Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Carolyn Tisch Blodgett.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where women share
Emily Tisch Sussman: bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I'm your host, Emily Tisch Sussman. There is exactly one
Emily Tisch Sussman: guest I bring back on this show every season, same person,
Emily Tisch Sussman: different pivots.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Every single year.
Emily Tisch Sussman: We're back with our annual she Pivots episode with my sister.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Carolyn Tish Blodgett is the CEO and founder of Next Three,
Emily Tisch Sussman: our family sports investment fund. She represents our family's ownership
Emily Tisch Sussman: at the New York Giants. She's the governor of Gotham FC,
Emily Tisch Sussman: New York and New Jersey's women's soccer team, and the
Emily Tisch Sussman: first ever chair of the Executive Committee of the National
Emily Tisch Sussman: Women's Soccer League. And this past year, the team she's
Emily Tisch Sussman: been building at Gotham won the championship again. She got
Emily Tisch Sussman: here by her own three kid pivot after building the
Emily Tisch Sussman: brand at Peloton. But for that story, you're going to
Emily Tisch Sussman: have to go back to her episode from twenty twenty three.
Emily Tisch Sussman: We do this interview every year because I want the
Emily Tisch Sussman: real time version of what it takes to build a
Emily Tisch Sussman: women's sports brand, not just the highlight reel, the bet,
Emily Tisch Sussman: the doubt, the wins, the parts nobody sees. This is
Emily Tisch Sussman: Carolyn Tish Blodgett, and this is how she pivots again.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: What is your name and what do you do?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I'm Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, CEO and founder of Next three.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I oversee all of our sports investments. I'm the governor
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of Gotham FC, and I work with our family at
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the Giants as an advisor to ownership.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And how do we know each other?
Emily Tisch Sussman: Oh?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And you're my sister. This is now our annual interview
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: fel so honored.
Emily Tisch Sussman: The reason we keep having you back on is not
Emily Tisch Sussman: just because you keep pivoting, but also because we've been
Emily Tisch Sussman: tracking the progression of Gotham from the beginning, Like we've
Emily Tisch Sussman: done this every season now of like, how do you
Emily Tisch Sussman: think about owning a women's sports team?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: What is the landscape?
Emily Tisch Sussman: And it's evolved every year, So how do you think
Emily Tisch Sussman: about owning a women's sports team? Because you really run Gotham,
Emily Tisch Sussman: how has it evolved?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I think when I came on this podcast last year,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I was just about to become the first ever chair
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of the executive committee, which is kind of chair of
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the league. I think we were like late breaking news
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: on the podcast. We broke it, Yes, we broke it
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: here breaking news. I'm still here now. It's a two
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: year role, so next year I will be breaking news
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of pivoting away from that. There wasn't such an easy
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: decision to take on that role because it is a
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: lot of work.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I think we know. I've like I've built brands before.
Carolyn: I used to run marketing and peloton, so I know
Carolyn: what it takes to be successful at the kind of
Carolyn: what is in front of me. These are the steps
Carolyn: we need to do to be successful at the local level.
Carolyn: But our success at Gotham really hinges on the league
Carolyn: being successful. I think all of us collectively, and part
Carolyn: of what's interesting about being on the board is as
Carolyn: much as we compete on the field, it really is
Carolyn: is a group of people that believe in the collective
Carolyn: and we all work together because we all know each
Carolyn: of us is only going to be successful in our
Carolyn: own markets if the league is successful. So that was
Carolyn: kind of the decision to spend time on the league.
Carolyn: As I think about how I spend my time on
Carolyn: league things, some of it's like very in the weeds
Carolyn: and probably not that interesting on the podcast, But I
Carolyn: think at a macro level, we are coming up on
Carolyn: our next media deal. Getting more people, getting the casual
Carolyn: sports fan and a lighter user of the product into
Carolyn: our games in a more regular way is job number one.
Carolyn: Part of our thesis, and in investing in Gotham was
Carolyn: a bet that we have the best product in the
Carolyn: world if you're talking about women's soccer, really soccer in general.
Carolyn: This is one of the best products in the world,
Carolyn: but not enough people are currently fans today. So we
Carolyn: want to go grow that and I think we've seen
Carolyn: a lot of that success, but I think we're still
Carolyn: really at the tip of the iceberg in terms of
Carolyn: how big this league can grow, and so all our
Carolyn: eyes are on this next media deal, really getting more
Carolyn: eyeballs on the product. And can you actually explain what
Carolyn: the media deal is and why it's significant. We're only
Carolyn: in the first ever media deal for the entire league,
Carolyn: right what was before that? So this is the second one,
Carolyn: the original media deal. The games are on Lifetime TV.
Carolyn: Personally love Lifetime TV, but not really your destination for
Carolyn: like I'm just laying on the couch looking for a
Carolyn: sports game, where can I find it? So this current
Carolyn: media deal that we're in was really revolutionary. At the time,
Carolyn: it was forty times what the last one was. The
Carolyn: league actually has to pay for production, so a lot
Carolyn: of times like you're losing money actually to even get
Carolyn: your games on TV. So now we are on multiple channels,
Carolyn: we are paid at a much higher rate. Again, I
Carolyn: think that number will go up. It's kind of a
Carolyn: balance of how much you're paid and how much access
Carolyn: you have. The discoverability is challenging if you think about,
Carolyn: like when the NFL moved Thursday Nights to Amazon Prime,
Carolyn: that took hundreds of millions of dollars to train consumers
Carolyn: like Thursday night, I watched the NFL on Prime, and
Carolyn: so we are on Prime on Friday nights. We're still
Carolyn: training the consumer to realize that, figuring out the right
Carolyn: balance of reach, discoverability, and who are the partners that
Carolyn: are going to really lean in and help us grow this.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Before this media deal, when it was just on Lifetime,
Emily Tisch Sussman: not every game was aired right. So if you like
Emily Tisch Sussman: went to a game and you're like, oh, this is
Emily Tisch Sussman: so fun, I start following, you can't find a lot
Emily Tisch Sussman: of that couldn't right, and that's still the case. Not
Emily Tisch Sussman: all of our games are aired today, So we have
Emily Tisch Sussman: as a league product called the End of Yourself plus app.
Emily Tisch Sussman: It exists so you can at least to your point,
Emily Tisch Sussman: like if you're a really avid fan, you can find
Emily Tisch Sussman: all of our games.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Even for our own games.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Like when we talk about like discoverability, the amount of
Emily Tisch Sussman: texts that go on game day, mainly from mom who's
Emily Tisch Sussman: like I can't figure out what the game is on.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I can't even find it. It's like it's like go
Emily Tisch Sussman: through all of them. Even when you go into any
Emily Tisch Sussman: of our channels, even if you start searching the keywords
Emily Tisch Sussman: like NWSL Gotham Soccer.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: It doesn't always show up. You have to search like
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: twenty different names.
Carolyn: I think as teams, we could do a much better
Carolyn: job of promoting where our games are. I think that's
Carolyn: back to the kind of building the habits. Like ESPN
Carolyn: will be in a more regular cycle where we're on
Carolyn: ESPN every Sunday night, so then we'll start to build
Carolyn: the habit and the teams and the league can do
Carolyn: a much better job of like building those habits and
Carolyn: pushing people there. And then to your point, on discoverability
Carolyn: within it. That's where I go back to, like, who
Carolyn: are the right partners that are really going to invest
Carolyn: with us and really want to see us be successful.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I would point to the Championship. It was on CBS.
