Tuesday: A Big Day in Women's Sports

 

Women’s sports had a lot going on Tuesday.

The activity on the playing surfaces was actually a bit limited. The WNBA played three games. FIBA held a couple of Eurobasket group stage contests. The WTA’s grass court season continued with early round matches. The National Women's Soccer League and Athletes Unlimited had offdays.

The action occurred in my inbox and LinkedIn feed.

Alyssa Meyers reported in Morning Brew's Marketing Brew Newsletter how Disney Advertising had announced a new initiative called Level Up. It invites advertisers to make a blanket buy across women’s sports content on ESPN platforms. Disney Advertising President Rita Ferro’s department is looking for a minimum spend of $5 million for an advertiser to participate (though they will offer some flexibility in the total dollars and allocations). In order for that size of expenditure guarantee to make sense for the client, it strikes me that they’ll need to see some value beyond just getting a bunch of 30-second spots in game telecasts. At least two additional components might need to be present.

One is that advertisers might want Level Up to act as a “Women’s Sports Upfront,” in which brands commit a certain amount of dollars all at once because they can get favorable rates and placements. One thing I heard a lot about at SXSW this year was how companies wanting to support women’s sports through their ad buys need more inventory with which to do so. When you’re chasing limited inventory, locking in sufficient quantities of it at decent rates makes sense.

The second has to do with one of the reasons one would support women’s sports specifically in the first place: because you want the audience to perceive you as SUPPORTING WOMEN’S SPORTS. A brand that participates in this program wants more than just the same quantity of eyeballs they can get with a content-agnostic media buy. Fans who care deeply about women’s sports tend to spend to support the brands who seem to share that affinity. Some of that will be apparent by virtue of seeing one’s advertising running in, say, a live game broadcast. But a brand may also seek to capture earned media value from their commitment. Participation in custom content and events were also named as options for Level Up participants. Those assets could be useful beyond just their audience traffic if they help with a brand’s positioning.

I read another article on Tuesday, too. This one, from SportsPro Media’s Josh Sim, contained some stats about the United Kingdom gathered by their Women's Sport Trust, although I’d like to think they potentially reflect preferences in other countries, too. They found that 62% of women’s sports fans consume their sports content live. But they also found that “58 per cent of committed women’s sports fans want more non-live women’s sport content available” and “47 per cent find it difficult to find non-live women’s sports content.”

In the U.S., ESPN’s networks, through their various documentaries, pre- and postgame shows, and robust websites have probably done their part to reduce the number of women’s sports fans who find it difficult to find the non-live content they want. But will they need even more? In some ways, the success of Level Up will depend on having sufficient inventory, both live and otherwise, to fulfill promises to the buyers who join in.

I attended one of the above-mentioned WNBA games Tuesday evening. The Dallas Wings defeated the Atlanta Dream and the home crowd enjoyed it. I’m sure those who watched the TV broadcast on the local regional sports network, Bally Sports Southwest, did as well.

I joined my friend and collaborator Nancy Lieberman at the game. In addition to doing a lot of work with her eponymous charity, I’m also working on a documentary about the Hall of Famer’s life and career. We’ll eventually place it with an ESPN or their competition. We’re positioning it to maximize multi-platform inventory across her rich story. Custom content, events, earned media, and more will be in play in the creative process right from the get-go. Another article that came out Tuesday, this one written by Fuse CEO Louise Johnson for the Sports Business Journal's website, suggested “it’s time for women’s sport to stand on its own and benefit from bespoke activations tailored specifically for women’s sports fans -- creatives take note.”

Some of us are taking note, and, therefore, today’s developments encouraged us. Somebody’s going to need more inventory.

Rush Olson has spent two-plus decades directing creative efforts for sports teams, broadcasters, and related entities. He currently conceives and executes content projects through his companies, Rush Olson Creative & Sports, FourNine Productions and Mint Farm Films. Through MFF, he’s at work on biographical documentaries about Nancy Lieberman, Sidney Moncrief, Pudge Rodríguez, Ed Belfour, and Bob Lilly as well as a show about the The College Gridiron Showcase.

Subscribe to @MintFarmFilms on YouTube to see excerpts from upcoming documentaries.

Content Creators And AEs Running The Same Playbook

The Early Days of Football And Ad Sales

For the first four decades or so of American football, play selection had its limits. The introduction of the flying wedge in 1892, wherein a ballcarrier ran behind a massed wall of blockers, was the height of innovation. Then, in 1906, John Heisman finally convinced Walter Camp they needed to add the forward pass to the rules and everything changed.

