The Brands Shaping the Future of Women's Sports Sponsorship

Investment in women's sports is growing rapidly, and for brands looking to get in on the ground floor, several companies are providing a playbook. Heading into upfront season, women's sports are one of the hot ticket items, and the reasons are obvious: Ratings are growing exponentially—including highlights such as coach Dawn Staley and South Carolina's NCAA championship win over Caitlin Clark and Iowa averaging 18.9 million viewers, more than the 14.9 who tuned in for the men's title game—and fans are showing sponsorship loyalty, with one in three women’s sports fans telling Global Web Index they think more positively about sponsors when they support a favorite team or league. For companies trying to get in on the action, early adopters such as Ally, Visa and Aflac are leading the way and proudly sharing their game plans. “I think people that are in it need to stand on the mountaintops and shout it,” Ally chief marketing and PR officer Andrea Brimmer told ADWEEK. "We need to be willing to share our data, our knowledge, pound the pavement, get on stages … talk about it in terms of what it's doing for businesses, not that it's a nice thing to do.” A stronger Ally In 2022, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Title IX education amendment of 1972, which prohibited federally funded schools from discriminating based on sex, financial services company Ally pledged to evenly split its sports marketing spend between men’s and women’s sports. A year later, its 50/50 pledge stands at a nearly 60/40 split between men's and women's sports. Ally has increased women's sports media investment by 300%—helping CBS move the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) Championship game into primetime (increasing viewership by 71% from a year earlier) and striking a media deal that placed 90% of its ESPN spend into women’s sports. This year, Ally is continuing to push its investments even more. The company signed a multi-year, multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with the reigning back-to-back WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces and paired it with a national media sponsorship deal for WNBA games. It also added Aces players Alysha Clark and Sydney Colson to its Team Ally roster of more than a dozen sponsored athletes and artists. Those initiatives, along with sponsorships with Just Women’s Sports, The Gist and Re—Inc’s Re—Media (founded by USWNT players Christen Press and Tobin Heath) and activations such as the Just Women’s Sports x Ally Party at the NWSL Championship and a Super Bowl event with Laura Correnti’s Deep Blue, have helped increase Ally's investments in women's sports to 44%, with brand value growing along the way. What it looks like when Ally takes over ESPN's SportsCenter. Brimmer pointed out that Ally’s brand value grew by more than 30% last year as the banking category’s overall value dropped 3%. In addition, consumer trust in Ally grew by 10% in 2023, and Ally’s awareness, sentiment and consideration remain high—as does its revenue and number of new banking customers. In addition, 65% of all customers at Ally’s digital storefront in 2023 were women. Apart from being invited to Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence as part of a group recognized for its contribution to women’s sports, those numbers represent the greatest validation of Brimmer and Ally’s approach to women’s sports marketing. “This wasn't just like, ‘Oh, we did it because Andrea played soccer at Michigan State, she was a product of Title IX and she just wants to go play around in this women's sports stuff,'” Brimmer said. “There is a business thesis behind this, and it's proving out.” Everywhere it wants to be Back in 2019, long before anyone heard of the Caitlin Clark Effect, Visa was reaching a sponsorship agreement with U.S. Soccer that pledged at least 50% of the company’s investment to the U.S. Women’s National Team and women’s soccer programs in support of the USWNT’s push for an equal pay agreement that finally arrived in 2022. And the investment is more than just goodwill. According to a 2023 report by Wasserman’s The Collective on women’s soccer, female sports fans are younger, more highly educated and more affluent compared to their male counterparts. They are also 54% more aware of sponsors and 45% more willing to buy from team sponsors than men. Visa serves as sponsor of the SheBelieves Cup women's soccer tournament. Last year, just before the Women’s World Cup, Visa extended its agreement another five years under the same terms. But the company recognizes it can't do everything itself. “We still need to see more equality from bad brands across the board, like commitment to equal spend on women athlete partnerships,” said Andrea Fairchild, Visa’s svp of global sponsorship strategy. “It's not something that's like in fashion or on trend. It is about making sure that we as brand stewards are closing that gap on and off the field.” In trying to foster an environment in which women and men in athletics thrive equally, Visa’s equity efforts have spread to its other sports sponsorships. At this year’s Super Bowl, the company unveiled a partnership with Formula 1’s Red Bull Racing that makes it a major player in the women-driven F1 Academy. Plus, Visa used its NFL sponsorship to support the league’s girls’ and women’s flag football programs, which pushed the sport into the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and the company heads into the upcoming Paris Olympics and Paralympics with more than half of Team Visa's 140+ sponsored athletes being women—the first time that's happened for the company, which has been an Olympic sponsor since 1986. Exclusive: Bay FC Debuts First Brand Campaign Ahead of NWSL Season Recently named a sponsor of the NWSL’s Bay FC expansion team, Visa also sees an opportunity to reach engaged women’s sports audiences in the backyard of its San Francisco headquarters and make an impact with local organizations and fans. “You just have to keep building,” Fairchild said. “You've now got the data to back up the spend. The more momentum that is happening, the easier it is to ensure that those equality numbers are starting to balance themselves out.” Joining the flock After Aflac leaders witnessed Auburn freshman Kharyssa Richardson suffer a head injury at the Las Vegas Invitational in 2022, lying on the floor for 45 minutes waiting for paramedics, the company decided to step up. In 2023, Aflac shifted its spending from the men’s Final Four to the women’s Final Four and teamed with South Carolina coach and Aflac pitchwoman Dawn Staley and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) to address Dawn’s List of inequities in women’s sports. Among its activations and promotions, the company sponsored the Oui-Play matchup in Paris between South Carolina and Notre Dame, ran spots on ESPN featuring Staley and former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski throughout the college season, and partnered with women’s sports bar The Sports Bra and media and commerce company Togethxr to throw a series of March Madness watch parties. Plus, the brand’s 50-foot billboards of Staley and light-rail trains wrapped in her image were some of Portland’s most impressive displays of March Madness. Coach Dawn Staley and the Aflac duck on a 50-foot billboard in Portland. Showcasing how brands can get involved in local communities to support women's sports, Aflac and the WBCA sponsored a basketball skills clinic for 200 athletes from grades 5-8 ahead of the Final Four in Cleveland. Aflac also serves as presenting sponsor of the WBCA's Assistant Coach of the Year award at its annual convention, paying winners’ travel costs and donating $30,000 to the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Overall, Aflac increased its investment in women's college basketball by more than 400% at a time when the sport shows no signs of slowing down, with Sweet 16 viewership up 96% and Elite 8 audiences growing 184% this year. “What we've seen is that women's sports media buys are over-delivering significantly,” said Aflac CMO Garth Knutson. “When I package that all up and share it with someone like our CFO or CEO, it's a pretty clear and easy argument to make for women's sports for a company like this.”

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