Carolyn: It broke a million viewers, first time we've had over
Carolyn: a million viewers on Championship or any of our games,
Carolyn: and CBS was.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Thrilled with it. They really wanted to lean in.
Carolyn: When we lean in with our partners and we have
Carolyn: the right broadcast people there and all that, we get
Carolyn: the results. And so now going into the season, we're
Carolyn: having great conversations with all of our partners, but in
Carolyn: particular them to say how do we build off of
Carolyn: that championship number and continue to grow that into the
Carolyn: next year.
Emily Tisch Sussman: We had a talking circle at Gloria Steinem's house a
Emily Tisch Sussman: couple of weeks ago, and one of the things that
Emily Tisch Sussman: came out of that conversation was that women's yo worts
Emily Tisch Sussman: is in the zeitgeist. When we had this conversation two
Emily Tisch Sussman: years ago, it was not. So that feels really different now,
Emily Tisch Sussman: like two three years later. The ownership of women's sports
Emily Tisch Sussman: is seen by a lot of male investors as an
Emily Tisch Sussman: incredible investment, and they're moving fast, and they're taking up
Emily Tisch Sussman: all the allocations of these investments, and so a lot
Emily Tisch Sussman: of these women's sports teams and sports leagues are actually
Emily Tisch Sussman: getting gobbled up by the mail investors who who are
Emily Tisch Sussman: like purely in it for the numbers, and the women
Emily Tisch Sussman: investors who are moving a little slower and maybe don't
Emily Tisch Sussman: have the confidence to be in sports are getting edged out.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: This has now become like a new passion to find.
Emily Tisch Sussman: We are having right now the great wealth transfer where
Emily Tisch Sussman: our generation, the generation above us are making a lot
Emily Tisch Sussman: more money inheriting a lot more money, like need to
Emily Tisch Sussman: diversify and think about how to invest, and women are
Emily Tisch Sussman: not necessarily looking at sports in that same way.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: How is that playing out for you? Is this true?
Emily Tisch Sussman: Like, are you finding that these male investors are like
Emily Tisch Sussman: moving fast and taking up all the allocation. Are you
Emily Tisch Sussman: having other conversations with women who could be going into
Emily Tisch Sussman: sports investment, in sports ownership?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: What are those conversations look like.
Carolyn: Obviously there's many less female owners than there are male
Carolyn: across men's and women's sports. Wealthy individuals that could become
Carolyn: investors in sports, that's probably where the conversation needs to happen.
Carolyn: So whether it is like their advisors, their family offices,
Carolyn: whoever is advising them to start to have those conversations
Carolyn: around do you want to be sports owner?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Is that interesting to you?
Emily Tisch Sussman: Like?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: These are the teams we should look at.
Carolyn: Women's sports being seen as an investable asset is a
Carolyn: very good thing for women's sports. There is a good
Carolyn: return on an investment in women's sports. That was our thesis.
Carolyn: I've spent the past two years trying to get people
Carolyn: to see that, and I think when you see private
Carolyn: equity funds coming into women's sports, that's a good thing.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: That means that people see that there's a return.
Carolyn: Before it was seen as an investment asset, it was
Carolyn: seen as a charity. And you don't want to be
Carolyn: a charity because a charity means it's not taken seriously.
Carolyn: It means funding gets pulled when you change your mind.
Carolyn: That's not the gross story of women's sports. The growth
Carolyn: story is an investment class. The back of private equity
Carolyn: firms want to invest in women's sports is a good
Carolyn: thing and I think we'll continue to drive valuations up.
Carolyn: It will continue to drive real investments into women's sports,
Carolyn: including the end of yoursel. Your point that I agree
Carolyn: with is the like, why don't more women see themselves
Carolyn: as owners? And I don't think that's really on the league.
Carolyn: By the time it gets to us and we're reviewing,
Carolyn: you know, expansion bids or potential investors, that's probably too late.
Carolyn: I think what you're saying, which I agree with, is
Carolyn: like the advisors, the bankers who are talking to these
Carolyn: people about you just inherited XYZ fortune. How do you
Carolyn: want to spend your money? That's probably where the conversation
Carolyn: should be had around do you want to invest?
Emily Tisch Sussman: You are someone who said we're going to go into
Emily Tisch Sussman: this space before other people.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah.
Carolyn: I mean there's a fair amount of women now that
Carolyn: are NFL owners. There are some that are MBA, so
Carolyn: I think it's changing. I was just talking to a
Carolyn: potential investor in an expansion team and I said, you
Carolyn: know someone I like a lot of Admira a lot,
Carolyn: And I said, obviously, I personally would love to see
Carolyn: you in the league. I think you'd add a lot
Carolyn: of value. But you have to go in eyes wide open.
Carolyn: This is a long term investment. Our evaluation is tripled
Carolyn: I think since we've come into the league, so clearly
Carolyn: there is a return there, but it's a lot of time,
Carolyn: it's a lot of unglamorous work. This is not a
Carolyn: passive investment. If you're looking for a straight, simple return,
Carolyn: go buy a stock.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: This is not that you've talked about that.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You're in partnership meetings like sponsorship meetings all the time,
Emily Tisch Sussman: and this is for women's sports broadly, and you're also
Emily Tisch Sussman: in them for the giants as well. So you see
Emily Tisch Sussman: that in like established men's sports brands, it's not the
Emily Tisch Sussman: same conversation necessarily in both. It's better than it used
Emily Tisch Sussman: to be in women's sports, but it's not necessarily the same.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah, it's interesting.
Carolyn: What's nice is I think there's a growing number of
Carolyn: brands that totally get it and are ready to lean
Carolyn: in and they see the Roi CarMax our front of
Carolyn: Kit sponsor I would put high on that list of
Carolyn: took a bet on us when they became our front
Carolyn: of Kit sponsor in twenty twenty three and have continued
Carolyn: to see that bet payoff. They look at their return
Carolyn: on their marketing spend with Gotham versus any other male
Carolyn: sports team, and it's a better investment and they see that.
Carolyn: I think looking at like in investment in Gotham versus
Carolyn: an NFL team, for example, the eyeballs can't compare an
Carolyn: average NFL game is getting, you know, seventeen million, twenty
Carolyn: million people to watch like a very average game. We're
Carolyn: not obviously getting that. We just broke a million for
Carolyn: the championship. What we have is a much deeper engagement.
Carolyn: Our fans are much more engaged in the product, and
Carolyn: in particular, we see a much higher recall rate for
Carolyn: our sponsors. We see a much higher shift to brand
Carolyn: loyalty than women's sports. I think our consumers deeply understand
Carolyn: that our partners are key to our success, and so
Carolyn: they are much more likely to shift their spend and
Carolyn: spend with a partner than they typically do in men's sports.
Carolyn: Much more of a data story. It's more work on
Carolyn: our partnership team and for us to sell that. But
Carolyn: for the brands that get it, then they really get
Carolyn: it and they're really seeing the benefit. So there are
Carolyn: definitely still brands that we talk to that maybe they
Carolyn: don't want to do the like under the tent looking
Carolyn: to understand a difference between the different partners. They're just
Carolyn: kind of looking to put their name on something and
Carolyn: like logo slap and see where.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: It goes, Like check a women's sports box exactly.
Carolyn: Certain brands don't want to talk to us at all,
Carolyn: and they're like, what's a women's soccer team?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I have no interest.
