Latest / The ROAR Podcast / The ROAR Podcast: Thayer Lavielle
Transcript
- Brice Clinton: In 2019, a small group inside one of the biggest agencies in sports went looking for data on women. Women as fans, women as athletes, women as executives. What they found was almost nothing. One insur 2003, a handful of scattered papers, half the consumer economy, essentially unmeasured. Since then, that group has published dozens of reports. Little think tank that now spans 30 professors and, by its own accounting, unlocked close to a billion dollars in investment into women's sports. Today's guest, There Lavelle, manning director of the collective. Her path here was anything but linear. She majored in French and Religion. She saved monies working days and assistant to a life insurance underwriter and nights as a server at a steakhouse. Then she moved to France without a job. And simply kept showing up at the ABC News Bureau until somebody handed her videotapes to log. That turned into five years at ABC, producing and booking for Good Morning America. Then Public Relations. Then L'Oreal, where a nostalgia play pairing a legacy men's fragrance with Dale Hernard Jr. put her on a path to running promotional marketing for Lancomb. Fifteen years ago, she landed at the agency where she sits today. Company she first met from the other side of the negotiating table. In this conversation, there gets into what the research actually says, why women athletes are twice as engaging as their male counterparts, what 15,000 respondents across 12 countries reveal about who's really buying the tickets, how AI is reshaping a business built on decades of proprietary data, and the one piece of feedback from a boss that changed how she valued her own ideas. I'm Bryce Clinton and this is Aurora Podcast. Caroline: Welcome to the Roar Podcast. I'm your host, Caroline Valvardi, and with me today is Thayer Lavielle, managing director of the collective at the team, formerly known as Wasserman. Welcome to the show. Thayer Lavielle: Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here. Caroline: Thank you. Yeah. So we saw each other in Chicago on the home court at the Obama Center for WMBA All Star a couple of weeks ago. usually we kick off episodes with telling us about your career and how you got to where we are, which we will get into. But I would love to hear a little bit about your thoughts from your experience at WMBA All Star and any key takeaways or insights you've been in this space for a long while now and I would love to hear hear any of that. Thayer Lavielle: I thought WNBA All-Star Weekend was remarkable in the sense that it really Chicago as a city kind of showed up and showed out for it. I think the Sky put together that incredible event at the Obama Center, which was a a an all-day summit. and then additional events coming thereafter, which was unique and special and certainly right in in line with what WNBA is about and and its players. but I thought what was interesting this year was how that event, the All-Star event, has become really a central moment in time for all of women's sports. So it wasn't just about women's basketball. It was everybody that works in women's sports was there. all of the different leagues and teams and entities were just showing up it A in support of each other, but also to see each other and to participate. There were also just dozens and dozens of, you know, side programming events happening, which was the first time that it had, you know, really exploded like that, which was exciting. And then I, you know, you can't go through a weekend like that without commenting on the fan base, which was everywhere and just super passionate and and into it. So I thought it was just such a great moment for for the W but also for for women's sports as a whole. Caroline: one of our last podcasts. We actually filmed on site there. So Adam Brossman, who is our chief analytics officer and leads Roar Data Analytics, who co-founded this podcast. So we did it live from there and some of the insights. And I'm sure, as we get deeper into our conversation, we'll be interesting to hear from the collective side and the research that you do. But I found a lot of the research that they talked about pretty interesting too, with the women's science and only six percent is based on Women, which is very shocking. how do you address women's needs and, the ways to create elite athletes and and so many different implications. But anyway, Thayer Lavielle: Yeah. I thought that was interesting too because Gatorade is, you know, is based there. So they have a big team of people and and their sports scientists were there. And I also thought the panel around, you know, digital safety monitoring and stuff for for women athletes was also interesting. So there's some great content that was there. Caroline: so great to hear some of your insights, but I just wanted to yes touch on that a little bit. now if we can take a few steps back please tell us a bit about your career and the journey and how you got to where you are today. Thayer Lavielle: my journey into the job that I have today and and really into sports was quite a circuitous route. I didn't mean to to work in sports. I was an athlete my whole life. I played sports in college. I played field hockey, ice hockey in lacrosse. I decided that after college I wanted to move to France because that was something that seemed like the place I wanted to be and I didn't have a job or a a reason for going, but I just wanted to be there. And I started to, you know, think about well, what do I want to do there? And what can I busy myself with? Because I had no, you