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<\/p>\nIt wasn\u2019t easy for the Washington Spirit to re-sign star forward Trinity Rodman heading into this year\u2019s NWSL season.<\/p>\n
Late last year, Rodman\u2019s contract negotiations led to a back-and-forth over league salary caps, which had previously come under scrutiny after several USWNT stars left the NWSL to play overseas for massive transfer fees.<\/p>\n
For Rodman and the Spirit, the story has a happy ending. In late December, the NWSL introduced a \u201chigh impact player\u201d rule letting teams pay as much as $1 million over the salary cap for top athletes, which has been nicknamed \u201cthe Rodman rule\u201d because of how it factored into the athlete\u2019s contract negotiations with the Spirit and the league.<\/p>\n
While the Rodman rule remains controversial, facing challenges from the league\u2019s players\u2019 union, the athlete\u2019s decision to remain in DC has given the Spirit cause to celebrate\u2014and celebrate they have. On February 2, the Spirit lit up DC with more than 100 bus-shelter and billboard ads touting Rodman and leveraging her international stardom in an effort to attract hometown fans. It was part brand-awareness campaign, part ticket promotion, and the effort drove a \u201csubstantial number\u201d of sales for the Spirit\u2019s home opener, according to Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Kim Bolt.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we were working to re-sign Trinity, we always knew that we wanted it to be a big moment,\u201d Bolt told Marketing Brew. \u201cA lot of the storyline and momentum of the original announcement extended even beyond just women\u2019s sports, or sports in general, and really had broader cultural, lifestyle, fashion reach\u2026But what was missing was really, \u2018How is this going to be a moment back home?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Get outside<\/h2>\n
Rodman was on the road for USWNT training during her re-signing announcement in January, but back in DC, Bolt said the Spirit were planning for a \u201cfollow-up moment to sustain the news.\u201d Since Rodman wears jersey No. 2 for the team, a campaign timed to February 2 made sense.<\/p>\n
For 30 minutes that day starting at 2:22pm, 126 digital bus shelter displays throughout DC neighborhoods showed \u201c#2\u201d in Rodman\u2019s handwriting, as well as a QR code that led to a landing page offering two tickets to the Spirit\u2019s home opener on March 13 for $22. After the initial 30-minute window, ads switched to visuals showing Rodman\u2019s full signature. Those ads, as well as additional OOH creative showing Rodman with the tagline \u201cDC is Trin\u2019s turf,\u201d ran for another week, Bolt said.<\/p>\n
The campaign, called \u201cAll In On 2,\u201d was designed with new fans and nonfans in mind in order to \u201cget people to know her name, know her number,\u201d Bolt told us, but since the NWSL, and Rodman in particular, already has a substantial following, Bolt and her team also wanted to include some shoutouts to the Spirit\u2019s existing fanbase.<\/p>\n
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Back at Rodman\u2019s re-signing in LA, the Spirit invited a young soccer player who styled her hair after Rodman\u2019s pink braids during the Paris Olympics. Some fans might recognize the fan, Emma, from the Spirit\u2019s most-viral Instagram post of 2024.<\/p>\n
Adidas assist<\/h2>\n
The campaign was further boosted by Adidas, a sponsor of Rodman\u2019s, which ran OOH ads of its own, including at Nationals Park. Bolt said her team knew Adidas would likely be working with Rodman around the news of her re-signing, so the two organizations put together a \u201ccoordinated effort in terms of how we prepared for that moment,\u201d Bolt said.<\/p>\n
The campaign was largely geared toward brand awareness, and resulted in over a million earned media impressions, as well as another million from the paid media push, which combined OOH with geotargeted ads on Meta platforms, Bolt said.<\/p>\n
OOH is \u201csomething that I think is very good for awareness, but not necessarily to drive conversions, and so the way that we had approached this was actually like a one-two punch,\u201d she said. \u201cWe did a big out-of-home moment takeover, but we combined it with that geotargeted, paid digital buy, so we could really get the best of both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Player powered<\/h2>\n
In the wake of the Rodman campaign, Bolt said she plans to keep spotlighting Spirit players and cementing the team\u2019s brand in the DC area to drive hype ahead of the start of the NWSL season next month.<\/p>\n
Given the team\u2019s focus on highlighting players, as well as the general importance of athletes to team brands, Bolt said she hopes continued investment in women\u2019s sports will lead to more American stars sticking with the NWSL as opposed to playing overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that there\u2019s been a turning point for women\u2019s sports where it\u2019s the norm that the ticket sales keep climbing and the viewership and ratings keep climbing,\u201d she said. \u201cFor some of these star players that are American, [it can mean a lot] to be playing for the NWSL on your home turf.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n