Carolyn: Other brands I think are starting to feel a little
Carolyn: pressure to have a women's sports strategy, but it does
Carolyn: feel a little bit like a check the box. The
Carolyn: investment they're willing to make is so small and they
Carolyn: don't even really want to engage. It's like, we want
Carolyn: our partners to be there on game day and show
Carolyn: up and do stuff with our players, and when you're
Carolyn: checking a box, you just don't end up wanting to
Carolyn: do that.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Coming up, we dig deeper into how you build a
Emily Tisch Sussman: team people recognize on the other side of the world
Emily Tisch Sussman: the night Gotham flew to Kansas City with every single
Emily Tisch Sussman: odds stacked against them, and why the locker room of
Emily Tisch Sussman: the future has an L shaped entrance.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: We'll get there right after the break.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Coming back to this broader goal that you articulated from
Emily Tisch Sussman: the beginning, that Gotham will be the first global brand
Emily Tisch Sussman: in women's sports, and those individual athletes, female athletes, primarily
Emily Tisch Sussman: tennis that people recognize anywhere in the world where there's
Emily Tisch Sussman: no women's team and that will be Gotham. How has
Emily Tisch Sussman: that vision played out? So it really does start with
Emily Tisch Sussman: the product on the fields. If you think about all
Emily Tisch Sussman: those teams that have become global brands, and I would
Emily Tisch Sussman: probably put Kansas City Chiefs in that, you know, in
Emily Tisch Sussman: its recent era in the NFL, but the Dallas Cowboys
Emily Tisch Sussman: in their era been like the like.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: People in England love the Dolphins because that's funny.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I know, it's so funny because that's when they started
Emily Tisch Sussman: airing the NFL, right when.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: They were good. Yeah, exactly.
Carolyn: You see a lot of La Dodgers fans like hats
Carolyn: around when you're like walking around in other countries. So
Carolyn: if you think about these brands, which I have all
Carolyn: been men's to date, that have all become these big
Carolyn: global brands, it does start with winning. And winning is
Carolyn: when a casual fan comes in. It is then on
Carolyn: us as stewards are the bran to convert them into
Carolyn: lifelong fans. And so we'll talk about that, but it
Carolyn: does start with winning. And so last year we won
Carolyn: the championship. Great job, congratulations. So the celebrating of the
Carolyn: championship was really important to that.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So we won championship.
Carolyn: It was critically important to me, to our whole team
Carolyn: that if we won, when we won, that we celebrated
Carolyn: this team like the champions that they are, and that
Carolyn: we took the exact playbook of how men's teams are
Carolyn: celebrated in New York. We went really deep, like screen
Carolyn: by screen of the YouTube video that we found of
Carolyn: the Giants parade to make sure down to what was
Carolyn: the seating at City Hall, to make sure you know,
Carolyn: we do we really followed it like as much as
Carolyn: we could, because again, if you're going to be this
Carolyn: first global women's brand, we have to take a page
Carolyn: from the men's book. They celebrate champions well and we
Carolyn: need to follow that same playbook. So first on the
Carolyn: business side was really being championship ready. Then how do
Carolyn: we convert these moment in time fans into lifelong fans
Carolyn: of the team. And so we relaunched our season ticket
Carolyn: membership called the Blueprint.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Now, so if you think about what.
Carolyn: Season ticket memberships look like in sports, it's always been
Carolyn: about just access to tickets because in a world before
Carolyn: a secondary ticket market, the only way to get like Giants'
Carolyn: tickets for a long time, the buildings sold out. There's
Carolyn: no stub hubver or feet Geek, and so the only
Carolyn: way to have tickets was to be a season ticket member. Now,
Carolyn: in a world of secondary ticket markets, the ticketing part
Carolyn: of it doesn't matter as much, and so it's much
Carolyn: more about joining a community. So our bet on creating
Carolyn: a Blueprint was to reimagine season ticket membership to really
Carolyn: be about joining a community. And so the blueprint is
Carolyn: only the first five thousand members. You get a fancy
Carolyn: jacket with your number on it. We will one day,
Carolyn: you know, memorialize it physically. You know, if you drop
Carolyn: out of being a season ticket member, we're not going
Carolyn: to replace you as that number. You will always be
Carolyn: one of the original five thousand people that got this
Carolyn: team to what hopefully one day will be a multi
Carolyn: billion dollar team. And so we've made decisions like that
Carolyn: that were really deliberate in taking that great product and
Carolyn: that great moment of winning the championship and translating that
Carolyn: into what we hope is lifelong fandom.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And by the way, the jacket is popping off.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I went to the Sirens game right after the Blueprint
Emily Tisch Sussman: Jackets were mailed on like Thursday. I went to the
Emily Tisch Sussman: Sirens game on Sunday and there were a lot of
Emily Tisch Sussman: people wearing blueprint jackets. I couldn't believe how quickly they
Emily Tisch Sussman: had turned it around and how proud they were to
Emily Tisch Sussman: be wearing them, which I also think points to how
Emily Tisch Sussman: a fan of women's sports can be different than a
Emily Tisch Sussman: fan of men's sports.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah, it's interesting.
Carolyn: So we have a bunch of different types of target
Carolyn: audiences in our fans. Some are kind of core soccer loyalists,
Carolyn: love the sport of soccer and this is a great product.
Carolyn: They love that there is a group, as you said,
Carolyn: of kind of women's sports fans, and they really believe
Carolyn: in kind of the broader role they are playing in
Carolyn: lifting women's sports up. They love the vibe, they think
Carolyn: it's really fun. They're going to wear that jacket proudly.
Carolyn: They are proud supporters. It's actually kind of a page
Carolyn: out of our Peloton book is early on, when you
Carolyn: did your hundredth ride, you got this T shirt.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: You couldn't buy it.
Carolyn: The only way you could get this T shirt was
Carolyn: is if you did one hundred rides. And our head
Carolyn: of I think member experience was this title at the
Carolyn: time built out a model of like if we got
Carolyn: really big, which was the hope, how expensive it was
Carolyn: going to be free. It's like free T shirts? How
Carolyn: could you give away so many free T shirts? But John,
Carolyn: our founder, thought this was the worst advice he'd ever gotten.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: He's like, what are you talking about? Like this is gold.
Carolyn: The fact that somebody is so proud to be a
Carolyn: part of your community that they're going to wear this
Carolyn: T shirt dropping their kids at school, walking down the street,
Carolyn: That is exactly what we want to be doing. And
Carolyn: so the Blueprint jacket was kind of that same idea.
Carolyn: It was super expensive, and we did look at a
Carolyn: model of how expensive five thousand of those would be.
Carolyn: But the bet was that people are going to be
Carolyn: so proud to be a part of Gotham that they're
Carolyn: going to go to a Sirens game, They're going to
Carolyn: a Liberty game, They're going to walk down the street
Carolyn: wearing that jacket and tell all of their friends about
Carolyn: how proud they are to be a part of Gotham.
Emily Tisch Sussman: And it's definitely working, Like I feel like I now
Emily Tisch Sussman: get daily texts from people of like a random person
Emily Tisch Sussman: they took a picture of on the street like a
Emily Tisch Sussman: gothamat wearing a Gotham sweatshirt.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I had lunch today at the American Girls Store, not
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: too Bragh. I was there.
