How a women’s basketball vertical convinced the WNBA to fund its foray into print

Advertisers’ interest in women’s sports

Women’s sports content has not historically attracted the same level of advertisers’ interest or investment as men’s sports. That might be changing — slowly. Sports marketing agency rEvolution has seen an uptick from brands and sponsors “who have expressed interest in getting more involved in women’s sports and are looking for opportunities to be more equitable in their sponsorship strategies,” said Larry Mann, evp of media and business development at rEvolution.

Kristi Wagner, director of Content+ at media agency Mindshare, said she is seeing a shift in interest from brands in women’s sports. “I would not say it’s as if a switch has flipped and the space is getting flooded with investment, but the interest is noticeably growing,” she said. Her team is in discussion with multiple brands about the landscape of female sports and the opportunities that exist within it.

Big brands are backing women’s basketball. Google announced in May that it would sponsor the WNBA games to bring them to national TV. Beer brand Michelob Ultra announced on Aug. 26 that it was committing $100 million to women’s sports over the next five years, and dedicating 50% of its lifestyle media inventory to content that features and promotes female athletes and women’s sports by 2025. The company also said it will represent male and female athletes equally in all advertising creative moving forward.

The hope is that this initiative “will inspire other brands and leaders in the industry to follow us,” said Ricardo Marques, vp of marketing at Michelob Ultra US & global.

WSLAM’s rise

WSLAM started out as a social channel on Twitter and Instagram, then later grew to TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. The vertical hit 100,000 followers on Instagram in its first year and the four-person team has now accumulated an audience of nearly 300,000, according to Buxeda.

In WSLAM’s early days, its social accounts were used to distribute branded content that was also being shared across other SLAM channels, rather than sharing original branded content specifically for WSLAM. Since last summer, it has worked with brands like Nike, Adidas and Footlocker, such as a longform video series sponsored by Under Armour called “All Eyes On Us.”

Branded content is WSLAM’s biggest source of revenue. It makes up about 70% of its business, with the rest coming from merchandise and events (though so far WSLAM has been a part of bigger SLAM events). In the future, Buxeda hopes to host WSLAM-specific events.

The WNBA deal with WSLAM “could be the start of a virtuous cycle in the content and advertising ecosystem of women’s sports,” Wagner said. Advertisers see a marketing opportunity around big cultural milestones like the WNBA’s 25th anniversary, and the “engaged and loyal” female sports fans around these moments, she said. Publishers in turn see advertisers leaning in, so they invest in producing more women’s sports content and “are more inclined to produce more meaningful marketing opportunities,” Wagner said. 

“It becomes a cyclical dynamic that could fuel substantial growth in women’s sports,” she said.