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Angela Ruggiero on Business of Women’s Sports, Rugby · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 2: Paul and I are live at Bloomberg Power Players, New York.
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  Speaker 2: This is a Bloomberg Live event that we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: the business of sports, which is a multi trillion dollar
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  Speaker 2: global industry, and we'll bring you influential voices from the
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  Speaker 2: business behind sports to help you identify what's next. So
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  Speaker 2: I'm thrilled to welcome Angela Vergiro. She is co founder
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  Speaker 2: at Sports Innovation Lab, executive board at World Rugby and
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  Speaker 2: at International Olympic Committee, and of course you might well
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  Speaker 2: know her as a gold medalist, four time Olympian, a
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  Speaker 2: former ice hockey defense woman.
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  Speaker 3: Angela, great to see you, Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: This is not your first time around to add power players.
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  Speaker 2: What does this event mean to you and the growth
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  Speaker 2: of women's sports.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love getting in the room with smart people
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  Speaker 3: with data, with understanding what the trends are. I think
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  Speaker 3: it's uh Boho's everyone to just stay in the know
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  Speaker 3: of what's happening. This event does that. Yeah, women's sports
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  Speaker 3: is one of the probably major trends that I think
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  Speaker 3: everyone's gonna be talking about today. It's just in the
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  Speaker 3: last five years exploded, and particularly in the last two
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  Speaker 3: you're seeing valuations going up. You're seeing a lot of
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  Speaker 3: transactions happening that you know, even three four years ago,
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  Speaker 3: no one was paying attention. Well why I was for
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  Speaker 3: the recorder. I was telling everyone our company's data at
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  Speaker 3: sports and Vationlabe. We were pumping it out, saying there's
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  Speaker 3: a business case here. There's an undercurrent of fans that
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  Speaker 3: want to buy and spend money, and there's a market
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  Speaker 3: and so it's nice to see the market finally catching up.
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  Speaker 2: And one, I mean, angels had such a career.
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  Speaker 3: My favorite I think is you're a member of the
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  Speaker 3: twenty fifteen Hockey Hall of Fame, only the fourth woman.
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  Speaker 2: Very cool, Kaitlyn Clark effect.
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  Speaker 1: That's just been phenomenal I think for a lot of people.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. The league's been around, w has been
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  Speaker 3: around forever, so there's so many great players. It's not
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  Speaker 3: like the game has changed, but she's just has star power.
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  Speaker 3: That's exceeded. I think all expectations. I'm actually an investor
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  Speaker 3: in the WNBA, invest pre Kaitlyn Clark, and to see
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  Speaker 3: her effect on the league in terms of just visibility
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  Speaker 3: and reach is profound. And I think what she's done,
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  Speaker 3: not only for the WNBA but all the women's sports leagues,
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  Speaker 3: has shown that, hey, there's a market here. Brands are excited.
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  Speaker 3: It only takes one breakthrough star. Think Alona Maha on
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  Speaker 3: the rugby side. There's a few stars you can identify
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  Speaker 3: and that are breakthrough stars, and those are really I
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  Speaker 3: think capturing what the future of sports overall looks like.
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  Speaker 3: You know, talk Jason Kelsey, talk any of these big
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  Speaker 3: players that exceed the sports arena. That's what Caitlyn Clark is.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's larger than life, She's larger than the WNBA.
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  Speaker 2: I guess my question here, though, is as everyone tries
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  Speaker 2: to capitalize on this moment in women's sports, all the interests,
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  Speaker 2: all the money, how do you make sure that you
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  Speaker 2: don't grow it too fast. That's happened with the WNBA
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  Speaker 2: in the past, where they expanded too quickly and then
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  Speaker 2: they had to bridge French. How do you do this carefully?
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  Speaker 2: In moderation so that it's sustainable.
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  Speaker 3: It's a great question. I think that is the key.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot of interest from investors now, which is fantastic.
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  Speaker 3: I think there's ten or twelve women's sports private equity
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  Speaker 3: funds that have popped up in the last two to
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  Speaker 3: three years. You have bigger funds saying we want to
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  Speaker 3: be in the game. But those revenues that have to
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  Speaker 3: catch up, right, there's a laggard effect. Either you're getting
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  Speaker 3: out of old contracts and renegotiating new that's what you
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  Speaker 3: see with the WNBA and the NWSL. Or sponsors are
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  Speaker 3: coming in, so we see we see brands saying, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: maybe we've spent five percent of our marketing budget, we
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  Speaker 3: should be spending ten, fifteen to twenty percent, and that
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  Speaker 3: reallocation is going to the women's game. You're seeing media
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  Speaker 3: partners again previously not spending anything, maybe just paying production costs.
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  Speaker 3: Now that's a big piece of the check. Women's sports
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  Speaker 3: traditionally has relied on sponsorship, tickets, sales, and a little
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  Speaker 3: bit of merch and again now you're getting media, which
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  Speaker 3: is the big bucket the men survive on coming in
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  Speaker 3: the door. So yeah, it's a great point. I think
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  Speaker 3: slow and steady wins the race here. But investments, it's
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  Speaker 3: okay to be in the red, right, That's I think
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  Speaker 3: previously there was this unfair expectation on the women's game,
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  Speaker 3: you should be profitable in two to three years or
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  Speaker 3: else we're out, whereas in the men's game, you know
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  Speaker 3: you could you could be in the red two to
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  Speaker 3: three decades. Literally think about look at the MLS. But
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  Speaker 3: now you're seeing okay, enterprise value and growth, so slow
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  Speaker 3: and steady, but a long term play, if that makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: How about women ownership of sports just in general, kind
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  Speaker 3: of where are we and how would you like to
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  Speaker 3: see it go? Yeah, it's great more women. Look, there's
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  Speaker 3: more wealth out there. Women are think of the family
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  Speaker 3: office trend. They have more dollars to spend now, and
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  Speaker 3: you never had this opportunity to spend it against a
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  Speaker 3: women's asset class like women's sports. So I think you're
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  Speaker 3: seeing a lot of family offices particular saying look, private
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  Speaker 3: equity and kind of that capital will come in soon.
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  Speaker 3: But in that personal wealth, you see the Michelle Kang's
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  Speaker 3: out there saying, hey, no one's taking the bet. I'm
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  Speaker 3: gonna take the bet and they're first to market. I
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  Speaker 3: think they're seeing that upside. So I'm very excited because
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  Speaker 3: there's so many women and men, quite frankly families that
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  Speaker 3: have daughters or believe themselves that that women deserve that
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  Speaker 3: kind of investment to grow, and that's absolutely changing the game.
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