George Jagodzinski (00:00):

Today, we discuss data and the growth of women's professional sports. We gain insight into how data's breaking norms. There's a real sea change in the commercial opportunity surrounding female sports, and today I'm joined by Nancy Hensley to discuss it. Nancy's led data and AI efforts for IBM and for Stats Perform and is now a founding member of Mercury/13, an investment firm focused on the growth of women's soccer for the US audiences or football for the rest of the world. Please, welcome Nancy.

(00:29):

Welcome to Evolving Industry, a no-BS podcast about business leaders who are successfully weaving technology into their company's DNA to forge a better path forward. If you're looking to actually move the ball forward rather than spinning around in a tornado of buzzwords, you're in the right place. I'm your host, George Jagodzinski. Nancy, thanks so much for joining me.

Nancy Hensley (01:05):

Happy to be here.

George Jagodzinski (01:06):

This is a very rich topic and one that I'm very much interested in. I figured the first place to start are the misconceptions about female professional sports and as it compares to male professional sports.

Nancy Hensley (01:19):

I think the first biggest misconception is that they make as much money as the men. And I think probably the best light that shined on it recently was Caitlin Clark. And there was a video that went viral of a woman with her kids in the backseat, and she was asking her kids, this was right after the draft, "How much do you think Caitlin Clark makes per year?" And they're like, "A million, two million." And she said, "It's $76,000." And these kids were like, "What? That's so unfair." I think that there's still a lot of people out there that believe that all of these women who are absolute legends and rock stars in their sports are making a ton of money. And that's not the case. We still have this big funding gap between what the women make, what the men make, not just in salaries, but also in things like prize money.

(02:13):

All of that is starting to come to light and it's become a much bigger conversation. And recently FIFA announced that the World Cup money, which was a huge gap difference between men and women, will be equalized by 2027, I think they said. But that's probably the biggest misconception. And I think the thing that really hit home for me was watching someone talk about when she was standing on stage and she was standing on stage with two other male athletes, and they all were getting the same big SB award, and they were talking offstage about how they're spending their millions of dollars on what cars they were going to buy. And her reaction was, I just need to figure out how I'm going to get health insurance. That, I think is one of the biggest challenges, is general funding.

(03:01):

We also, in particular, in women's football, we don't play in the big stadiums. That's just been a recent thing where — I believe Arsenal just announced that the women will now play at Emirates, but most of them are playing on pitches that look like high school pitches for us, not even college level in many, many countries.

George Jagodzinski (03:22):

And I would bet in comparison to maybe even some of the big high schools like Texas or places like that, that's probably even below a high school grade, right?

Nancy Hensley (03:30):

Yeah, absolutely.

George Jagodzinski (03:32):

So there's always the cliche point of view on here, view, which is, well, if the women could get as big of an audience as the men, then they would get paid as much. So it's their own fault. And I'm curious your perspective on that.

Nancy Hensley (03:47):

And I think that has been definitely disproven. I'll start with women's football with the World Cup, where we saw a massive increase in audience, not just the people that actually went to Australia and watched it in New Zealand, but the live viewers were something like 12 million just in the UK. In Australia, 40% of the country or some crazy number was watching the finals because of the Matildas being in it. So all of the viewership across almost every league in women's football is up. And then when you think about ticketing revenue, those are all growth numbers. UEFA reported something like an increase of 500% plus or more of ticketing revenue, an 8X increase in matchday revenue. All of the numbers reported that. In fact, every time they allowed the women to play in the bigger stadiums, whether it was Arsenal or Chelsea, they filled the stadiums.

(04:41):

Just this past weekend, we had another record set at the Champions League finals. I think over 50,000 people attended. So we've smashed all those. It's not even a discussion anymore. We could pull out hundreds and hundreds of stats, whether it's basketball, WNBA viewership and attendance is up, their ticket revenue is up as well. Women's professional hockey came out this year, and it just blew every record possible in terms of attendance and what their expectations, and commercial revenue. You saw what happened in college volleyball where they put it in the middle of a college stadium and it was crazy overfilled. So all of those myths are completely smashed now.