Emily Tisch Sussman: One of the women who works there saw my Gotham
Emily Tisch Sussman: necklace and she immediately was like, olhways that the women's
Emily Tisch Sussman: soccer team.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Wow. Cool? And I was like, have you been to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: a game yet? And she's like no.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I go to a lot of Liberty games and my
Emily Tisch Sussman: friends are all Liberty season ticket holders and there was
Emily Tisch Sussman: a ticket bundle with Gotham and so my friends got
Emily Tisch Sussman: tickets to Gotham and I can't wait to go.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I love that. Yes, I've been waiting to tell you
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: this the whole time you've been here. But tell the story.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I'm thrilled, you know.
Carolyn: Sometimes I feel like last year we're just all about testing,
Carolyn: tried a million different things to see what's stuck. And
Carolyn: so obviously we're still kind of collecting the data and
Carolyn: some things that was clear we were better than others,
Carolyn: but it's always helpful to hear the anecdote of like, oh, yeah,
Carolyn: it worked great.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So that also is part of being in New York
Emily Tisch Sussman: and part of building the brain is like leading into
Emily Tisch Sussman: culture in New York, the general fans of women's sports
Emily Tisch Sussman: like a lot of it is like millennial moms. It's
Emily Tisch Sussman: like people like us who were just looking for a
Emily Tisch Sussman: great irl, no screen experience, things that feel safe and
Emily Tisch Sussman: positive to experience with their kids. But beyond people who
Emily Tisch Sussman: are looking first, there's a big push this year to
Emily Tisch Sussman: move into broader culture, particularly grounded in New York schleppin
Emily Tisch Sussman: players all over the city. How is this part of
Emily Tisch Sussman: the strategy. I feel like it's important to articulate.
Carolyn: To me, this is critical to our success to be
Carolyn: able to break through nationally and then globally. To break through,
Carolyn: you have to be a part of culture. So I
Carolyn: was actually just interviewing someone and we were talking about
Carolyn: marketers that can steal share from other brands. So like
Carolyn: a Pepsi coke again, you know, like you're a soda drinker.
Carolyn: You're gonna drink a soda? Are you gonna drink a
Carolyn: Pepsi or a coke? Do you clar for godtect people
Carolyn: who know that you did used to work at Pepsi,
Carolyn: Yes I did. I just like haven't talked with Pepsi
Carolyn: in fifteen years, but here we are talking about today.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I did.
Carolyn: But anyway, if you're like looking for a soda, you're
Carolyn: going to drink a pepsi or a coke or other
Carolyn: marketers have a I think, more exciting challenge of audience creation.
Carolyn: And that was our job at Peloton. No one was
Carolyn: waking up saying like, I wonder what at home spin
Carolyn: bike I should buy. We had to go create the audience.
Carolyn: That is our job at Gotham, and our job at
Carolyn: the end of your Celle I think is to go
Carolyn: create the audience. People aren't waking up saying which women's
Carolyn: soccer teams should I be a fan of? Sitting here
Carolyn: in New York, they're saying, like, what should I do
Carolyn: for this weekend? And we need to get Gotham like
Carolyn: higher on that list and then get them to a
Carolyn: game or to watch on TV. Breaking into culture in
Carolyn: other parts of New York and other parts of society
Carolyn: is very high to me on that list, because that
Carolyn: is how we're going to get other audiences to be
Carolyn: aware and then eventually to come into our games. So
Carolyn: you've done, obviously a great job of getting us into
Carolyn: the fashion where like all of New York culture, we
Carolyn: have the World's Cup coming this summer, and so that
Carolyn: is a massive opportunity for us to break into culture.
Carolyn: We're going to have the global epicenter of soccer happening
Carolyn: in our backyard.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So we've been.
Carolyn: Very deliberate and how we're going to break into that.
Carolyn: The Men's World Cup, Yes, Men's World Cup, Yeah, so
Carolyn: it is I mean New York especially, we're hosting eight games,
Carolyn: including the final. When you're an upstart brand, like we
Carolyn: couldn't go create our own FanFest during the World's Cup.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: That's you know, cost millions of dollars.
Carolyn: But we've been working really closely with the host committee
Carolyn: and the sponsor brands to say, ohko, you're going to
Carolyn: have this great watch party in Central Park and Queen's.
Carolyn: Can Gotham show up and be a part of that?
Carolyn: Can we get our players into things? So we're going
Carolyn: to be kind of pushing in wherever we can. From
Carolyn: an end of your Celle perspective, the league will stop
Carolyn: playing for June because there's not enough stadium availability, and
Carolyn: then in July the league will start again, so we
Carolyn: won't have access to our own stadium where we normally play.
Carolyn: And the league came to us and as we're creating schedule,
Carolyn: I assume you want to be away for July because
Carolyn: you're not going to have your stadium. And we got
Carolyn: together as a team and said, well, yes, that is
Carolyn: what makes sense on paper. But what if we actually
Carolyn: leaned in and said, no, everyone's going to be in
Carolyn: New York for soccer, Let's play a game in New
Carolyn: York during that week kind of leading up to the
Carolyn: World Cup. Let's be creative, let's play somewhere else. So
Carolyn: we have made the decision to play the Wednesday before
Carolyn: the World Cup.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Final at City Field.
Carolyn: First time Gotham will have ever played in a baseball stadium,
Carolyn: first time we've ever played at this scale in New
Carolyn: York City.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: This will be right where the.
Carolyn: Mets play, right where the tennis stadium is. Couldn't be
Carolyn: easier to access. It opens up Long Island, it opens
Carolyn: up Westchester, all of New York. So we're super excited.
Carolyn: And again there's going to be fans to the point
Carolyn: of like building a global brand, fans of soccer from
Carolyn: all over the world, and we are inserting ourselves into
Carolyn: that and hoping that people will add a Gotham game
Carolyn: to their soccer tour.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: While they're in New York.
Emily Tisch Sussman: With the Men's FIFA World Cup, bringing the summer of
Emily Tisch Sussman: soccer to the US. Gotham FC will be participating in
Emily Tisch Sussman: a new creative way, a women's soccer game at City Field.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Gotham will face the Washington Spirit in a rematch of
Emily Tisch Sussman: the twenty twenty five NWSL Championship on July fifteenth, and
Emily Tisch Sussman: it's going to set the record for the largest women's
Emily Tisch Sussman: sporting event in New York City history.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So now we're going to go back to the championship.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: We technically closed.
Emily Tisch Sussman: The deal before the twenty twenty three championship when Gotham won,
Emily Tisch Sussman: so we were technically the owners of twenty train three
Emily Tisch Sussman: but had been in the room for like four minutes.
Emily Tisch Sussman: And then in twenty twenty four we made it to
Emily Tisch Sussman: the semifinals, lost and penalty kicks. Twenty twenty five this
Emily Tisch Sussman: past year. This is the business team that you built.
Emily Tisch Sussman: This is the soccer team that you built. This is
Emily Tisch Sussman: the team that you managed. I'm going to try talking
Emily Tisch Sussman: about this. You won.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Oh, thank you one that I like this. You're crying
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: every time I think You're like, I know, like this
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: is your team. How does that feel? Gosh?
Carolyn: I feel like now I have to take myself mentally
Carolyn: back there, it does feel different than twenty twenty three.
Carolyn: I feel like my brain thinks about the championship in
Carolyn: two different ways.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: On the one hand, to.
Carolyn: Your point about losing penalty cakes, you could argue, we
Carolyn: have a really good team. I mean, we won in
Carolyn: twenty twenty three, we lost some penalty kicks in twenty
Carolyn: twenty four, and then we won in twenty twenty five.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Like some people would call that a dynasty. I think
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: you got to win.