Television ad sales and TV show production have behaved much the same way. For about the first four decades of the technology, the brute force proposition of four networks selling the only available video inventory dominated the game. Then, in the 1990s, the rapid growth of cable penetration and online options introduced the video equivalents of multiple sets, spread offenses, and jet sweeps. 

National TV reps used to come to work with a (relatively) simple job to do. They’d look at the last Nielsen book (or maybe a three-book average if they had an especially demanding buyer) and service a group of existing agency customers who wanted to match up their clients’ :30 second spots with the (relatively) simple demographic numbers in those perfect-bound manuals. Sometimes you’d add in a sales promotion or some opening and closing brought-to-you-bys. They competed in a (not relatively) small universe of networks, and while they did have to counter threats from outdoor, print, and radio advertising, TV had the hammer. They had the richest content (pictures PLUS sound!) and nobody could deliver audience numbers like they could.  

Content creators also had a (relatively)straightforward mandate. They needed to deliver 22-or 44-minute shows that could make the numbers Nielsen recorded large ones. Barring the occasional product placement or an actor on stage at the upfronts, that’s mostly how those who produced programming serviced sales reps.

Digital Spread Offenses 

Today, digital has gone all run-and-shoot on traditional ad models. Audience segmentation has become more fragmented, though that has also come with new, more targeted measurement tools. There are more networks, and they’re delivered on multiple devices. Advertisers even have their own channels, thanks to social media and websites. 

In addition, the consumer’s buyer journey has changed. A :30-second spot that used to drive people to a store where a clerk would complete (or foul up) the sale now pushes people to visit a website and/or a search engine to contemplate (and potentially execute) a purchase decision. 

So ad salespeople now face a world where their :30-second spots on linear television still have some value, but media buyers want to see more. They want more ways to speak to consumers than just one-off ads attached to content. Content creators have to help AEs deliver.

We still need to create compelling 22-minute shows, 2-hour films, or six-episode miniseries, because that’s still sellable. But we need to also think, “What else can we supply to help the network rep when she’s in that meeting with her client?” 

Content Creators As Team Players

Can we create some supplemental digital content to enable a deeper dive for the viewer and an opportunity for the advertiser to retarget the digital consumer that tuned in for the full piece? Can we make content available for an advertiser to use on their own channels? Can we offer directors and principals to participate in B-To-B functions? And what can we do to make sure viewers don’t want to skip what content we’re using to help the advertiser engage prospects? 

Producers can get sophisticated about truly helping network sales departments service their clients. How do clients’ prospects progress down a sales funnel? Much is made in the sales enablement world about having content to target (and retarget) consumers as they make their ways through their buyer journeys. If a network could supply buzz-worthy content (and video related to a network show should be a lot cooler than your standard testimonial vid or infographic), could such innovation cement a larger share of a media buy for your network partner? If so, then it might be worth some thought in planning a production. 

Football Analogies At Work

An advantage of having viewers who’ve signed up for, say, an SVOD account with you is that you’ll know more about them than the Mad Men boys knew about their mass-appeal audiences. And online services have the ability to serve content based on identifiable patterns - if they’ve got the right content to serve. It’s not too different from a middle linebacker who’s studied his opponent’s offensive tendencies out of certain formations and quickly processes that data to put himself in the right place to stuff the ballcarrier.

This can be fun for content creators. We got into this line of work because we love to tell stories, and here’s an opportunity to make even more of it, in innovative and efficient ways. The rise of subscription services who don’t show ads has helped drive cord-cutting. But ad-supported content isn’t going anywhere, because sellers of goods and services still have to communicate about what they do. Networks, including streaming ones like Tubi, Quibi, and Peacock, want to continue to be the ones to help them do it.

Ad-supported networks have to compete for eyeballs with ad-free services like Netflix. They also have to contend with Amazon Prime and Walmart’s Vudu, who have the ability to facilitate direct sales through their e-commerce platforms. Certainly content creators can make content for Amazon and Walmart, and they should be thinking about how to best drive sales there, too. But when we’re working for networks, we need to use every tool we can to help our partners succeed. That means getting in lockstep with the needs of their sales departments, kind of like quarterbacks do with receivers . . . or safeties do with cornerbacks . . . or holders do with kickers . . . or whatever football analogy works for you. 

Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.

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