WHEN: Today, Tuesday, September 10
WHERE: CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of the Investing in Women: Female Sports Fandom panel that took place today, Tuesday, September 10th, live during the CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in Los Angeles. The panel featured speakers including Jessica Berman, National Women’s Soccer League Commissioner; Cameron Brink, WNBA Los Angeles Sparks; Sara Gotfredson, Trailblazing Sports Group Founder; and JuJu Watkins, USC Women’s Basketball.
Mandatory credit: CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit.
JESSICA BERMAN ON WOMENS SPORTS
Yeah I think you have to zoom out and ask yourself how we got where we are to try to really understand and rationalize everything we’re seeing from media rights valuation to sponsorship valuation to enterprise value for franchises. Men’s sports have been around for 100 years. They have decades of experience that they bring to the table in terms of their performance, in terms of building audience, in terms of understanding and knowing who their fans are, and they’ve also received incredible investment from the public sector, from the private sector, from nonprofit, from youth, from every aspect of society has invested in men’s sports and has bought into the philosophy that they are heralded as community assets. Women’s sports have been around for a tiny fraction of the time. Our League, we’re in our 13th season right now, and you can’t catch up for 100 years in 10. It’s just not possible.
JUJU WATKINS ON BRAND BUILDING
I’ve always been interested in business and will continue to evolve on in that aspect. But again, I think just authenticity, I’ll continue to evolve and I might not like what I like now, so just just staying authentic to myself and keeping the main thing, the main thing is really important for me, staying locked in on basketball and just making sure that I’m performing to the best of my abilities and then everything else will come.
CAMERON BRINK ON BUILDING HER BUSINESS
Keeping the main thing, the main thing is really important because even though my W contract may not be as much as I’m making off the court, that is how I show up in this space and that’s what I love to do. So I’ve been rehabbing really hard. I think that’s, you know, a really huge thing. So, you know, my success on court leads to success off court. And brands have been super generous, even through injury, they’ve been super accommodating. I did a shoot with LegalZoom, probably seven days after I got injured, and went on set, and it was just we were kind of aiming for, like an office kind of style, just comedy vibe, and they made me laugh, and it just kind of reminded me like this injury is not going to limit me. I can still be a businesswoman. Brands still want to work with me and be accommodating and so I’m just very thankful for all my brand partners. And like you said, just showing up authentically, and brands will approach you.
SARA GOTFREDSON ON THE NEXT GENERATION OF FANS
The next generation of fans, Angela calls them the fluid fan, are women’s sports fans and so they are just fanning differently than me, you know, growing up watching Monday Night Football. They are interacting. They are following. They are they are twice as engaged in female athletes from a with a, brand partners with these ladies. They may not have the, you know, Kelce numbers, but their fans will engage with them twice as much because they authentically care about what they’re posting.
For more information contact:
Erin Kitzie
CNBC
About CNBC
CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news, providing real-time financial market coverage and business content consumed by more than half a billion people per month across all platforms. The network’s 14 live hours a day of news programming in North America (weekdays from 5:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of reality programming, CNBC’s highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
CNBC also offers content through its vast portfolio of digital products such as: CNBC.com, which provides financial market news and information to CNBC’s investor audience; CNBC Make It, a digital destination focused on making you smarter about how you earn, save and spend your money; CNBC PRO, a premium service that provides in-depth access to Wall Street; a suite of CNBC mobile apps for iOS and Android devices; Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Siri voice interfaces; and streaming services including Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung Smart TVs. To learn more, visit https://www.cnbc.com/digital-products/.
Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBCUniversal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/programming/cnbc. For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit http://www.NBCUniversal.com.
