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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

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Speaker 2: GOTHAMFC are onto the National Women's Soccer League Semifinals. They're

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Speaker 2: the defending NWSL champions and they'll take on the Washington

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Speaker 2: Spirit this weekend at Audyfield in the Nation's Capital. And

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Speaker 2: right now we'll hear from one of the architects of

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Speaker 2: the franchise's latest run. I'm Vanessa Perdomo, and on this

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg Business of Sports special edition, I sit down with

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Speaker 2: Carolyn Tish Blodgett, Gotham FC co owner and governor, as

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Speaker 2: well as an executive board member of the NWSL. Under

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Speaker 2: her leadership, GOTHAMFC have enjoyed significant growth in fan attendance

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Speaker 2: and sponsorship support, and now with the franchise seeking a

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Speaker 2: second straight league title, Carolyn Tish Blodgett gives us a

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Speaker 2: front row seat to the next growth phase for women's

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Speaker 2: soccer in the United States. Carolyn, the team advances to

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Speaker 2: the semifinals on a goal scored in the ninety seventh minute.

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Speaker 2: Walk me through the atmosphere of that stadium.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god.

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Speaker 4: Well, first of all, our team really knows how to

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Speaker 4: keep it interesting. Said anyway, we left it right until

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Speaker 4: the end, So it was incredible. So this was our

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Speaker 4: first ever home playoff game for Gotham. We had a

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Speaker 4: record breaking attendance. We had over fifteen thousand people there.

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Speaker 4: We opened the Upper Bowl, which we've done only a

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Speaker 4: few times in our history. It was just absolutely electric

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Speaker 4: when Rose scored at the end, I mean, it was

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Speaker 4: just it felt like all of New York, New Jersey,

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Speaker 4: Tristed area, We're in that stadium cheering together.

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Speaker 3: It was absolutely incredible.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome, And you had mentioned it.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's the record breaking attendance, over fifteen thousand

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Speaker 2: people and that was for a quarter final. You know,

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Speaker 2: what does that say about the league right now? The

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Speaker 2: popularity of the league.

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Speaker 4: The league just it feels like, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 4: the momentum is just riding so high coming off of

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Speaker 4: the Olympics. So we actually at Gotham, we had six

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Speaker 4: players on the US women's national team, So six players

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Speaker 4: came home with the gold medal. We had a seventh

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Speaker 4: player who plays for Germany who came home with the bronze.

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Speaker 4: And I think over nine million people watched that game.

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Speaker 4: And so every four years, you know, there's this moment

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Speaker 4: where the world kind of wakes up and the US

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Speaker 4: wakes up to the incredible athletes that we have on

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Speaker 4: the US women's national team. That happened again this summer,

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Speaker 4: and I think the league has really benefited from that.

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Speaker 4: I know we've benefited that from Gotham. We know we

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Speaker 4: have the best product on the field. Now we just

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Speaker 4: need to create a great fan experience around it to

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Speaker 4: get people there, and we're very much seeing that today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk a little bit more that, you know.

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Speaker 2: So I was having a conversation with one of my

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Speaker 2: colleagues earlier and he was saying how the NWSL really

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Speaker 2: needs more someone like a Kaitlyn Clark to come in

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Speaker 2: and do for the NWSL what Kaitlyn Clark did for

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Speaker 2: the WNBA. But you're saying, you know, the US women's

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Speaker 2: national team players have really usually been those players for

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Speaker 2: the league. So what would you say to that sort

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Speaker 2: of criticism or just to that sort of you know,

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Speaker 2: fan comment.

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Speaker 4: First of all, I am a big believer in at

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Speaker 4: We are in an athlete driven culture. We're in a

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Speaker 4: star driven culture. I used to run marketing a peloton

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Speaker 4: and one of our keys to our success was really

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Speaker 4: in this insight around when people say that they loved Peloton.

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Speaker 4: What they really meant was they loved Ali Love or

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Speaker 4: they loved Robin or Cody, And so our job as

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Speaker 4: marketers was really to help grow their profile and build

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Speaker 4: their brands so that we could continue to.

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Speaker 3: Grow the Peloton brand.

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Speaker 4: That is very much how I think of the opportunity

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Speaker 4: with Gotham and the NWSL in general.

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Speaker 3: We have these stars.

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Speaker 4: I mean at Gotham we have players like Rose Level

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Speaker 4: and Lynn Williams and Midge Purse that are both incredible

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Speaker 4: athletes on the field and have incredible personalities off the

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Speaker 4: field as well, and there's so many stories to tell

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Speaker 4: about them. So I would say to answer your question,

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Speaker 4: I do think we have that in our US.

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Speaker 3: Women's national team stars.