know, ability to to actually work legally. So I started knocking on ABC News's door and they have a bureau over there. And they were not expecting me and they were like, we don't have a job for you. So thank you so much. Goodbye. And I was like, okay, well maybe I'll come back next week and see if you have something then. And I just kept kind of showing up. and they eventually said, okay, well, why don't you come in and log these videotapes? And I wasn't looking for money out of the gate. I just was looking for a place to go and a and a way to kind of be of service in an an industry. And they very generously just kind of took me in and got me busy on a bunch of different tasks that they needed to have done. And eventually I got a job, like a gig work on a remote you know, kind of major world event where their whole New York news desk came. And that led to me being offered a job in New York City where I was able to work for ABC News. I will tell you that speaking a second language. was wildly important to the launch of my career. I've used it throughout. So I speak fluent French and that I have used that throughout my career as an added strength in a lot of different ways. but from I went from ABC, I was there for about five years. I learned to be kind of a producer and a booker on Good Morning America overnight show and dayside. And then I went into PR in New York City and really learned to tell stories when I was working in in at a PR agency. and then I went from there internal to L'Oreal, where I started in in PR and ended up basically being told to to lead these brands and marketing. I I didn't have much of an interest in doing it at the time because I just felt like it was, you know, a lot of math and a lot of of complications in business that I didn't feel equipped actually to to handle. and my boss was like, you can learn all of that. What you what you have, which other people don't have, are ideas about how to actually market things. And that's a unique gift, which it was the first time somebody said what's coming in your brain and out of your brain is actually unique. So pay attention to that. So he really was instrumental in teaching me a lot about the skills of doing business. we had some great success there on a promotion that I had done with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and in a old fragrance brand called Dracar Noir, which was very much a nostalgia play, which ended up being wildly successful. and from there, I not only remained friends with Dale and his sister Kelly, but also was kind of promoted up the chain into a much bigger job at L'Oreal at Lancombe, which is one of their the one of their brands, running their promotional marketing. And was could never have been more underqualified or underprepared for that job just in the size of it. It was just so big. and I had to figure out how to swim pretty quickly there. and I also had two kids while I was there. So that was a you know three and a half, four year stint where I was very busy reproducing and also trying to figure out what which way was up and how to lead a huge, you know, business for for Lancombe. So I did that and eventually wanted to leave New York City, didn't want to have raised two babies in New York. And Dale and his sister kept saying, Could you, you know, would you ever consider coming down here? And eventually we said yes. And so we moved to Charlotte with the two boys and had another girl down there. And then that's how I met what was Wasserman, our company now, and and met them negotiating across the table and have been here for fifteen years, moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where I live. And have worked in our brands group and have worked in our in our talent group. And it was really there that we kind of set out to to start the collective, noticing a big need for kind of more purposeful, intentional business rationale around women on all sides of our business. So it's a little bit about my journey. Caroline: it's so cool to hear about the circuitous route, but there's always threads that tie it all together. And when I look at it, some of the takeaways are one starts with persistence and literally knocking on doors. but there's that balance of you don't want to annoy people and knocking on to but you did it, obviously in a smart way that got you to that step. And then there's the relationship aspect is the other huge piece of it that just wanted to elevate because sometimes those intangibles are very important. Yeah. Thayer Lavielle: Very much. Soft skills are key. Caroline: and then the also the piece of it is just being willing to figure out, what are the areas that you're interested in because I just the career I've had so far I've had a lot of interesting career experiences and figuring out where I wanna go and I yeah really appreciate all of that and just the conversations I have with people there's so many things you don't even realize exist and the skills that you can build and the things that you're interested in you just yeah continue to kind of kind of so Thayer Lavielle: It's funny you say that because I was when I first came out of college, because I majored in French and religion, which basically has you questioning what you're gonna do with your life because there's no real like straightforward path there. and I knew I wanted to go to France, but I needed to save money. And so I worked two jobs. I worked my day job was working as a like assistant to an underwriter at a life insurance company. And my night job was going, I'd rush out of there and I'd rush to outback steakhouse where I was a you know, server. And I loved my outback