George Jagodzinski (05:22):

I love it. One thing that helped drive it home for me is, I believe it was Michelle Wie talking about the LPGA and how she explained some of the challenges, are that just the level of production. So you're talking about the venues, but even the level of production, the number of cameras that are on the PGA Tour versus the LPGA Tour are just so many more, and it makes the game that much more fast-paced and interesting and exciting to follow. But when you have maybe a quarter of the production value and a quarter of the cameras, it just makes it seem like it's a slower, less interesting game, which is not true. It's just how it's perceived through the TV camera. And so it feels like there's sometimes this chicken and egg where how can you get the investment dollars into these to realize the untapped value that's probably already there?

(06:09):

And I'm curious just how do you think about how do you quantify the commercial value? How do you get people to lean into what is probably a really good ROI for investors and marketers right now?

Nancy Hensley (06:23):

I want to make a point on the point you made about the low broadcast quality because that also lends itself to another challenge, which is the data collection because a lot of data collection happens from broadcast, and so if the quality's really low, the data collectors can't actually pull that data. And that is another huge challenge that because this is how fans connect, is through data. This is how people bet on things, is through data, that it's a big part of that ecosystem that causes that growth. But on the commercial side, it's interesting because women's sports revenue mix and men's sports revenue mix are very, very different. And I'll speak to soccer or football, depending on which way... It's football for me most of the time.

(07:07):

Most of the men's revenue is coming from matchday and broadcast revenue. They have these massive broadcast contracts, but this has been building since the '80s. The Premier League started to build those relationships and make huge amount of money on media since the mid-80s. So they've had a lot longer. So their revenue mix is highly dependent on those two things. Whereas the women, the revenue mix is dependent on commercial and prize money. So very, very, very different revenue mix. They have smaller stadiums most of the time, like we talked about. So opportunity for matchday revenue and ticket revenue is smaller compared to the men's, and hopefully, that's starting to change. But the nice thing is that commercial revenue is much more sustainable revenue source than matchday.

(07:55):

And also, because the women's salaries have been not as great as the men's, they've gotten really, really good at social media and representing products, so they're really good marketers. In fact, they get about two times the engagement. So from a commercial perspective, even though the women athletes may have far less followers, their engagement rate is twice what the men are because they're just really good at it now because they've had to be. Again, let's go back to the Caitlin Clark example. Her salary is $76,000 a year, but she signed a $20 million contract with Nike. Where's she going to make her money?

George Jagodzinski (08:35):

That's for sure.

Nancy Hensley (08:36):

So the nice thing is that commercial revenue is much more sustainable revenue source, is much more controllable revenue source for the women, and that's really where women's sports focuses the most.

George Jagodzinski (08:49):

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(09:17):

So it seems like it would be a no-brainer to a CMO to invest here, given you know even if the audience is lower, you've got the higher value and higher engagement. What are you seeing out there from a trend perspective? Are we breaking some norms? Are you seeing more investment? Are they following the data?

Nancy Hensley (09:34):

Oh, definitely. I think that there was a great quote from Billie Jean King that she was living for the day. This is just in the past week where women's sports is no longer this charitable cause, but it's actually a really good investment. And I think that that is absolutely the case. When you look at a couple of the recent transactions here in the US in NWSL, the San Diego Wave, which sold for over $100 million, I think the original purchase price or franchise fee was well under five million. And that timeframe for that was less than five years. So that's a pretty good return on investment when you think about it. There's massive growth in women's sports, so it's proven itself to be a great investment. Again, the scale of the investment is significantly different than the men's, but the men's were here not that long ago.

(10:29):

And the pace at which you're getting much higher multiples on returns from the women's sports has become much faster. To get 35X on a transaction in the NFL, it probably took 10 years. It's taking less than five years to get that kind of multiple from women's sports.

