Strictly business: WPLL, Bay FC and Golden State Valkyries
Highlights from women's sport business conversations at Leaders conference in London
A quick update on what's going on in the biz. Also, check out Max Radwan’s piece on Arsenal’s first two games with interim head coach Renee Slegers.
In this piece: WPLL on beer, 3pm TV games and homegrown players, Bay FC’s commercial deals and Angel City’s shirt sponsorship numbers.
The international break has just begun and that means there’s time to take the attention away from the drama of the WSL and reflect on some interesting conversations happening in the world of women’s sport.
I started my journalism career writing about sports business so I’ve always kept an eye on the commercial side of sport, even when my career took me into mainstream football media.
Every now and then, I like to dive back into sports business topics. We recently covered women’s football media rights on Counter Pressed and I also wrote a piece for SportsPro about the power of community in women’s football.
I wanted to do a specific piece on The Cutback about some of the interesting conversations that happened at Leaders conference in London last week.
Leaders is one of the biggest conferences in the industry. There are often some big hitters in attendance and this year was no different. Don Garber, commissioner of Major League Soccer, was a guest speaker, as was Amanda Staveley, known for making the Saudi Arabia-backed takeover of Newcastle United happen a few years ago.
Like any big conference, some of these appearances end up being nothing more than just glossy PR presentations. But, when it comes to women’s sport, there were certainly some interesting soundbites.
I sat down with Brady Stewart, chief executive of NWSL club Bay FC, and Jess Smith, president the Golden State Valkyries, a new WNBA franchise. I also listened to Nikki Doucet, chief executive of the WPLL (company in charge of the WSL and Championship) in conversation with Maria Raga, WPLL independent non-executive director and former chief executive of Depop. The Q&A section between Doucet and Raga was particularly interesting.
Anyway, here are some of the highlights.
WPLL
I already covered the big news story that Doucet mentioned on stage but in case you missed it, there was an update on beer. Well, sort of.
Doucet said that the WPLL would be trialling alcohol in the stands for fans at a small number of Championship clubs this season, my understanding is it’s two clubs but I don’t know the specific clubs that are taking part.
She was asked by Raga if beer would ever be allowed in the stands at women’s matches. Here’s her full response: “We are testing that actually in a couple of teams in the Championship this season and we'll see what we learn from that. I think our fan base and the behaviour is different and I think ultimately, it's about being able to give our fans choices while obviously maintaining the safety and what we need to do from being responsible from that perspective”.
It is going to be complicated to sort out as legally alcohol hasn’t been allowed in view of the pitch from the Premier League down to the National League since 1985. But a trial has been mentioned before by Tracey Crouch, the former Conservative MP who led the football fan review in 2021. She suggested a possible trial in League Two and National League but it never materialised.
Doucet was also asked about the Saturday 3pm slot that had been coveted for women’s football since the Karen Carney-led review suggested having a dedicated TV slot for women’s football. In the UK, live football isn’t allowed to be broadcast between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on Saturdays. This is to protect attendances across all leagues. It’s a rule that’s been around since the 1960s and there has been constant talk of it being scrapped for men’s football too. If you are interested in my position on the subject, I am firmly against it because we have to protect the entire football pyramid TM. Michael Cox explains why in this piece.
Anyway, here’s what Doucet said on the 3pm slot: “There's complexity of being in this broader ecosystem. We are a part of the broader football ecosystem. We share a lot of the same shareholders with the Premier League and the EFL. So need to be really thoughtful around the purpose of why that's there and at the moment it's something that will stay and isn't something that we are able to access. As we work together, and that's why, going back to the concept of partnership is so important, is that we have to work together to figure out, you know, we're sharing stadiums, the fixture scheduling, the broadcast scheduling, all of that's really important. And so we have to work together to figure out how we can make sure all the fans are being served as best they can”.
I’m glad that the conversation around trying to get the 3pm time slot for women’s football has died down a bit. It was always unrealistic and was not going to be the golden goose that so many hoped because it was going to open a Pandora’s Box that would likely see the Premier League also taking a 3pm slot later down the line. Once that happens, the WSL wouldn’t get any air time.
On pathway for homegrown players in the WPLL (off the back of Tom Garry’s piece), Doucet said: “Yes, so I think it's about having the right relationship with the FA. So obviously the FA is responsible for grassroots. We need to make sure that the tip of the pyramid at the WSL and the Championship are generating the revenues, one to support the top of the pyramid, but equally, the top of the pyramid should be able to support the bottom of the pyramid. So we have to make sure that's working, and it is all interconnected. We have to have the right grassroots programmes, the right talent pathway, the academies, the investment that's required there, how the clubs are continuing to develop players. There's a lot of work that has to be done”.
Bay FC
Brady Stewart, chief executive of Bay FC in the NWSL, was also at the conference, the media got some separate time with her. We spoke about the failed Bos Nation launch, she was very diplomatic about how hard it is to get a franchise launch right.
I also asked her about what the WSL could learn from the NWSL’s commercial successes, especially some of the club specific deals (see Angel City below). Stewart said: “I think in general, what all people trying to grow women's sports need to, I don't know if it's learn, and maybe that's not the word I would use, but can focus on, is that if the goal is to elevate the athletes and elevate the sport globally, which in my opinion, it is, we all need to build a more robust commercial engine.
“Having a bigger, stronger, better commercial engine is how we get the athletes what they deserve and allow us to invest in the fan experience. So it kind of begins and ends with the commercials. It's something we think about at Bay FC all the time. Our goal is to change the world, right? We want to change the way female athletes are considered and professional women's sports teams are viewed. In order to do that, we need to build a strong business.”