Carolyn: Another to colour said she did the great superd Yeah, yeah,
Carolyn: I'll go with her on that. So on the one end,
Carolyn: you could say this team that was built before our time,
Carolyn: credit our coach Juan Carlos, our general manager a l
Carolyn: Abrabush West. They have built an incredible team, incredible roster,
Carolyn: and we're kind of in our dynasty era and we
Carolyn: need to capitalize on that. On the other hand, last
Carolyn: year was really challenging and a lot of way we
Carolyn: had to make a lot of really difficult roster decisions
Carolyn: quickly at the beginning of twenty twenty five, every time
Carolyn: we announced that a player was leaving. Our fans are
Carolyn: really like loyal fans that really understand the team.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Were you know, what is y L doing? Why is
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: she the general manager? This is terrible. She should be fired.
Carolyn: We had to band together and put our head down
Carolyn: and say, like, this might look like a bad idea
Carolyn: in the outside, but we know this is the right
Carolyn: thing for our team. I give you L a lot
Carolyn: of credit for being able to put our head down
Carolyn: and do what was right for the team then, and
Carolyn: from my perspective, coming off of the twenty twenty four loss,
Carolyn: I hadn't really deliberately set what our culture should be,
Carolyn: and it showed and we said we want to be
Carolyn: the first global women's soccer brand. Like how that showed
Carolyn: up in the day to day really wasn't clear. And
Carolyn: so in the off season from twenty four to twenty five,
Carolyn: we very deliberately set out what our mission was, what
Carolyn: our vision was, and most importantly, what our values were,
Carolyn: and brought that to the team and our player leadership
Carolyn: Council was a part of it. It was my vision,
Carolyn: but it was very much a collaborative effort. We quite
Carolyn: literally spray painted them on the wall, made a lot
Carolyn: of difficult decisions, set what our culture was, and then
Carolyn: our performance on the field was bumpy all year and
Carolyn: there was really a narrative around us of who is
Carolyn: this team? Do we underperform? It looks like we have
Carolyn: a lot of pieces, but it doesn't seem like it's
Carolyn: all clicking together. What's the problem. And so going into
Carolyn: the playoffs, at one point we were as high as
Carolyn: ranked fourth, which from a business perspective, having a home
Carolyn: playoff game is very different than having an away playoff game.
Carolyn: There's no revenue sharing in the league, so when you
Carolyn: have a home playoff game, you can make money.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: When you have an away playoff game, you lose money.
Carolyn: Just to put it simply, we were planning for a
Carolyn: home playoff game, ready with our list to go out
Carolyn: in our marketing, and then we lost in North Carolina
Carolyn: the week before. We drop all the way down to
Carolyn: eighth place, and it meant that we had to go
Carolyn: face Kansas City current the number one team in the league,
Carolyn: and not just a number one team in the league,
Carolyn: the number.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: One team that the league had ever had.
Carolyn: The top of the table to the bottom of the
Carolyn: table is usually really tight.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Not this year.
Carolyn: Kansas City run away winning the shield, which is like
Carolyn: the regular season, most number of goals scored, least number
Carolyn: of goals allowed, any stat they broke it, and Gotham
Carolyn: had just come off the worst game we've ever played.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And Kansas City had never lost at home.
Carolyn: Kis City had never lost at home since yet like
Carolyn: eighteen months or something like that. Gossam had never beaten
Carolyn: Kansas City. I mean, it was like every single odds
Carolyn: stacked against us. My friend I get my eyebrows done
Carolyn: at her house sometimes, and I was sitting there getting
Carolyn: my eyebrows down with her the Friday before the game,
Carolyn: and I was like, oh.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: My god, we to go to Kansas City.
Carolyn: And I was like, oh, I think we have to
Carolyn: charter a plane because the government shut down.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Can we afford this?
Carolyn: I'm debating with my lovely friend and I said, I
Carolyn: was like, Okay, if we lose, I'm gonna be really
Carolyn: annoyed that we charted this plane. But if we win,
Carolyn: I think we're gonna win the championship. And obviously, you know,
Carolyn: we went in kidsity we win the whole thing. But
Carolyn: she did texting and she's like, thank god you came
Carolyn: for eyebrows. Thank god you chartered that plane because it
Carolyn: really helped. They're also the only team that has their
Carolyn: own stadium, and so most games you go to, including
Carolyn: our games. We try to make it feel like a
Carolyn: home game, but it still feels like we're a tenant
Carolyn: in someone else's stadium. Kansas City, and I give one
Carolyn: hundred per cent credit to the Longs, the owners there,
Carolyn: who really had the vision of how much to invest
Carolyn: in their women's team. They built this amazing stadium. I
Carolyn: mean the entire town of Kansas City. It feels like
Carolyn: you're in the current hometown.
Emily Tisch Sussman: The whole neighborhood has like sides of the buildings with
Emily Tisch Sussman: the players faces on it.
Archival: Right. It is like home field advantage like I've never
Archival: seen in this league before. And it's also freezing cold,
Archival: which I think we're a little bit used to, but
Archival: they're really used to. So windy, the stadiums sold out.
Archival: Their fans are on their feet screaming,
Emily Tisch Sussman: the whole Ted Lasso cast is there
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Oh right, the whole ted last cast is there everywhere?
Emily Tisch Sussman: Right.
Carolyn: They're also filming the end of re Cell documentary and
Carolyn: they're featuring Kansas City. They're not featuring Gotham, so they
Carolyn: have no interest in showing us, And I think it
Carolyn: gave us the freedom to a prove the world wrong
Carolyn: that they'd gotten the story wrong about Gotham, and obviously
Carolyn: Jaden Shaw had the famous quote of underdogs my ass.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: After, which is perfect.
Carolyn: But I think it gave us as a team the
Carolyn: freedom to just be who we are, because if we
Carolyn: had lost, no one would have bet a night Side
Carolyn: World would have said, obviously Kansas City just had some
Carolyn: steps on their way to go win the championship, and
Carolyn: we were just one of the steps. I felt like
Carolyn: the night before, you know, in our team meeting, we
Carolyn: all had this feeling of we could go lose and
Carolyn: everyone would say, yeah, got them at a kind of
Carolyn: mediocre season, or we could really band together and show
Carolyn: everyone the best version of ourselves and we know that
Carolyn: the best version of ourselves can beat anyone.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And then we did welcome everyone to the NWSL Championship.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: It's the number two seed Washington Spirit getting ready to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: take on number eight seed.
Archival: Gotham FC, Nothing got them in the NWSL Championship.
Archival: Bing up the confetti from what was a grand party
Archival: down Broadway and on the steps of City Hall to
Archival: celebrate the twenty twenty five NWSL champions, Gotham FC.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: We stand here as twenty twenty five NWSL champions.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So we won now so now it's all great, right?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So. Definitely, for twenty four hours it felt amazing. City
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Hall was amazing. This is a very privileged position to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: be in, to be winning, and we would much rather
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: be winning than not winning. So let me just be
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: very clear about that. We were very quick to add
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: that second star to our crest. But in soccer, soccer
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: is a global game, and so with success comes entry
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: into all these other global tournaments. And again to the
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: conversation of we want to be a global brand, like
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: this is again a privilege.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: This is where we want to be.