steakhouse job because I was able to be like personable and on a team and it felt like high energy and all this stuff. And the underwriting job was like very quiet and they listened to music and you could hear like people's corduroys as they walked down the hall. It was It was absolute torture for me. I couldn't stand it. And I couldn't wait to leave it. And that was equally important for me to realize. Not that I never wanted to work in life insurance underwriting, but a number one. But I also just realized the type of environment that I wanted to work in. I realized the type of people I wanted to work for. So that was just as important for me. Like hating that job was equally important for me as Finding the things that I loved about the jobs that I've had along the way. Caroline: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Because you think right out of school you're supposed to find the dream job but it's definitely a journey and that's okay and longer term it I think it pays off. going back to the collective, I would love to, hear more about how that came about and what specifically the collective does and how it's, evolved since I think it was started maybe two thousand nineteen. but You can tell us, but we'd love to hear more about the collective and what you guys are doing there. Thayer Lavielle: Sure. so the collective, you know, a he Caroline: Mm-hmm. Thayer Lavielle: when we started the collective in twenty nineteen is when we launched it. we launched it on the heels of the US women's national team winning the World Cup. And we had been in the process of developing a more focused practice around women as executives, women as fans and consumers, and women as athletes. 'Cause we were only a sports agency at the time. And we have bit long been in the sports agency game, long before it was cool or fashionable or profitable. we represented women as as athletes and you know, coaches and and broadcasters. And so we wanted to make sure that we were really thinking about what what can we do across the company that helps underscore why you should continue to invest in women, like actually invest in women. And so Because I had worked across different parts of our business, I was like, I can maybe take the lead in trying to figure this out. Well, in 2019, we ended up launching the collective, not really sure what it was meant to be, but all we knew was that women, you know, are driving the table on the economy and we're making all sorts of household decisions, the majority of them. We own the majority of the wealth, discretionary wealth today. We're inheriting so much of the financial. you know, inheritance that's to come in the world. and we're also massive sport fans and massive music fans. And like, why can't we be smarter as an industry as to how to actually unlock what's important to us? And so in diving into that, it was like, wow, there's just no information out there. There's, you know, I would think about like, well, what about women as insurance buyers? And you'd go in and there'd be like, one study from 20, you know, 2003. Well, what about like there was just no data and insights available. And so that was really the first thing because, you know, like Roar, we we are a data based company. We don't move without our data and insights. And so we needed to be the smartest people in the room and I needed to be the smartest peop person within our agency because it I was leading this to understand what Is the differentiator for women as consumers and bands? What is the differentiator for women as athletes? how do we look at this and support women executives across the board? And so as we continue to develop this, we, you know, I would gather and we quickly, as a globe, global world and business, you know, went into a pandemic. And so it was like, hold on, how do we actually start to focus and think about the research and insights that will support the broader business? So we started a think tank of about 10 universities at the time we launched with just of professors that really wanted to come together and think about how do you what's the research you're doing around women in sports? What's the, you know, where can we go with this together? We published we over the years, now we're up to 30 professors. we've published many, many different white papers and research papers around the world. We've, you know. Published dozens and dozens of our own reports out in the marketplace, which are, I would say, I would argue they are really kind of a standard bearer across a lot of different benchmarks for particularly the women's sports industry. We just launched in Music a whole study around women fans of live music. So that for us has been kind of a credibility spine for us of like, we want to make sure that we are super smart about what we are bringing to the table because. As we're doing that, it it helps inform our own team internally on the on the brands and properties business side as to how they can then take those solutions and that research and insights into their business. But it also helps support our talent agents and our talent support mechanisms to be able to move more investment for for them as well. And so the collective really sits in between those two areas of our business as a way to look at how can we A support you with the data and insights, B and the opinions, right? And then B, how can we gather influence for you? Are there connective tissues that we can do across the industry with different people that we know or different, you know, decision makers you need to be in touch with or host events with you or whatever that is. And then the third is that, you