George Jagodzinski (10:45):

Well, I guess that makes sense why PE is jumping in there so much. They like those three-year time windows, right?

Nancy Hensley (10:50):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think we are finally to the point. I'm excited to say that women's sports is considered a great investment. I think because we've smashed all those attendance records, because we've smashed all those viewing records, because we can show that we've increased commercial revenue, because we can increase broadcast contract size, so the NWSL contract size was 40 times bigger than it was the last round, all of those are growth indicators. And what now we need is just that investment to go back into the teams, the players, to make sure we continue to put a good product on the field, on the pitch, and invest in the players 'cause they deserve it.

George Jagodzinski (11:33):

It makes sense. And pulling this back to data to make those investment decisions, to drive the growth and to break the norms, you really need not just the data, but you need to be able to operationalize it. I know so much of that has been your career. I'm curious, especially in this space, what are you seeing in the ways of how do you operationalize that data and operationalize that knowledge?

Nancy Hensley (11:59):

And again, I'll speak more from a football/soccer perspective. The men's side have been using the data for a long time to make better recruiting, better scouting decisions. And I think especially when you're looking at the way football is played, you don't want to just replace a team member, but you also want to make sure you understand how they fit into how you play, what style of play you have and how they fit into how you play on the pitch. And so to get that, you need a lot more contextualized data. You need heat maps. You need shot maps. You need all different kinds of ways that you're going to look at and evaluate a player, not just from their basic stats that they do, but also contextualize against the rest of the league so you understand where they fit in, how they compare, and how they actually could fit into your style of play on the pitch.

(12:52):

Like I said, the men have been using this for years. One of the things that frustrated me, being on the sports data side, was the lack of depth of collection on the women's game. And there was several things that affected that. The one is just the sports ecosystem is very driven by betting data. And there wasn't a lot of betting on the women's sports, so it didn't drive that big and as fast of an investment. And the other is what we talked about, the broadcast. A lot of data collection is done from watching it on a broadcast. And if the quality's not good, if they have one camera, you're going to only see what's happening around the ball on the pitch. You're not going to see the whole pitch. So it's really difficult to get good event data from that.

(13:38):

And it was frustrating, but now there's lots of companies that are much more committed to collecting that data. There are also lots of enhancements in AI and computer vision, and the broadcast quality has gotten so much better in the last two years that those computer vision models are able to take advantage of a broadcast to collect data a lot more so than they were a couple years ago.

George Jagodzinski (14:01):

That's great. And what I love about this segment and this industry is I'm so attracted to organizations that they just haven't invested in data yet. And while it's a bummer that you don't have the treasure trove of data to discover patterns in, it's nice because you can build a whole new operation around it from scratch rather than having a lot of baggage that you've maybe had over the years. And rather than thinking the way you've always thought, you can think differently. And so, since you're right at the forefront of helping these teams leverage data for the first time, how do you get them crawling, walking, running in this world to actually leverage it?

Nancy Hensley (14:40):

I think, with us and our first team in Syria and Italy, they had lots of tools and some solutions that didn't really have the resources as much to fully embrace it. And so what I've been doing is just actually creating the reports from a player analysis and recruitment perspective and really explaining what the data means and handing it over to them and just made them much more hungry for more data. And that's what we really want to do, is spoon-feed them based on data that's really relevant to them, not overwhelm somebody with a tool. And I came from a BI and data background, of course, and we have had a tendency to throw tools at people, and it doesn't always take. People have real questions that they have want answers to, and you've got to help them understand the relevance of the data, and you got to help them understand the visuals of the data, and then they take to it like a fish in water. So then I think that's really what's happened with us.

(15:41):

And I see more and more women's teams embracing data and operationalize it. Very similar to the men. The men have taken it to the next level where you have teams that have a whole revenue stream based on the transfer market because they're so good at buying and selling talent, and they basically develop the talent, really raise the value of these players and then sell them at the high end and then do it all over again. But you've got to be really data-savvy to do that.