Some specific examples Stewart cited were around sponsorship deals that bring experiences or engagements to players. Bay FC’s deal with Visa has an element around elevating individual player profiles. The front of shirt sponsor Sutter Health, a California-based health provider, has a partnership that is specifically built around preventing girls from dropping out of sport.
This is common place in modern day sports sponsorship. Partnerships have to be built on more than just branding, it’s the same with Barclays and the commitment to getting girls playing football in schools with the FA. Companies expect to build something a bit more tangible with their deal.
In the case of football shirt sponsorship, especially in England, it is still often just a logo printing exercise and in the case of commercials, money talks. That’s why we see so many betting companies on the front of shirts in the Premier League and EFL.
Marketing can help turn anything into more than just a logo but that also costs money. It’s going to be interesting what WSL clubs do with their front of shirt opportunities. We still have two teams that are playing without one this season - Chelsea and Aston Villa. Betting companies are not being welcomed into the women’s game, for obvious reasons, so how are clubs going to get a slice of that NWSL club money?
Golden State Valkyries
Speaking of shirt sponsorship, I loved chatting to Jess Smith from the WNBA’s newest franchise the Golden State Valkyries. She is seriously impressive. Three of us chatted to Smith for 40 minutes in the media room, she was happy to answer everything and anything.
Smith was chief business officer at Angel City, who have been celebrated as one of the most commercially successful teams in women’s football. Now there is a certain a caveat to some of the Angel City hubris, its franchise sport and the team was looking for a new majority owner so obviously its in the club’s interest to talk up commercial wins. The team brought in the most revenue ($31 million in 2023, double the next highest team and $11 million was from sponsorship, according to Sportico), but it also is one of the league’s biggest spenders.
Angel City recently sold for $250 million and now has a new majority owner in Bob Iger, the chief executive of Disney. The original investment group paid $2 million to enter the league. Owning sports teams is the same as the stock market, you need to move the investment on when you can.
In terms of Smith’s role. She smashed it. She needed to bring in the commercial deals and she cleaned up.
One of the big wins she cited was the shirt sponsorship deal she secured with DoorDash, basically Deliveroo in the US. When she arrived at Angel City an agency had valued the club’s front of shirt sponsorship at $1 million per season. Smith ignored the valuation based on the fact that the agency hadn’t considered the celebrity ownership group including Serena Williams and Natalie Portman would be wearing the jersey on a regular basis and that reach and media value hadn’t been considered.
Angel City managed to secure a deal that was “three times” the original main kit front-of-shirt sponsor valuation. US media has reported DoorDash’s deal is worth around $10-12 million across five years. The overall shirt sponsorship inventory, including sleeve, back of shirt and practice kit, has a combined value of “five times over plus” the original valuation, according to Smith.
Here’s Smith’s full answer on it: “The biggest plan is building a product that's worthy of the asks that we're making and valuing it correctly. Often in women's sports, the inventory has been undervalued and there hasn't been the strategy around even understanding that and making sure that what you're building, you're charging correctly for in the marketplace.
“When I came into Angel City, for instance, a valuation company we work with told us we should go charge a million dollars in the marketplace. I was like, why? And they said ‘well historically, here's the numbers that women's sports teams get, and here's what we think from the media perspective’.
“They had no social media in there. They weren't considering things like Natalie Portman and Serena Williams were gonna be wearing this jersey. And they're the ones that are the experts that teams are listening to, saying this is what you should go charge in the marketplace. They were wrong. We didn't listen to them. We went to market for something much higher that I knew was relatable to at the time, current MLS deals, that we could go monetise, and we got it because we built a product worthy of that, and told the right story and executed against the deliverables that we had.
“Similarly right now, with the Valkyries, with the visibility of the WNBA, with what Golden State is, with what we're planning to do with merchandise and merchandise sales, we're doing something that people haven't done before. So the valuation of those things is important. We have to take our key pieces of inventory and make sure that we monetise that correctly."
I asked Smith if other teams have learned from Angel City’s success and the potential under valuing of sponsorship deals. Here’s what she said: “Totally. So when we came in it was a much different place in the NWSL. When I first came in, it [the league] was under a different commissioner. People had asked what I was going to charge and market on a president's call, and I told them and they laughed. They laughed at what they thought we knew we could go get and we came back the next month, and we're like, by the way, it sold in one month's time, so we probably undervalued it and it set a new standard, for sure.
“When I left the NWSL there were then six teams, within the range of multi million dollar per year deals, with front of jersey partnerships and that's huge, right? Often in football you're seeing 40%, 50%, 60% of the overall partnership portfolio come from how you monetise your jersey because of what that means and the visibility standpoint and men's teams have been doing that for a long time. All that does is increase the ability to hire more staff, give more resources to the organisation and so forth. So it's been a key learning, I think, and progression in all women's sports.”
The NWSL and WNBA are in a a strong place because the teams play in lucrative markets, with brand new arenas and with celebrity fans. English sport just doesn’t have the same aura. One of the biggest TV moments of the last decade was the Sutton United goalkeeper eating a Pukka Pie live during a game. It was then a huge scandal.
What the WSL needs to lean into is the heritage brands, the unique football culture, the rivalry and the traditions. That is the USP that American sports are still trying to build. Or, you can just get an iconic mascot like New York Liberty’s Ellie the Elephant.
Till next time.
Good read thanks.
Really enjoyed this , interesting insight into the commercialisation of women's sports, NWSL get so many things right in that respect