know, sometimes we are paid to to participate in that. And that's where Caroline: He had to be able to do. Thayer Lavielle: we really work inside of our own company to ensure that those those projects are completed w through our brands and properties side of the business. Caroline: Adam and I talked a bit about this on the podcast that we did at from WMBA, but one of the things we touched on is the importance of the data and research for making the case, because I think we all know the rise in women's sports, but having the data, of course, people need to see that and investors and all those things. So have you seen from the external side of your data and research, have you seen increasing demand, over the past few years, particularly with women's sports? And if you could talk to a little bit to that, I don't know if there's, any specific examples or things like that where it's been used in a specific way to inform an investment or a partnership or something like that. But just more more generally. But I imagine there must be an increase in demand and becomes even more valuable to have that data and research. Thayer Lavielle: Yeah, we've seen not only I would answer this a couple ways. One is that we've seen a lot more data and research being done, which also is su excites us because we want as much information to be generated as we can get as well. So, and we can't do it all, right? So, and nor should we. There's lots of different perspectives out there of of entities that have great ways to look at the industry and we want to know all of those as well. And that's also from a global perspective. It's, you know, it's a it's a big broad world to be able to uncover. But additionally, you know, when we go down this lens of, you know, data and insights, I would say it's absolutely helped inform how, whether it's ours or somebody else's, how fans are driving more value, how valuable athletes are, how much loyalty there is to brands that are investing in women's sports. Tell me about the audience segmentation. Tell me about the this, tell me about the that. And so when you're doing this, that becomes fodder to kind of continue to drive the conversation around it. And the more, the more conversation there is, the more hoopla and hype there is around women's sports, which then generates more hoopla and hype around gender around women's sports. Therefore, more people lean in and say, tell me more about this, how can I better participate? And that's honestly where we as a business come in and s help say, how can we help you understand and navigate this? and and maybe it's with us or maybe it's with another agency or maybe it's connecting them to other people. But we are truly meant to sit at the center and serve whoever we need to be able to serve, to be able to just continue to generate more investment in women. And in doing that, you know, the benefit of that and the kind of effect of that for us is we went in because I can't I don't know if you've read my report, Caroline, and say, hey, that actually helped us make this decision. I don't know that until you tell me that. So what we did is said, how much impact have we had across the industry? We went in through our own, you know, a series of different ways to look at our own business and the effects of that business and the the overall kind of rise of women's sports in particular. And it turns out we've locked unlocked almost a billion dollars. investment for women in sport, which is amazing and what a great thing to be able to say we've done that. and so I believe that that's quite a conservative number actually. Caroline: That's so interesting. and as we are entering or continuing in this chapter of AI and technology evolving and how you can collect data and how much you can collect and all these things, how has that changed how you're doing business even over these last few years and probably particularly in last couple of years? does it increase what you're able to do or maybe hasn't changed much at all and you're very, focused still on the core things that you've been doing. But if you can talk a little bit about how it's impacting your work or how you're thinking about how you do your work going forward in light of, AI and that whole evolution. Thayer Lavielle: We are big adopters of AI, both at our agency and certainly within the collective. There is so much information to know and understand, and the speed, the rapidity with which we can all of a sudden query individually or collectively to get to more thoughtful answers and to be able to have a thought partner that is thinking about things way more broadly than anyone human possibly could, I find to be invigorating. Now. There is obviously a lot of humanity that needs to go into kind of more full responses to things. But I spend a fair amount of time each week thinking about industry analyses and thinking about new questions that I want to understand about the industry or about a very specific kind of rabbit hole to go down. And it Pretty much tells me where it's limited and it tells me what it knows. And that for me allows allows us to understand where we need to start to build some strengths. We can also create different agents where all of our information is going to these you know, specific kind of threads, if you will. And that makes all of us smarter because then the entire agency can can also begin to self-serve. And because we have literally almost a decade of data pulled. A lot of it is our own data. We've gone out and done custom, you know, reports for years. what a gift to be able to then start to query stuff and and be able to find out these answers more