George Jagodzinski (16:11):

I love seeing new organizations take to new data and really leverage it and incorporate it, but where do we go next from here?

Nancy Hensley (16:20):

I think the sports data business has been the same for a really long time. The difference is we've seen a lot more fans embracing data and actually wanting data integrated into the experience. And so you see a lot of new solutions coming out that do that, that integrate it right into the viewing experience, especially in things like golf, which makes it, I think, even more interesting if you're watching it on TV as opposed to being there. You want to see all of the stats, how fast did he hit that ball? How far did it go? The kind of thing. But I think where data is getting more interesting is that we have all these different data types. So you have event data and you have tracking data. And there's a lot of biometric data being collected as well and so some of that is extremely important, not just from an injury prevention perspective, but overall performance.

(17:16):

And so, there's lots of AI startups that are looking at things like human potential. And so that biometric data, which is obviously very sensitive, is extremely important, but what if we could empower the athletes to be able to combine their own biometric data with event and performance data and tracking data, all the other things, so that they then have everything that they need to understand how to optimize their performance? I think this not only makes the coach's job easier because then the coach could actually focus on strategy as opposed to managing performance of multiple players that they can't. And especially in women's sports, there's some additional things that we've got to contend with, like our cycles. That does affect performance. And there's even thoughts that our cycles can affect the increase in injury, even ACL injuries. So I think the next wave of sports data is really going to help empower the athletes themselves.

(18:20):

And when you think about all of the progress that we've made here in the US around NIL and even some of the recent headlines where they're even going to get paid, I imagine a day where athletes are going to start to want to leverage data to negotiate their contracts. And there's a few that have, but it's not the norm. But imagine if you are in a draft and you're negotiating your contract. You want to know how you stack up against everybody else in the league and what your potential is, and even how you model. Maybe some people are going to say, "Look, all of my stats look exactly like Caitlin Clark. I'm the next Caitlin Clark." So I think data is going to be really, really important and I think it also helps us empower the athletes in a way that we haven't been able to in the past.

George Jagodzinski (19:07):

It's really interesting 'cause then I start to wonder, how does that even start to play into how do they tell their personal brand story, and how do they monetize that themselves? 'Cause there's all these athletes that they have a shelf life on how much they can drive revenue from actual competition. And it's so great. I have some friends that are involved in helping these athletes continue telling their brand story and engaging so that they can maximize their overall career earnings, not just from the competition years but ongoing. And it's funny, it takes me back to, aging myself a little bit, how many kids used to just go through trading cards and just memorize all of the stats of all the players. And now I know there's been times where I'll watch something, and I'm like, "Man, I wish I could see what their heart rate was now." But now you can. And now you're super surprised 'cause you see, oh my God, it didn't even blip. They're that under control. And it's interesting. It's a whole different angle as an audience member.

Nancy Hensley (20:04):

I also think the integration of all these data sources is helping us build much more advanced AI models because if you're building a model just on event data, that's one thing, but if you can combine live event data, live tracking data, and even some predictive data altogether, you get really powerful models you couldn't create before.

George Jagodzinski (20:27):

And you were just talking about how based off a cycle, performance can be different, sometimes, maybe better, sometimes injuries. It reminds me of the story of the naming of your company. I know the story Mercury 13, but I'd love to shine a light on it right now because there's a book I've read to my daughter about 500 times. It's called Margaret and the Moon. It's about the true story of Margaret Hamilton, who is a computer programmer for the mission to the moon. And I'm so excited about how excited she gets about that every time I read it to her. I'd love you to talk a little bit about why you chose Mercury/13 as a name and what's behind that.

