In any case, women’s sports is where the growth of the sector will be found in the near future as sports and media are caught up in the transition to digital streaming and on-demand platforms.
This year’s miraculous season for women’s sports, fueled by the heat after the NCAA women’s basketball tournament this spring, has set the stage for a new generation of stars and fans to welcome female athletes and the league to than ever before.
The pros and cons of cultural and technological changes affecting sports were discussed at length during Variety and the Sportico Sports and Entertainment Conference, presented by City National Bank. The July 12 event, held at the Beverly Hilton, brought together movers and shakers in sports, TV, advertising and marketing for a lively discussion about the future of live sports, courting fans and building franchise. Highlights from two panel discussions — one about the rise of women’s sports, the other about the future of sports broadcasting — are featured in this week’s episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business.”
“There’s a sense that the plan has been set in men’s sports,” said Michelle Haines, the Women’s National Soccer League’s Vice President of Marketing. “Even if you can strengthen with data and with the process and the continued success and growth that we all see that it equals not only a good opportunity but also a big part of the voice and the new business organization that is still And that there’s an opportunity to look at it from a different perspective, or with different partners that we have access to that can tell stories and create action for our fans and our players that were It’s unheard of in men’s sports,” Haines said. “There’s a new exciting time (that) you want to see happen in real time.”
Others featured in the interview are Diana Flores, assistant quarterback for the Mexican Women’s Soccer team and game analyst; Nastia Liukin, five-time Olympic medalist and entrepreneur; Constance Schwartz-Morini, co-founder and CEO of SMAC Entertainment; and Ashlyn Watkins, a member of the reigning NCAA women’s basketball team, the University of South Carolina Gamecocks.
The impact of women’s sports was also a topic on a panel about the state of the art in live sports production. The discussion quickly approached the need to balance the ability to appeal to “avids” – die-hard fans who do not miss a game – and “extraordinaries.” As Burke Magnus, ESPN’s news president explained, the public is where the action is for the players and their TV partners.
ESPN’s Burke Magnus, TNT Sports’ Craig Barry, Amazon Prime Video’s Stacey Rosenson, YouTube’s Lori Conkling, Peacock’s Shannon Willett and Roku’s David Eilenberg.
Variety via Getty Images
Causal is how you win,” Magnus told the crowd. “There will be offers. It’s obviously a balance in your offer as to how you appeal to both groups. But business as usual – that’s the bad thing, isn’t it? ?
Magnus and others have pointed to the pace of women’s sports that have benefited from more advanced leagues, more so than the WNBA.
“What’s happening in the WNBA, where we have new players coming into the league, and we’ve seen their rise to women’s college basketball, it’s a seamless transition,” Magnus said. “Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were in the Final Four and three weeks later they were playing in the WNBA. There was almost no gap. And so that was a huge opportunity. And obviously they lift up the audience.”
Also appearing in this interview are Craig Barry, executive VP and chief media officer of TNT Sports;
Lori Conkling, global head of TV, film and sports relations for YouTube; David Eilenberg, head of content for Roku Media; Stacey Rosenson, head of US Sports Marketing for Amazon Prime Video; and Shannon Willett, CMO of NBCUniversal’s Peacock.
“Strictly Business” is Variety‘s weekly podcast featuring interviews with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. (Please click here to subscribe to our free newsletter.) New episodes start every Wednesday and can be downloaded from Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud and more.
(Pictured above: Constance Schwartz-Morini, Diana Flores, Nastia Liukin, Michelle Haines and Ashlyn Watkins)
Jack Dunn and Selena Kuznikov contributed to this report.
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