Carolyn: We want to be in all these tournaments, but it
Carolyn: is definitely a strain on our players and a strain
Carolyn: on our staff. So because we won the CONCACAF tournament
Carolyn: last year, the first ever CONCACAF tournament, we represented the
Carolyn: CONCACAF region which is like the America, Central and North
Carolyn: America in FIFA's first ever what they called the Women's
Carolyn: Champions Cup basically at Club World Cup, and so it
Carolyn: was best teams from around the world, all competing to
Carolyn: be the best team in the world.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Again, a privilege. We wanted to be there. We earned
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: our right to be the ones representing North and Central America,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: but it was during our off season. We had a
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: really short off season, especially because we won the championship,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: so it's even shorter our players, our staff really didn't
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: get to recharge in the same way that they typically would.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: For those of us that are on the planning end
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of it, we had no off season because we're planning
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: for the preseason to be able to go into that
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: and so we'll be in the CONCACAFT Tournament again this year. Again,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: these are all tournaments we want to be in. We
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: very much believe we should be in. If you want
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: to be able to global brand, which we do, you
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: have to be in these tournaments. I think we have
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: something like fourteen extra games compared to everyone else, and
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: that's a lot, or twelve maybe, So we think a
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: lot about the mental health of our staff, our players,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: assuming that there are going to be levels of burnout
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: that we just have never seen. No team in the
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: end of our sale has played as many games as
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: we will play this year.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Oh that's crazy.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah, that's I just said that for the first time
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: out loud. But I think it's true because we were
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: in the feed for tournament. We are in the CONCA
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: CALFF champion like semi finals and hopefully championship from twenty
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: twenty five, and then we're also in next year's CONCACAFT
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: tournament in the fall since we won last year's and
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the Resale championship, so we are in three different tournaments
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: on the same time as we're playing our regular season.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And we have so many international players that play for
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: their country and we're in a year before the World Cup.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: They're all trying to compete for spots on their national
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: team rosters, so it's not like in the off breaks
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: that they're getting a break. They're now working as hard
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: as they've ever worked trying to get on the World
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Cup roster. So it is a lot. Again, it's a
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: good problem to have. It's where we want to be,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: but it comes with challenges.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Women's sports are on the rise and nobody is expecting
Emily Tisch Sussman: the hype to slow down anytime soon, but there are
Emily Tisch Sussman: still leaps and bounds that need to be made while
Emily Tisch Sussman: the world catches up. Resources like facilities are crucial for
Emily Tisch Sussman: women's sports teams to thrive, which is why Gotham FC
Emily Tisch Sussman: just announced that we're building our very own new practice facility.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Will dive into why that's so important right after the
Emily Tisch Sussman: break be right back. There has been this arms race
Emily Tisch Sussman: for facilities, which was a little unexpected when we walked
Emily Tisch Sussman: into this three years ago and very exciting we now
Emily Tisch Sussman: have the opportunity to do it ourselves.
Carolyn: We're super excited about this long overdue. I take our
Carolyn: player feedback very seriously. When we came into twenty twenty three,
Carolyn: I think there was not a great relationship between ownership
Carolyn: and players. I think they've been promised things over and
Carolyn: over that didn't come through, including not having a celebration
Carolyn: when they won in twenty twenty three. So one of
Carolyn: the first things I did when we came in as
Carolyn: new owners was I asked l R. General Manager for
Carolyn: the phone number of each of our players and the team,
Carolyn: even the ones that we're leaving, and I called every
Carolyn: single one personally and said, I'm Carolyn, I'm the new owner.
Carolyn: We're going to do things differently. Here's my cell phone number.
Carolyn: We can only be as good as the feedback we get.
Carolyn: Call me text me anytime if you have any feedback.
Carolyn: I think Yell was horrified that she was like, You're
Carolyn: going to call all of them like I am. And
Carolyn: so now fast forward to today. I have a player
Carolyn: Leadership Council. Any player knows that they can call me,
Carolyn: and they do at any time with any feedback. But
Carolyn: I have a very deliberate relationship with the player Leaderseral Council,
Carolyn: basically like the captains who bring feedback to meet. So
Carolyn: facilities has always been a sore spot with our staff
Carolyn: and with our players. So actually back to the culture
Carolyn: point before, we had one hundred percent of our players
Carolyn: coming out of twenty twenty five recommended Gotham to others. Wow,
Carolyn: never seen a statistic like that before. Again, coming out
Carolyn: of a very challenging twenty twenty four, it was really unbelievable.
Carolyn: One hundred percent of players that took the service said
Carolyn: that they would recommend Gotham
Emily Tisch Sussman: And we've had very few players leave, but the ones
Emily Tisch Sussman: that did are very sad to go.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yes, yeah, obviously, you know that's the difficulty of sport
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: is sometimes you have to make a decision that's right
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: for you personally. It feels like a funeral every time
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: they leave
Emily Tisch Sussman: every time
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Tears, and you know, we just very sad. Our players
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: are now super happy. Obviously we can continue to get better,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: but we've really invested in a player experience always building,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: never finished, always building, and actually always building, never finished.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So we're literally building,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: but literally building. Yes, the facilities was the one area
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: that we hear consistently from our players that needs to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: get better and from our staff. We're going to continue
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: to raise the bar and we're not going to raise
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the bar across everything at any moment. You know, we
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: have to go kind of one by one. But when
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: we raise the bar, we are never going to go
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: back to what it was before. You know, medical used
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: to be a really negative spot for us. We ended
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: up hiring great medical director. Anytime in the future, there
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: might be dips, but we will never go back to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: what it looked like before. And so facilities again, we
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: will never go back to what it looks like. So
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I've been trying to kind of take pictures. Along the way.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: When the rookie class comes in the year after our
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: facility is done and they're like, oh, yeah, cool, you
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: have like your own four field and you just drive
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: in and park and showers when you want them, Like,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I just want them all to remember what it used
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: to look like. So when I go to our offices
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: now there's no privacy, there's nowhere to have a conversation.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So yeah, Ella and I will often meet in her car,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the only place of a private conversation, and that's the
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: only private place. I'm like, let's just take a picture
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of this and remember this. When we have our beautiful office,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: you will know where we came from to the point
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of always been never finish. It is always going to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: feel like there is more work to be done. You know,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I said our players are happy today, they might not
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: be happy tomorrow. There will always be things that can
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: be improving. That's part of being at a growth team.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I think that's what's exciting about it. But it's very
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: important to me that we are always continuing to raise
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the bar and we will never go back to what
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: it looks like before. So this is something we've been
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: looking at since we came in. It was clear to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: us really quickly, you know, once we became owners that
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the facility was not good enough. Even before there was
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: an arms race of facilities. These are professional athletes that
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: need to be treated as such and this is not it.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So what we currently have is we rent the academy
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: field from Red Bulls, so it's normally used for their academy,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: meaning like their young boys to see it like their
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: teenagers that play for them, and then we come in
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: and rent it. We don't have our own locker room there,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: we don't. Have meeting space there, and so then we
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: took over this warehouse down the street, and that's where
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: our locker rooms are, that's where our gym is, where
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the team lifts, that's where our meetings are, that's where
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: our equipment is. And so the players and staff have
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: to just drive back and forth between the two and
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: it's just this logistical headache and just not a real
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: experience of a professional athlete. So we have decided to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: take over the Red Bulls facility. They're moving somewhere else
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: and so we will have their entire facility now, which
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: is massive, four field as I said before, huge indoor space.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: We're still in the design phase, but an incredible upgrade
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: and having our own facility that we can control when
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: we practice, we can control when we have team meetings,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the privacy of going in the gym and it just
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: being ours will all feel completely different than where we
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: were before. And just to be really thoughtful, like the
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: difference between building for women's team and our men's team,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: you know, the fact that like the locker rooms will
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: have an L shaped entrance, so it's not like totally
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: open to it. When we were at the championship game
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: in San Jose, we went the day before when the
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: players were practicing there and I was like, I just
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: want to see the locker room.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Going into the locker room. Where our players were preparing
Emily Tisch Sussman: for the championship game, One, there were just a ton
Emily Tisch Sussman: of urinals. I was like, someone some flowers and plays.
