, and more than two decades after she retired from the national team, she\u2019s still in demand among brands: She recently served as the keynote speaker at a June conference hosted by Bay FC sponsor Contentstack.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the conference, Chastain spoke with Marketing Brew about the business of women\u2019s soccer in the US and the state of its sponsorship and fan landscape.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/em><\/p>\nYou mentioned that when you were playing, US Soccer had a great on-pitch women\u2019s product, but the sponsorship support wasn\u2019t there. What\u2019s changed since then to get more brands to invest?<\/strong><\/p>\nYou have to look at the women in the sports space. Billie Jean King is the greatest advocate for women and women in sports\u2026and honestly, I think it really took generational time for those people [in corporate America] who have daughters and girls, not just to say, \u201cOkay, my daughter likes soccer, I\u2019ll dip into my pocket.\u201d It\u2019s, \u201cI see this as a corporate endeavor that could produce a lot of great attention.\u201d The space and the stories that go along with these women are truly fascinating, and they\u2019re inspiring, and I think that was really, to me, the tipping point\u2014those first few [brands] like Visa. They really pushed US Soccer outside of its comfort zone\u2026They put some pressure on US Soccer to see that [splitting Visa\u2019s sponsorship dollars equally between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s national teams] was a great opportunity for both of them.<\/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
As a team co-founder, how do you think soccer organizations can capitalize on the boom of interest around women\u2019s sports in general and learn from other leagues like the WNBA?<\/strong><\/p>\nHow do we go out and get women who\u2014in whatever sector they live, work, play, or exist in\u2014have never felt welcome to sports? How do we embrace them? I\u2019ve said this at the beginning of when we started Bay FC that we need to literally open our gates, welcome every woman from six months to 60 to 80 years old, and say, \u201cThis is for you. You don\u2019t have to feel uncomfortable. You don\u2019t have to know all the answers. Come and be a part of this\u2026\u201d This is not a knock on men\u2019s sports, I just feel like this is a fact: They\u2019ve been around longer. They have grown to humongous, humongous valuations. The space is really desirable, but it\u2019s really compact, and now, there\u2019s a great amount of space between the athletes and the fans, and that\u2019s hard. That\u2019s hard for a fan. Now, fans want to feel like they have something invested. They can really impact the space, and I think that\u2019s genuinely, for me, why I love sports so much, whether I\u2019m playing or watching someone play, to have those emotional connections and feel like my presence in the stadium helps make a difference. That\u2019s pretty amazing.<\/p>\n
A lot of athletes these days, especially women athletes, are focused on building their own brands in addition to working with sponsors. Was that a viable strategy to grow an audience when you were playing?<\/strong><\/p>\nThe landscape has changed so much that you almost can\u2019t compare most things to what has happened in the past. I think the thing that you can connect is that women have always had to hustle\u2026I was up in the Northern California area doing an event with Bank of America and [former national team star] Julie Foudy, and a woman came up to me and said, \u201cMan, I was a basketball player, and I think I was born three generations too late,\u201d and I got what she meant. Even me, who had a big moment, even trying at that point to make a brand was not easy. I probably could have done much better had it been in this day and age, with the outreach and the eyeballs and the good side of social media. But on the flip side, we also have to be aware that not everybody has to be a brand\u2026I think that\u2019s not for everyone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal of the World Cup for the 1999 US Women\u2019s National Soccer Team during penalty kicks, she celebrated by taking off her jersey and falling to her knees. It didn\u2019t take long before her celebration became an instantly recognizable moment in sports history. The USWNT star was subsequently courted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22451","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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