Nancy Hensley (21:03):

The inspiration behind it was the 13 women who were in the... I will rephrase that — ever really in the NASA program, but the doctor who ran all of the medical tests for the astronauts that went to the Moon in 1969 really was quite interested to see how a woman would perform, and his theory was that a woman would actually perform better. And so, he privately funded bringing in several women to put them through the same crazy, crazy stress tests that the men went through. And there's one stress that I think it's supposed to give you the feeling that you're in space, but you're floating in a completely dark room in a warm water tank. And the thing is, how long can you stay in there? And so the men were able to stay in for maybe 45 minutes to an hour. There was one woman who was able to stay in for up to nine hours. Her answer when they asked how she did it was, "If you had as many kids as I did, then you would enjoy nine hours in a warm bath."

(22:11):

So he was really, really excited about the results. And so he went running to NASA, and he said, "Look at this. The women have actually outperformed. We need to bring these women into the space program." And NASA was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We can't have that. We can't have women outperforming men." And so, the funding was cut. He was told to cease. Every single woman, the 13 women who made it all the way through the program, got a letter from the President of the United States telling them to stop, that basically go back to the kitchen kind of a thing. And it was very reminiscent of what happened to the women even in the UK where in 1921, there was a ban that was put on, women being able to play professional soccer in the UK, professional football until 1971, 1971. It wasn't that long ago.

(23:10):

And the reason why that ban went in place wasn't because they weren't good at it. It was actually right after this massive football game on Boxing Day with the Dick, Kerr ladies, where there was an overflow of 10,000 people trying to get into this football game between two women's teams. And it got the attention of the FA like, we can't have the women outshine the men. And so they tried to say, well, playing football is really bad for you. You shouldn't do this. That didn't work, didn't deter the women at all, and so they literally put a ban on football. So for 50 years, women could not play professionally in the UK. And it's not something people in the US really know that much about, and it didn't get lifted until 1971.

George Jagodzinski (23:54):

It's crazy. And now you're at the forefront of using hard data to show that it's a good business case. It's not a charity case. And I think you've called yourself a self-proclaimed data geek. I'd love to hear some stats from you on what does the growth look like? What are some of the interesting numbers that you think about when you think about the growth of women's professional sports?

Nancy Hensley (24:17):

The biggest challenge we had obviously was attendance. Can women fill the stadium? And we've blown that out. We have seen attendance records across every major league and across every major sports being broken. I can't even tell you where it started. I think the Women's World Cup was a huge turn of events. I think that the Euros, that was currently the record for the most crowded women's football game. That was in 2021. Those things started to lay the foundation for massive growth and interest in women's sports. I also think that women's sports — it's more than just about growth. It's really almost like a movement, I would say. And it's rooted in equality and a woman's movement of a global scale.

(25:10):

And so when you think about on the US side, the women fighting for equity in pay, and the fact that they were also really, really good. They won way more World Cups than the men have in the women's national team, yet they were not paid the same. And so all of these things contributed to this movement where even several businesses have seen that if they want to get to women, they need to invest in women. And I think one of my favorite stats is for every dollar of sports merchandise spent in the US, 80 cents is spent by a woman. So if you don't think women are important to sports, they're absolutely important to sports. And then, when you think about how have we crafted sports experiences for the women's sports fan themselves? And the answer to that is absolutely not.

(26:06):

But you're starting to see some of that change as well. And we see stadiums in the UK that are serving mimosas and putting some changes on the menu that's more specifically creating things that women want, not just for men. And so brands are paying attention to that. You're seeing a lot more brands that never came into sports before, that are being big sponsors. Cosmetic sponsors, women's brands specifically because they understand there is so much power and influence in the female consumer when it comes to sports. And then there's an interesting loyalty stat that the brands who are investing in women's sports have a higher degree of brand loyalty than any other brand. And I think that goes back to that movement, that it's more than just about women's sports. It's about building a better world for our daughters and the next generation that want to play professionally. And that's what, I think, gets all of us out of bed in the morning.

(27:08):

I was so excited to see the professional Women's Hockey League launch this year because there are two young girls that live across the street from me that have been playing hockey since they could walk, and now they have a path to play professionally if they want to. But that didn't exist until this year. So making more opportunities, but also creating great business opportunities, I think is what's so exciting about this space.