Emily Tisch Sussman: And two the players had to walk by a gigantic
Emily Tisch Sussman: wall of stinky shoes and it's like, who stinky shoes
Emily Tisch Sussman: are these? And they said, oh, it's the academy the
Emily Tisch Sussman: teenagers of the men's team for the champion
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: exactly,
Emily Tisch Sussman: And. Said are they going to be here tomorrow? And
Emily Tisch Sussman: they are,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yes, they were,
Emily Tisch Sussman: And the answer was they were, like they left up
Emily Tisch Sussman: the stinky teenage boys shoes for the championship.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah. It's really hard not to feel like an unwanted
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: tenant in every stadium we play, and even when we're wanted,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: it's just your tenant. And so having our own space,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: to your point that will be for women, even
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: just being thoughtful around where is the coach's locker room
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: versus the player's locker room. How much privacy do we
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: want versus how much do we want? A community space?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Where is the mother's room, where it's like the social
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: content room. A lot of our players do things kind
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of on the outside to help build the brands. How
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: do we support them in that so it will just
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: be so deliberately for women, which will feel so different.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I was talking to Tyrna Davidson, one of our captains
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: oh at the Glorious Steinem and she was saying, you know,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: it's super important to her is that it's clearly designed
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: for women. And she used just a silly example of
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: when they go into like a men's locker room, the
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: bathrooms usually don't have garbages, and in any women's bathroom,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: obviously you would put a garbage can there, and it
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: just doesn't occur to them. From details like that all
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the way through to what beautiful branding can we put
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: on the outside, it will hopefully feel very deliberately designed
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: for women. And for Gotham.
Emily Tisch Sussman: When we played in an international tournament CONCACAF last year
Emily Tisch Sussman: at CONCA CAF in Monterey, Mexico, I remember them telling
Emily Tisch Sussman: us that the players can't like take a bathroom break
Emily Tisch Sussman: during so they have to just like go before and
Emily Tisch Sussman: like go at halftime, and they didn't have enough bathrooms
Emily Tisch Sussman: for them all to go during halftime and make it.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Oh, because they're like only used to having urinels, I guess?
Emily Tisch Sussman: yeah, right. It was it a thirty six person roster.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah, that's crazy
Emily Tisch Sussman: And it was like, I don't know how they did it,
Emily Tisch Sussman: like prioritized by urgency. That's a problem.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Totally. Yes, our Player Leadership Council will be a part
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: of the process, our key members of our staff will
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: be part of it. So we're going to be very
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: no stone unturned, deliberate in hearing all like the pain
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: points people have had and making sure to bring those through,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: and also being really eyes wide open that what good
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: looks like today in twenty twenty six is probably different
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: than what good looks like in twenty eight, in thirty
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: and beyond that. So we also want to leave some flexibility,
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Like we don't want to build this perfect state of
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: the art facility today that will never need to be evolved.
Carolyn: We want it to be very flexible because the game
Carolyn: is growing so quickly, evolving so quickly that we want
Carolyn: to be able to be flexible and like grow into
Carolyn: it as well.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You've been advising our family and representing our family and
Emily Tisch Sussman: the Giants for years longer than we've been involved in Gotham.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So what have you learned that you can take from
Emily Tisch Sussman: the Giants, Either things that we can like directly apply.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Or the opposite.
Carolyn: I think the biggest thing that sticks out to me
Carolyn: about the Giants or any NFL team is there's this
Carolyn: incredible history the Giants to celebrate their one hundred anniversary
Carolyn: last year. Fandom is passed down through the generation. I
Carolyn: mean people, you know, I don't tell you this, like
Carolyn: we'll stop you on the street if you're wearing a
Carolyn: Giant shirt, Like, oh, my grandfather a season ticket member,
Carolyn: and then my dad became a season.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Ticket member, and now I'm a season ticket member.
Carolyn: And so from a fan engagement perspective, you really have
Carolyn: to honor the tradition of that. But also, I think
Carolyn: for a long time you didn't really have to think
Carolyn: that much about like what I would call fan acquisition
Carolyn: because fandom was intergenerational, like it came from the top
Carolyn: and was passed down. For Gotham, we had the opposite
Carolyn: of that, where there are no fans being passed down.
Carolyn: It is all new, so nothing's being handed to us
Carolyn: from Gotham. Soccer is the number one sport being played
Carolyn: at the grassroots level, at the rec level, for children,
Carolyn: at youth level. So all these kids are going out
Carolyn: on the weekends playing soccer, their parents are standing there
Carolyn: on the sidelines, and then they're coming home and no
Carolyn: one's actually thought about what team they should root for.
Carolyn: One of the things that I think we've had to
Carolyn: do differently is be able to bring that fandom from
Carolyn: the ground up and be able to then say, like,
Carolyn: how do you actually get the youth participants to convince
Carolyn: their parents to become fans, and that actually, I think
Carolyn: it's some we've been able to bring to the Giants
Carolyn: in their flag strategy. I'm obsessed with black football and
Carolyn: I think it's like the key to the NFL's future.
Carolyn: So I think flag has always been thought of in
Carolyn: the NFL and at the Giants as a community asset.
Carolyn: This is how we can get people playing football. Yes,
Carolyn: and it should also be a marketing asset, particularly for
Carolyn: young girls. This is a way and in a lot
Carolyn: of communities people are not playing tackle at the same race.
Carolyn: The number one way you get someone to become a
Carolyn: fan is to play. So getting more people to play
Carolyn: the sport at a youth level then translates into fandom.
Carolyn: I think that's an area where we've been able to
Carolyn: test things at Gotham that we can bring to the Giants.
Carolyn: I think on the football side, there's so much for
Carolyn: Gotham to learn from the Giants when I think about
Carolyn: their scouting, their analytics, the way they think about player
Carolyn: fit on the team, the psychological model of who would
Carolyn: thrive in the New York market and who wouldn't.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: I think we.
Carolyn: Probably have the best scouts in the end of your cell,
Carolyn: But as Ell and I talk about often, like our
Carolyn: bar isn't to be the best in the end of
Carolyn: you wanted the best in the world. And so that's
Carolyn: an area I think we can continue to lean in.
Carolyn: And even like ty Sam who runs data and analytics
Carolyn: for the Giants, the way that he uses analytics to
Carolyn: support the coaches in their game day decision making, that's
Carolyn: an area where we're kind of in the early innings
Carolyn: of what we can do.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I got a tattoo after this championship forgot them. It's
Emily Tisch Sussman: the Championship Star I actually traced it from the actual championship.
Carolyn: Well, I was wondering how we did it so perfectly. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
Carolyn: I had the tattoo artists trace it. I did not
Carolyn: trace it. Yeah, yeah, I got it right there. And
Carolyn: Mom came with me and said that she is going
Carolyn: to get one. She still has not made good on that.
Carolyn: What's your likelihood of getting one?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Well? Will?
