Sports Business

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The GIST: The girls are getting paid. Yesterday, Visa announced that it will award $500K in grant funding to women-owned small businesses during next month’s WWC as part of its Behind Every Number, There's A Story campaign.

The details: As an extension of their fan-voted Player of the Match athlete award, a small business owner from the same country as the selected athlete will receive a grant from Visa, ranging from $5K for first-round matchups to $50K for the final. A total of 64 grants will be awarded, one for every match of the tournament. Count it.

The why: Research has shown a significant tie between women’s sports participation and business success. A whopping 80% of female Fortune 500 execs played competitive sports at one time in their life and 81% of women small business owners surveyed by Visa agreed that overcoming adversity in sports prepared them to tackle difficult business situations.

• For Visa, a company that supports and profits off businesses of all sizes, the women’s sports and women’s business connection is a smart and strategic marketing move.

• It also builds off their existing commitment to international women’s soccer — the brand became the first women-focused FIFA sponsor in December 2021.

The trend: As reported in Monday’s newsletter, Visa’s not the only one making this play. Last Friday, AT&T launched its third iteration of She’s Connected, a program supporting small business owners and WNBA and NWSL athlete-entrepreneurs. Watch this space.

The GIST: The WTA is aiming to serve up equal pay. Although men and women have earned equal prize money at tennis’ four Grand Slams since 2007, parity doesn’t exist across all tournaments…yet.

• The women’s tennis organization shared yesterday that it will revise the tournament calendar to ensure WTA athletes receive identical pay to their ATP counterparts at future top-tier events.

The details: Equal pay won’t come overnight as the tour makes sure the revisions are sustainable in the long term, with some potential changes including new player entry rules and less event overlap.

• The plan is to provide equal compensation for WTA 1000 and 500 combined tournaments by 2027 and for single-week WTA 1000 and 500 events by 2033.

The case study: As of late, increases in women athletes’ pay often coincide with support from brands: Secret donated to the USWNT to help their fair pay battle, sponsors like Google stepped in to fund the WNBA’s Commissioner’s Cup, and UKG financially backed the NWSL Challenge Cup.

• And while women’s tennis initially needed brand support to land equal pay, this announcement is unique because direct sponsorship money wasn’t required to make it happen.

• As the WTA approaches its 50th anniversary, the organization’s long-term success proves that a business model that continually invests in its female athletes can become financially secure enough to be its own changemaker. Only up from here.

In this newsletter, we like to highlight other organizations and their big wins, but allow us to have the spotlight for just a minute.

1M: We have over 1M GISTers across our growing ecosystem of newsletters, socials, and podcasts.

83%: The percentage of GISTers who prefer to support brands that support women’s sports and media.

91%: The ratio of GISTers who are interested in products we choose to share with them.

Assuming you’re a business person or care deeply about women’s sports, we’d love to talk about how we can authentically connect your company with our sought after audience of underserved sports fans.

While CanWNT continues their fight for equal pay, Canada Soccer is talking in circles. After telling Canadian news outlet TSN that the organization is contemplating filing for bankruptcy protection on Monday morning, general secretary Jason DeVos told media on Monday night that it is “unequivocally” not. Whiplash.

• Bankruptcy or not, the national sports body’s financial hardships — which may force the men’s and women’s teams to sit out their fall international windows — is largely due to a horrible media rights deal with Canada Soccer Business that only pays Canada Soccer about $3M annually.

Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang keeps pushing women’s soccer forward. After making transcontinental moves to strengthen women’s club soccer, Kang hopes to create an innovation lab for her NWSL team.

• The idea is inspired by men’s clubs, but Kang doesn’t want to just copy and paste their methods, noting that women athletes need tailored programs. She gets it.

📺 Sunday’s matchup between the LA Sparks and Dallas Wings peaked at 829K viewers on ABC, making it the most watched WNBA game of the season so far.

🎞️ LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s media company Uninterrupted is hosting a brand-new film festival on July 13th. Save the date.

🏀 Maddy Siegrist and Puma’s new partnership will see the Dallas Wings rookie rocking the brand’s kicks on and off the court.

🏎 After losing his bid for the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, Blake Lively’s husband actor Ryan Reynolds purchased 24% of the Alpine Formula One team for an estimated $218M through his investment group, Maximum Efforts Investments.

🍸Legendary pro golfer Michelle Wie West has invested in Casa Azul tequila, joining Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce as a strategic brand partner. Bottoms up.

🤝 Fortress Investment Group, along with other lenders, are set to take over Vice Media after bidding $350M to acquire it out of bankruptcy.

⚽ Chelsea FC owner Todd Boehly’s “multi-club project” is well underway — the team acquired a major stake in Ligue 1’s Racing Club de Strasbourg for about $83M.

🏨 Brooklyn boutique hotel Moxy Williamsburg is the WNBA’s NY Liberty’s newest partner.