There’s a spotlight on women’s sports. Brands are tapping in.
There’s a spotlight on women’s sports. Brands are tapping in.
Before every home match, the National Women’s Soccer League’s Kansas City Current transforms its arena entrance into a fashion runway. The team steps off their bus to a crowd of fans there to hype their favorite players and get a look at their latest picks from the clothing rental company Nuuly.
“We’re sponsoring what they call their match day arrival, that’s kind of the fit walk that the players do when they come into the stadium,” said Kim Gallagher, executive director of marketing at Nuuly. “The outfits that players wear gets a lot of attention, both in person at the event but also via social media.”
Nuuly, which shares a parent company with Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, has absolutely no prior dealings with athletes or sports teams, but Gallagher said the brand has been watching women’s sports take off. It sees a particular opportunity in the Kansas City Current, which plays in the same city as one of Nuuly’s main distribution hubs and is the first U.S. team to play in a stadium built specifically for a women’s soccer club.
“They are really acting as a trailblazer,” Gallagher said.
She hopes the partnership boosts Nuuly’s reputation as a retail innovator, and that the brand can capture some loyalty from the Current’s devoted and growing fandom.
“You see the passion and that’s what brands are looking to tap into,” said David King, vice president of partnerships for the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx.
When he got started with the team a decade ago, the Lynx were dominating the league and winning titles. The team’s NBA counterpart, the Timberwolves, were not. Still, King said many of the Lynx’s sponsorships came as part of a package deal with brands that were primarily interested in the men’s team.
“Which, I think, inadvertently created a little bit of a back seat for the Lynx,” King said.
Over the last couple of seasons, King has seen a major shift, with the Lynx starting to lead partnership discussions.
“We have brands that want to talk exclusively about the Lynx,” King said. “We bring the Lynx as a standalone product, because we believe they can and they’ve proven that they certainly deserve to stand on their own.”
The wave of new sponsorship money across women’s sports comes in part from big corporate names. La Quita Frederick, founder and CEO of the sports branding firm The MVP Lab, said the Googles and the Gatorades of the world have always supported women’s sports but are starting to buy in at levels closer to parity with men’s sports. The growing spotlight on women athletes and sports is also drawing in complete newcomers.
“What we are seeing is an expansion of businesses and brands entering that market that are like, ‘Oh, there’s space for me,’” Frederick said. “We’re also seeing more alignment.”
Take the WNBA’s focus on women’s health equity and its partnership with the first over-the-counter birth control pill.
“How many times have we seen a reproductive brand step into the market with sports?” Frederick said.
Until recently, Frederick said that was unheard of in the world of sports marketing. Now, a handful of professional women’s teams are sponsored by fertility clinics, not to mention skincare products, dating apps, jewelers and vegan snacks.
“[These companies] are also part of something new. They can be first to market,” Frederick said. “That allows them to stand out and build upon their investment.”
That’s the feeling at the cosmetics company Urban Decay, the official beauty sponsor of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks since 2023. Urban Decay General Manager Stephanie Binette said the brand does players’ makeup before games and media appearances, sponsors the team’s arrivals tunnel and hands out product samples at Sparks home games.
“It was test and learn in the beginning,” Binette said. “But we really rapidly discovered that the fans love makeup.”
And the fans care a lot about their favorite players’ game day beauty routines, like, which setting spray they trust to keep their makeup fresh on the court.
“The players — some of them have huge following — actually create content for their audience and surprise and delight with their glam,” Binette said. “Ultimately, I think we’ve just touched the surface.”
This is Urban Decay’s first major foray into sports marketing. Binette said it won’t be the brand’s last. The next stage could be signing individual athletes to its roster of brand ambassadors.
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