quickly. That just helps us find solutions more easily. It helps us find make decisions better. It helps us, you know, talk to clients more easily. but we need to make sure that we're continuously double checking, gut checking, all of those things. Caroline: Yeah, 'cause that's something I asked about there's the good things about it and then some of the challenges. And some of it is getting, everyone up to speed on and it's hard because there's one tool and then another one comes out and a new version and how you use it and or how you shouldn't use it. But can you dig in a little bit on some of the challenges with it too as you're trying to adopt Thayer Lavielle: I think about like data Caroline: I think Thayer Lavielle: queries specifically. And if we just came out with this awesome study around women fans of live music, it's 12 countries, 18 music genres, 15,000 respondents. So you can imagine that if we're a booking agency and we take a specific, you know, artist out on the road, we can go into that data and specifically query that not only in relation to the custom data that we've pulled, because we could do that without AI, but really then layer on all sorts of interesting cultural nuances about, you know, XYZ artists in Hong Kong. are there better, is there better seasonality to that? Or is there a certain way that we should look at how those, you know, you know, fans should be treated or whatever the c kind of customs that we might that might be different than Singapore, that might be different than Australia or France or whatever. and so those are things that are just get us there quick more quickly. That's where AI can come in. But we have to make sure that we're also double checking that with the team in Hong Kong to say, hey, as and the music team obviously, to be able to say, Hey, as you're booking these things, here's some nuances that you might want to think through and here's some cultural things that you might want to play up. So when we look at it from a women fan of live music perspective, one of the biggest things that we've found is you know, 83% of us are actually doing all the booking of these events. Like, hey, you guys want to go to a show? Like, let me go book that. 83% of us are taking on that work. And there's kind of two ways that we want to engage in this. We want to be able to like relax into this experience, just like our male counterparts and just like all of our friends. but the logistical Complexities for us as women because we're doing two and a half hours more a day of unseen labor, there's all sorts of mental load that goes into taking on that required, you know, that kind of added responsibility of creating this. And so, and when I get there, is this going to be easy? Can I find my friends? Will I be eating good food? Is there something to drink other than beer? Is it cashless? Is it like all of the questions that we have? And so. Those are things that will vary by geography. And so as we're thinking about how to make that experience awesome for women, that's gonna be really different in Australia than it might be in France, might be in, you know, Toledo. So AI is incredibly helpful and I don't know, I I get excited about it. Caroline: super fascinating. Just some of the data Thayer Lavielle: Yeah. Caroline: points you shared are wow, yes, the eighty three percent. Like, wow. Not not but also Thayer Lavielle: I know a lot of women are like, I'm not scene. Caroline: and then just the cultural differences are interesting too when you talk about AI because I've noticed that there's so many cultural nuances that wherever it's collecting data I feel like that's still something that it's gonna be hard for it to fully achieve, but the way that you explained it and the things that it does point out are so important because one thing that applies here does not apply, like you said, in Australia or whatever. So yeah, Thayer Lavielle: That's right. Caroline: same thing. thinking about how we're talking about current day and all the evolution around AI and you started early in your career in production and media. what has been the biggest surprises to you or anything that's shocked you or talking a bit about how different it is from your early days with I think it was Good Morning America with A B C News. what has been surprising or has changed the most in your view Thayer Lavielle: I mean, the whole world has changed. So we I Caroline: Yeah, questions. Thayer Lavielle: mean, when I worked in television, like it was the advent of cable TV. So it was that's just how old I am. So, you know, it was like we saw the rise of the internet, and then we saw the rise of social media, and then we've seen the kind of propensity with which that has completely taken off. and the great parts about that in terms of how it can create community from afar and how it can create connections from afar and and for families and for friends that are, you know, kind of needing to be connected for work to record podcasts to do all this stuff. But on the other hand, do I need to know what my fifth grade My friend is doing today? Like, do I need to keep up with the Joneses? Do I need to feel like I'm living in a superficial virtual world? Or is it easier and better for my mental health to live in the world in which I am physically situated? and that's where I think, you know, I'm not sure we've cracked as a society, we've cracked, cracked the code there. But from a production perspective, you know, holy amount of things to watch and engage in today from a million different you know, outlets to be able to do that on, which is both daunting and exciting all at once. Caroline: I imagine