{"id":3194,"date":"2023-06-30T02:55:27","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T02:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/marketing\/theres-a-new-crop-of-agencies-dedicated-to-pairing-brands-with-women-athletes\/"},"modified":"2023-06-30T02:55:28","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T02:55:28","slug":"theres-a-new-crop-of-agencies-dedicated-to-pairing-brands-with-women-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=3194","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a new crop of agencies dedicated to pairing brands with women athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s been a big year for women\u2019s sports. At the college level, the major women\u2019s basketball and softball tournaments broke viewership records. Meanwhile, the NWSL has been expanding, with more teams to come, and the US Women\u2019s National Team is gearing up for a World Cup that\u2019s expected to be the most-attended women\u2019s sporting event ever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Over the past few years, sports marketing execs have taken note of the increased interest, and several have started companies aimed at helping brands capitalize. But it isn\u2019t always easy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy peers were like, \u2018Sara, I could do a Monday Night Football deal for three times the amount of your WNBA deal, and it takes 5% of the work that you\u2019re doing,\u2019\u201d Sara Gotfredson, who last year founded women\u2019s sports media advisory group Trailblazing Sports Group after 18 years at ESPN and Disney, told Marketing Brew. That\u2019s when she thought to herself, \u201cI think there\u2019s a big need for more folks with advertising and sponsorship backgrounds to be out there talking to brands about investing in women\u2019s sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For some early entrants, business wasn\u2019t always exactly booming. But in the past year or two, they\u2019ve started to experience growth and notice a shift in the types of conversations brands are having about opportunities with women athletes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The underdog<\/h2>\n
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Right before starting his own agency, Matt Hochberg was on a call between an NBA player and a brand when he realized that it seemed like the player, \u201cwho was already making tens of millions of dollars from his NBA contract, was just not really excited or didn\u2019t really care much about that deal that he was about to sign to make all that money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With women athletes, it was often a different story. \u201cI was at the same time working on deals with NWSL players, beach volleyball players, and softball players,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile those deals are smaller in size and scope, I saw firsthand how excited those athletes were about those deals, and how those deals were truly impacting their livelihoods.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hochberg realized there was an opportunity, and in December 2019, he started Hochberg Sports Marketing, an agency that now represents NWSL stars like Ali Riley as well as a roster of other women athletes and athletes in emerging sports. Parity, a company that facilitates partnerships between brands and more than 800 pro women athletes, got its start the following month. Two months later, Covid hit the US, bringing sports to a grinding halt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI literally, for the first seven months of HSM, made zero dollars,\u201d Hochberg told us. \u201cThere was not a penny of revenue that we generated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The email newsletter guaranteed to bring you the latest stories shaping the marketing and advertising world, like only the Brew can.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then, slowly but surely, the agency started gaining traction with brands. The NWSL became the first professional contact sports league to resume play in the US in June 2020, and Hochberg said HSM started to see revenue come in that same month. Gross revenue increased 50% from that year to 2021, then by 200% from 2021 to 2022, he told us. The agency is on track to see another 100% increase by the end of this year, though he did not share more specific revenue numbers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cVirtually on a daily basis, we are chatting with brands about investing in female athletes,\u201d Hochberg said. \u201cNot all of those conversations turn into deals, of course, but there\u2019s clear interest on a daily, weekly basis from brands in investing in women athletes. It\u2019s been night and day from December 2019 to June 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Alana Casner, VP of content and strategy at Parity, said that after some momentum in 2018 and 2019, women\u2019s sports took off considerably in 2020. The pandemic, she said, was \u201cone of the best things to happen to women\u2019s sports, because for periods of time, it was the only thing on\u2014and instead of not showing it, the streaming services and the channels were like, \u2018Oh wait, let\u2019s do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The surge in interest has some in the industry eager to see even more growth. \u201cOver the last year, the momentum and the movement has grown stronger, but we still have a long way to go,\u201d Gotfredson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

More than a dealing<\/h2>\n
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There\u2019s also progress to be made in the way brands work with women athletes. Casner said some don\u2019t yet \u201creally understand\u201d the space. As an example, some brands see \u201cwomen athletes as \u2018influencers\u2019\u201d to do one-post deals with, as opposed to larger partnerships, Hochberg said. And the number of brands \u201cthat are really, truly investing\u201d isn\u2019t as large as some might like, Gotfredson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But there have been changes for the better. HSM is in talks with one brand about investing in multiple women\u2019s soccer players as opposed to just one, Hochberg said. More brands are also interested in longer-term deals with women athletes now than they were before, according to Hochberg; in the past month, HSM has had two conversations with brands focusing on equity deals in addition to cash.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Equity-focused deals can mean a higher level of risk, Hochberg said, but \u201cif it\u2019s a brand you believe in and you\u2019re passionate about and interested in, that\u2019s really a way to build long-term wealth, especially in a society that doesn\u2019t pay women in the sports industry as much as they should be paid.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a big year for women\u2019s sports. At the college level, the major women\u2019s basketball and softball tournaments broke viewership records. Meanwhile, the NWSL has been expanding, with more teams to come, and the US Women\u2019s National Team is gearing up for a World Cup that\u2019s expected to be the most-attended women\u2019s sporting event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\nThere\u2019s a new crop of agencies dedicated to pairing brands with women athletes | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s been a big year for women\u2019s sports. 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