Sportico’s WX3 Conference Spotlights Women Driving Sports Business
Everything from the WWE-UFC merger, to private equity investments in sports, to marketing both the country’s biggest and newest leagues, to new approaches to partnerships was on the table in Los Angeles on Wednesday at Sportico’s WX3 conference, powered by Octagon.
Just one example: Angel City president and co-founder Julie Uhrman is emphatically looking for a dating app partner to bring a “single’s section” to life at her NWSL club’s home matches (hello, Hinge and Bumble).
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The conference brought together women leaders from across the industry to share thoughts, experiences and tactics for building successful businesses.
Isos Capital Management’s Michelle Wilson, a WWE Board member, emphasized the importance of delivering a live audience and “synergies” in discussing the $21 billion WWE-UFC merger. She drilled down into the two properties’ revenue streams—including media rights, live-event merchandise, consumer goods and ticketing—and the leverage that comes from their union. It was, as Wilson said, the “right valuation with the right partner at the right time.”
Wilson also touched on the steady headway institutional money, long ignored by sports leagues and teams, is making in the industry—and made the business case for why sports should attract more investors.
“There’s low volatility,” Wilson said. “It outperforms the public markets. It is an asset class that’s recession proof, and valuations in sports have continued to grow. The financial profile is just amazing. … When there’s predictable revenue streams, that makes an asset class very, very interesting.”
Those increasing valuations caught the eye of Goldman Sachs managing director Stacy Sonnenberg, who sees leagues like the NFL—where the Washington Commanders just sold for $6 billion—soon outpricing individual investors and thus demanding more room for institutional involvement. The NFL is the only major men’s sports league in the U.S. that still prohibits private equity involvement in team ownership.
“Private equity is very valuable and super important and absolutely necessary—and, in some cases, it’s the only way [forward] when these valuations for sports teams are going so high,” Sonnenberg said. “There are so few people who can afford an NFL team, so the only way that you’re going to continue to see that valuation growth is this participation of private equity and maybe potentially public equity.”
Maddie Winslow of investment bank Inner Circle Sports touched on valuation growth in smaller leagues like the NWSL, which commanded a $53 million expansion fee for the coming Bay Area FC club that will make its debut in 2024.
Next year was also a focus of the morning’s first discussion, which addressed building partnerships between brands and properties with shared values, activating authentically and maximizing the scale of the Olympic and Paralympic movements—with an eye on Paris in 2024 and 2028 in Los Angeles—and the number of athletes involved.
Julia Kang, senior director of partnership management and activation for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA Partnerships Team; Melissa Abbott, who leads Olympics marketing for Delta Air Lines (a Team USA and LA28 partner); and Octagon’s Nancy Atufunwa also emphasized the importance of leveraging partner strengths. LA28, for example, is tapping Delta’s customer service skills and training programs to help with their volunteers.
The chief marketing officers for the Los Angeles Clippers (Claudia Calderon), Los Angeles Rams (Kathryn Kai-Ling Frederick), NWSL (Julie Haddon) and MLB (Karin Timpone), joined by Octagon’s Lou Kovacs, also spoke thoughtfully on connecting with audiences creatively. All agreed players are at the heart of these efforts.
Data is also a big driver of marketing and content efforts today, as DraftKings VP of content Stacie McCollum emphasized. She said brands look to personalize their offerings to targeted audiences.
Prioritizing player interests was also a topic of discussion among Premier Hockey Federation commissioner Reagan Carey and Athletes Unlimited co-founder Jonathan Soros, both of whom are working to elevate their respective women’s sports leagues amid a significant wave of momentum.
“The moment we’re in is a moment that was built intentionally by generations of women, both at the collegiate level and at the professional level, doing this work,” Soros said. “This is not a moment that happened accidentally. Enormous investments are made along the way. … And what we’re starting to see now is the virtuous cycle instead of the vicious. That doesn’t go backward.”
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