Carolyn: My husband told my kids that if they ever get
Carolyn: a tattoo, they will be banned from our household.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So the answer is low, like until they're sixty. My
Emily Tisch Sussman: kids repeated it back to me. Once they're sixty, they
Emily Tisch Sussman: can decide.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Oh they can't.
Carolyn: Okay, Well what I was going to say, Okay, so
Carolyn: I guess I have some time. I have twenty years
Carolyn: to decide what my tattoo is. Sadly, I think it's low.
Carolyn: What do you hope in all of this that your
Carolyn: kids take away from this?
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Oh, that's a good question.
Carolyn: I think they obviously get like a very inside look
Carolyn: as they often hear me on the phone or listening
Carolyn: to like voicemails late at night being traded.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Back and forth.
Carolyn: I think being able to make the hard decisions even
Carolyn: when the world is telling you something different. There have
Carolyn: been moments where we've made decisions, whether it's roster decisions
Carolyn: or difficult decisions on letting people go or not hiring
Carolyn: people that I think the outside world might be critical about,
Carolyn: and to be able to kind of like shut out
Carolyn: the outside noise, look inward and say I'm going to
Carolyn: do what's right by my team or or by the
Carolyn: culture I'm trying to create or the vision I'm trying
Carolyn: to create. It's easier said than done sometimes, but I
Carolyn: think to be able to kind of look inward and
Carolyn: even I would broaden that to just believing in a
Carolyn: women's soccer team. Back to the conversation on investors, like,
Carolyn: there's a lot of different ways to spend your time,
Carolyn: spend your money.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: And I don't want to say.
Carolyn: It's a sacrifice because I love what I do and
Carolyn: I get a lot of joy out of it, but
Carolyn: there are sacrifices to it. Can't tell the last time
Carolyn: I went to a restaurant. They can't tell you the
Carolyn: last time I saw my friends. But being deliberate about
Carolyn: how you spend your time and if you believe in something,
Carolyn: making the sacrifices to achieve what you want to achieve.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Hopefully is something they take away from it.
Carolyn: I did have this thought the other day that I
Carolyn: don't have to tell you, like this has been my
Carolyn: lifelong dream from when I was seven years old, was
Carolyn: to go work for our family at the Giants one day,
Carolyn: and you know, I wrote my college essay about it.
Carolyn: I wrote my busins school application essay about it, like
Carolyn: this is where I'm going, and I probably glamorized it
Carolyn: to some degree because I didn't actually really know what
Carolyn: it meant. The other day, I think my kids, I
Carolyn: couldn't put them to bed because I was stuck in
Carolyn: a call I don't know something where I was like
Carolyn: maybe I had to go on a work trip and
Carolyn: you know, I had to leave them again. And obviously
Carolyn: they see like the glamorous parts of it. The US
Carolyn: soccer team won this weekend and Alexander was like, oh,
Carolyn: are you going to be on stage? And I was like, no,
Carolyn: that I have nothing to do with this. This is
Carolyn: not my game to win. So obviously, like they see
Carolyn: the glamorous parts of it, but they also see the
Carolyn: trade offs and the not glamorous parts of it.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: So I did have that thought.
Carolyn: I was like I wonder if my kids would dream
Carolyn: about being in a family business in the same way
Carolyn: that I did, because also the family business part it
Carolyn: is complicated and it does change dynamics between family members.
Carolyn: So I never had this conversation with them. So maybe
Carolyn: they would say yes, But I wonder would they want
Carolyn: to work for a family business in the same way
Carolyn: that I did because it is complicated.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah, well, definitely.
Emily Tisch Sussman: My little daughter Evelyn, Yes, yeah, she was pantsuits to
Emily Tisch Sussman: every game it has since she was four, and follows
Emily Tisch Sussman: you around every game.
Carolyn: So she's all in. She's one hundred percent. Oh, I
Carolyn: don't care about family dynamics Now I'm in. Yeah, yeah,
Carolyn: She's like, oh, barrel right through exactly.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Is there something that you saw as a low point
Emily Tisch Sussman: or a challenge that now you see it as having
Emily Tisch Sussman: really built you to the successes you're having today or
Emily Tisch Sussman: success you are now.
Carolyn: Yeah, there's a lot of low points. I'd probably point
Carolyn: to the feedback. I kind of alluded to this before
Carolyn: in the Culture conversation, but we got some really challenging
Carolyn: feedback at the end of twenty twenty four that I
Carolyn: think made me question my leadership, our team's leadership, and
Carolyn: what we were doing here that was my first full
Carolyn: year in seat. Was I doing a good job? Was
Carolyn: I the right person to lead this? I think now
Carolyn: our team is so much better off for the decisions
Carolyn: we made, the way.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: That we handled it.
Carolyn: I think we very clearly know who we are, what
Carolyn: we stand for, what our values are. We're better, I think,
Carolyn: get identifying when it's right, fit when it's not. And
Carolyn: I think I'm able to be more deliberate and where
Carolyn: I spend my time and where I don't. And so
Carolyn: I think I'm a better leader for going through that.
Carolyn: I think our team is in a better place. We're
Carolyn: going through it, but it was really difficult.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Yeah, do you think you'll pivot again?
Carolyn: Feel pretty locked into this one. Feels like I'm really
Carolyn: here to stay. Maybe pivot within it, like you know,
Carolyn: maybe not the chair of the executive committee forever, you know,
Carolyn: smaller pivots. Yeah, yeah, a smaller one within it. But
Carolyn: I feel really here to stay.
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: On this one. I think everyone will be thrilled to
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: hear that. Okay, great, thank you for your annual she
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: Pivots interview. Thank you. Now I'm already thinking what we're
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett: gona talk about next year. Always building, never finished.
Emily Tisch Sussman: This is Gotham FC's mantra, but I think it applies
Emily Tisch Sussman: to women's sports as a whole, especially during this period
Emily Tisch Sussman: of growth. We do this interview with care once a year,
Emily Tisch Sussman: and every year she tells me about the new things
Emily Tisch Sussman: to be excited about building. Not only is Gotam building
Emily Tisch Sussman: a new practice facility, but has a Yesterday, the team
Emily Tisch Sussman: is officially planning to move to New York City's first
Emily Tisch Sussman: ever soccer specific stadium in Queens, playing there starting in
Emily Tisch Sussman: twenty twenty eight. Carolyn decided what she wanted to build,
Emily Tisch Sussman: set it out loud and kept showing up for the
Emily Tisch Sussman: unnglamorous version of it. And the proof is the new
Emily Tisch Sussman: Heightscotham FC and the whole NWSL have achieved in the
Emily Tisch Sussman: past year. Carolyn leads from the top, but everyone has
Emily Tisch Sussman: a role. Go to a woman's sporting event, wear the
Emily Tisch Sussman: merch and tune in. I'll see you at the Queen's
Emily Tisch Sussman: Classic next week on Wednesday, July fifteenth. Thanks for listening
Emily Tisch Sussman: to She Pivots. If you like this episode, follow the
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Emily Tisch Sussman: and behind the scenes conversations. You can also find us
Emily Tisch Sussman: at shepivotspod dot com. This episode was produced and edited
Emily Tisch Sussman: by Paige Davis Janatt, with sound editing and mixing by
Emily Tisch Sussman: Nina Pollock. Logistics and planning by Amostopic and Kendall Crupkin.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Research by Christine Dickinson. She Pivots is proud to be
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