with, athletes and, other talent and other folks that you're working with in this space, it's challenging keep up with how you advise or how they're managing their content strategies and all of those things just keeps changing. So that's yeah, kind of of it too. Yeah. Thayer Lavielle: It I think it does, but I think, you know, and and I'm I'm not an agent and so I I don't even pretend to play one. but I would think that or what I see is a lot of our athletes, in particular women athletes, because they've had to make livings through social media as augmentations kind of earlier, you know, gener like one generation ago. you have players that are really savvy in it and you under that they understand like this is a way that I've had to make money, which is now, you know, very clear, even down to NIL, that there are athletes that are very natural at this and there are athletes that aren't, and that's okay too. and that just means that there are other ways that we as their agency need to get them to to shine. Caroline: I don't know if you can speak a little bit to around the edges, I know some of the talk about the difference between, men and women broadly speaking on the content creation and women are doing a lot better overall, on content and brand partnerships and all those things. you see some of that play out even when you, go to events like WMBA or you're seeing all this on social media. but I don't know if that's anything that you guys have dove into from the collective side or seeing some of those differences between, women athletes as creators. Thayer Lavielle: We definitely have. in I wanna say twenty twenty-four, which in this day and age in women's sports, feeling like I'm quoting a two year old study is feels ancient to me now because things are moving so quickly. But I think it was twenty twenty four we did a study with RBC, Royal Bank of Canada, on the value of women athletes. And what we understood was because women athletes have had to spend so much of their time, you know, creating their brands online and through social media, what is their actual value in relation to to men athletes? And so where men might have, you know, far bigger followings, they're just not going as deep in terms of the engagement. So our numbers were that women are actually two times as engaging. What was interesting around the pandemic was when the world shut down women athletes in women's sports really kind of stood up because they have had to kind of pivot and figure out solutions from the dawn of time in order to a make a living and figure out how to, you know, maximize the effort. And so this was just another kind of hurdle in the road. It wasn't like ground stop, you know, for them. So they figured out how to, you know, the WMBA figured out how to host the first virtual, you know, draft. from Kathy Engelbert's living room, and she'd been on the job for like a month, to, you know, having the first bubble play with NWSL over the summer, to having, you know, an incredibly successful wobble play with tons and tons of different, you know, social justice conversations going on. So they really have led in this in this area. And so what we've been able to see is that that that authenticity of who women are comes through, particularly on social. And so they're able to continue to galvanize their fan bases through their teams or through their individual channels. and that's just been kind of furthered, I think, by the the growth of the of the sports landscape as a whole, the women's sports landscape as a whole, and also more media, more media coverage, more leagues coming on, you know, five leagues coming on in twenty twenty four alone. Like there is j it's just exploding. So which is amazing. And with that comes a lot of loyalty from from bands of women's sports, men and women. And that's, you know, that's just kind of proving the point that, you know, these women are twice as engaging and you know, they also are getting people to convert their fandom. Caroline: very nostalgic when you talk about I don't know if nostalgic is the right word, but even back to 2020 and then, two years ago feeling like a long time ago, which is how much has happened the past few years. but I wanna get to a more on the personal side as you reflect back on all the amazing things that you have, done throughout your career. And if you could talk a little bit about, Whether it's something specific or a little more general, what has brought you the most joy in in what you've done and particularly, as it relates to some of the sports related work, whether at the collective or otherwise. Thayer Lavielle: That's such a hard question to answer because I've had such an incredible career, like, in the sense that I've had these experiences where I've really been able to try out a lot of things, to be able to work in the news industry and be sent away to some of the most interesting current events, to be in the center of that, trying to cover it, meet with the right people, get them on air, like. What a privilege to be able to do that and also how super high pressure, but what an incredible privilege to be able to do that. And then to be able to move to to be able to learn kind of PR and at and at L'Oreal to understand how do you actually, you know, direct and cultivate and nuance brands to be able to work alongside some of the biggest retailers in the world to understand fashion and beauty, like. That's such a cool experience, right? Caroline: I think we can close here. I so appreciate all of your insights and the amazing work that you continue to do and your leadership in the space. And thank you so much for coming on the show.