Women’s sports seen as a new economic force
The same weekend Caitlin Clark grabbed headlines for breaking the college basketball scoring record, women’s sports commanded the stage at the 18th MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at the Boston Convention Center.
That’s not to say that a diverse array of heady topics such as artificial intelligence, the globalization of soccer, the next phase of sports ownership, the evolution of poker strategy, and the discovery of fair handicaps for darts using the Markov decision process didn’t get air time in front of 2,500-plus attendees from teams, leagues, industries, and universities around the globe.
It’s just that nearly every conversation on stage seemed to circle back to a shared belief that the momentum already carrying women’s sports is on the verge of a new surge.
“Everybody wants what’s in the fans’ pockets, and the most powerful fans of women’s sports are women,” said Thayer Lavielle, executive vice president at Wasserman’s The Collective. “They drive the economy, they’re going to own two-thirds of the wealth in the economy by 2030, and so if we’re not really paying attention as to how to captivate her and capitalize on her engagement, then I think we’re missing the sport.”
Male athletes make 21 times what women athletes make on the field, noted Lavielle.
Susie Piotrkowski, vice president of women’s sports programming and espnW for ESPN, is working from the inside at the worldwide leader to raise the volume.
“We have to make experts out of our experts,” she said. “The more we have Stephen A. [Smith], the more we have Pat McAfee, the more we have the faces of our network talking about women’s sports authentically, we all win because we get to scale.”
Retired US women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe noted that the task is not a small one.
“I don’t want to know every single thing about LeBron James, but I do — because I hear it, every day,” said Rapinoe. “I know that Bronnie James is averaging 5 points in college; I don’t watch men’s college basketball. I hope the kid does great, but I’m like, ‘Why do I know all of this information?’ ”
Kate Johnson, Google’s global marketing director of sports, entertainment, and content partnerships, said the company is striving to alter its search algorithm to better represent the interest in women’s sports.
“One of the biggest challenges right now is the amount of content that we need to make sure that, for example, search trends are absolutely accurate in terms of what’s trending around women’s sports,” said Johnson. “It’s pulling from the entire Internet, right, and there’s still an over-index towards there being a disproportionate amount of male sporting content in the system.”
Steve Pagliuca, co-owner of the Celtics, noted that the media deal Major League Soccer struck with Apple eventually will help the league catch fire and “I think women’s sports is in that same category.”
Its growth is a “justified explosion,” Pagliuca said, “and you combine that with the technology that allows them to be distributed now and you see that there’s huge upside.”
On other matters:
R Jonathan Kraft, president of the Kraft Group, believes the NFL is “not even scratching the surface” when it comes to analytics and AI.
“Not in my lifetime,” said Kraft about teams relying on AI and machine learning to draft players. “Machine learning is a tool for the experienced, capable GM or whoever’s running that side of the house to put to work to make the best decisions.”
Under the Patriots’ new coaching and football operations staff, Kraft said, “Without getting into all the details, we’re going to bring a system that the people that are now running our football operations believe better fits today’s NFL and the way people like to scout and evaluate players.”
R On AI, Philadelphia 76ers general manager and conference co-founder Daryl Morey said, “Basically all it is is prediction, right?”
As for the “scary” stuff with AI, Morey said, it’s a little late to think that can be stopped.
“This has happened,” he said. “There isn’t going to be really a way to do all the safety stuff, there isn’t … there isn’t actually going to be any way to control this. You really should just lean into it to help your business with what you’re doing, and there’s going to be a very scary thing you hit, but what’s the alternative?”
R “Forty-seven percent of Gen Z’s have not been to a live sporting event; that, for me, is scary,” said Amy Latimer, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Delaware North.
R Brian Bilello, president of the New England Revolution, described Lionel Messi as a “unicorn” when it comes to his impact on Inter Miami and MLS. He said MLS’s best comparison point is the Mexican League and that “I’m not embarrassed and it’s not a shame” for MLS to admit its teams can’t beat the Real Madrid and Bayern Munich European powerhouses.
“We sort of ignore the soccer purists, the soccer snob groups,” said Bilello. “We’ve said, ‘We can’t give them what they want anyway.’ It’s actually a really small [group], but they’re really loud. It’s a really small part of the consumer base. So who cares what they’re saying about us? Let’s focus on the people that do love us or will love us.”
R Regarding the tumult over NIL and collectives in the NCAA, UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond (formerly of Boston College), said, “This is a great time for college athletics. Any time there’s chaos and change, there’s beauty that comes on the other side. This is going to be great.”
R Gerry Cardinale, founder of RedBird Capital Partners and the third-largest stakeholder of Fenway Sports Group, believes “there’s been a bubble in sports for some time” and “I don’t think it can continue on that kind of linear trajectory.”
Cardinale believes that investments in sports leagues from sovereign funds “as long as they’re responsible” is a good thing.
“The global balance of power economically is shifting to the Middle East right now,” he said. “I think having them in the world systems and these leagues is a positive, I really do.”