George Jagodzinski (27:31):

It's very exciting. And from a personal level, I'll tell you, having my six-year-old daughter cuddle on the couch and watch some LPGA is some of the best moments that I've had. And seeing how excited she gets to watch Nelly Korda or some of those ladies and how well that they do. And then one of the things that really jumped out to me is the net new sponsors that have never played in these realms because I advise some sports teams, and one thing I hear repeatedly is they say, "Hey, every year, we're competing against the same teams for the same sponsors." And completely flipping that on its side and going for a completely different revenue stream seems like a real no-brainer to me.

Nancy Hensley (28:12):

I also think that there's some new interesting revenue streams from a commercial perspective that's going to come as a result of technology because we're creating inventory with digital assets that didn't exist before. So things like being able to do one-on-one connects with your favorite player that's sponsored. There are solutions for that. There are solutions that basically can create augmented reality opportunities in inventory when you're either on the golf course because they actually lack a lot of commercial inventory because it's trees and grass. But now, they can create a Pokemon gamified experience with augmented reality. So you're actually creating inventory where there was none before. So that when you have theaters in golf or when you have smaller stadiums like with what we deal with in women's sports most of the time, you can actually create more digital commercial inventory. And this is all being fueled by technology that didn't exist before.

George Jagodzinski (29:07):

I love it, and I love that you're at the forefront of this. As a fun personal question, is there any data that you leverage in your personal life that you want to talk about? I'll go first and say an embarrassing one that's also a humble brag is, at the beach, I'll actually time every time how long it takes me to set up our whole thing, the canopy, and everything. And I keep track of how long it takes. And then the worst part, the shameful part is I'll time other dads to see if I'm doing a better job than the other dads as far as how the data compares. My wife's never really impressed by it, but I'm curious if there's any data geek moments that you have in your life.

Nancy Hensley (29:49):

I think the only one I can think of off the top of my head really quickly is that I am a creature of habit when it comes to my bike rides and so I end up taking the same trails a lot. And I tend to try and beat my record every time of how fast I can actually take these trails, anywhere from a 15 to a 20-mile ride, but depending on the weather conditions. If it's been raining or whatever, or if there's a lot of cicadas that I'm ducking, it'll slow me down or speed me up. So I'm always timing myself against that, but that's the only one I can think of off the top. Not as fun as yours.

George Jagodzinski (30:27):

Well, we're all chasing personal bets in any aspect that you can. Right. And data helps you track that. Nancy, I really enjoyed this conversation. One other fun question, I really like to finish with these is, in your career, in life, what's the best advice you've ever received?

Nancy Hensley (30:42):

Oh, gosh. I think the best advice I've ever received and that I've recently taken is to really work on something in your lifetime. It may not be early in your career, but maybe at whenever you can that you are really, really passionate about that you really believe in, and amazing things will happen. And I feel like when I joined up with Mercury/13, that is exactly... It's been amazing, and it's something I'm truly passionate about. I really, really want to create great opportunities for women in sports, in particular, women in football, and be disruptive and change the world. And do that even through some data and technology as well, but I'm extremely passionate about it, and I think it's been so fulfilling. So if you get a chance to do that, don't be afraid. Just jump in.

George Jagodzinski (31:30):

You're doing it. That's great. Nancy, thank you so much.

(31:35):

Thanks for listening to Evolving Industry. For more, subscribe and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. And, pretty please, drop us a review. We'd really appreciate it. If you're watching or listening on YouTube, hit that Subscribe button and smash the bell button for notifications.

(30:28):

If you know someone who's pushing the limits to evolve their business, reach out to the show at evolvingindustry@intevity.com, or reach out to me, George Jagodzinski, on LinkedIn. I love speaking with people getting the hard work done. The business environment's always changing, and you're either keeping up or going extinct.

(30:44):

We'll catch you next time, and until then, keep evolving.