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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am

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Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.

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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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