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Speaker 4: I would also are you we have players on our

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Speaker 4: team that may not have that national recognition today. But

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Speaker 4: it's it's our job as as owners and as stewards

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Speaker 4: of these brands to go build their brands as well

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Speaker 4: because they're such great stories to tell.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to get your opinion on that marketing side.

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Speaker 2: You know, obviously you said with your with your background

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Speaker 2: when you came into you know, the league, and you

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Speaker 2: you were announced days before you won the champ before

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Speaker 2: Gotham won the championship last year, and you had just

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Speaker 2: mentioned this before that you were kind of surprised at

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Speaker 2: the lack of coverage. So when you went into this

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Speaker 2: year as your first full year of ownership, what were

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Speaker 2: those things that you wanted to change from a leadership

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Speaker 2: and a marketing perspective.

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Speaker 4: So, first of all, you know, to your point, when

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Speaker 4: we won, I think we all had this collective feeling

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Speaker 4: of like, oh my god, the entire world must be

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Speaker 4: talking about Gotham right now, and we you know, we

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Speaker 4: open our local newspapers, we open our social media feeds,

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Speaker 4: and it just wasn't we were you know, we hadn't

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Speaker 4: really broken through. And so I think we came in

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Speaker 4: really clear of New York as a crowded market.

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Speaker 3: We need to really break.

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Speaker 4: Through and be a part of New York culture, and

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Speaker 4: so that is something we've done from day one. We

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Speaker 4: had a lot of our players drop the ball at

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Speaker 4: Times Square, kind of iconic moment. We've had players on

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Speaker 4: a Sunday night football game when the Giants played. We've

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Speaker 4: had players at the US Open.

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Speaker 3: And New York Fashion Week.

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Speaker 4: So a lot of what we've tried to do from

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Speaker 4: a marketing perspective is really break into New York culture

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Speaker 4: beyond just the women's sports market in terms of how

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Speaker 4: we are approaching marketing in general. As I mentioned before,

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Speaker 4: we were really focused kind of year one. Day one

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Speaker 4: is do you have the best product you can have

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Speaker 4: on the field, because no marketer can do their job

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Speaker 4: without a great product.

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Speaker 3: And we do feel like, as.

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Speaker 4: We're you know, sitting here days away from a semifinal game,

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Speaker 4: we do feel like we have that great product on

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Speaker 4: the field. The next kind of step was creating a

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Speaker 4: great fan experience around that that great product on the field.

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Speaker 4: So we know the ninety minutes of soccer is going

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Speaker 4: to be good, what are people going to feel when

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Speaker 4: they get to the stadium. So we created this kind

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Speaker 4: of pre game experience where there's face painting and there's

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Speaker 4: a there's live music and this kind of carnival feeling

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Speaker 4: before you even step foot in the stadium. And then

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Speaker 4: we use data to continue to track and see what

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Speaker 4: can be better. So every week we do use something

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Speaker 4: called net Promoter Score, and we look at the data

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Speaker 4: and we read all the comments and see what can

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Speaker 4: continue to be improved. So we're always thinking about kind

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Speaker 4: of progress over perfection, and how do we continue to

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Speaker 4: create a great fan experience so that people not only

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Speaker 4: come to a game once, but we know that once

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Speaker 4: they come, they're going to show up again and they're

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Speaker 4: going to tell all their friends about it.

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Speaker 2: What do you think makes the NWSL fans and that

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Speaker 2: experience unique to that leak?

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Speaker 4: So I think, as I said, I think it starts

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Speaker 4: with the best product on the field. That was one

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Speaker 4: of the things when we were first looking at investing

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Speaker 4: in the end of your cell we were really excited

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Speaker 4: by is we do have the best players in the

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Speaker 4: world here, So let's start with that. The second piece

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Speaker 4: is the fan experience. As I said before, so what

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Speaker 4: is that atmosphere? And I think you as a I'm

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Speaker 4: a sports fan of many different sports, and I just

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Speaker 4: spent a lot of time in stadiums. There's something really

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Speaker 4: unique about the fan experience where it feels like you

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Speaker 4: know you're there to watch a game, but you you

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Speaker 4: it's it's hard not to feel like you're not you're

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Speaker 4: joining a bigger movement, You're joining a bigger community. When

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Speaker 4: I go back to my Peloton days and often we'd said,

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Speaker 4: you know, people they thought they were joining Peloton, they

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Speaker 4: were buying a bike, and they were like, Okay, I

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Speaker 4: want to exercise at home.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to buy a bike. But they realized that.

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Speaker 4: They were actually joining a community, and we very much

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Speaker 4: feel that way at Gotham. You think you're coming for

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Speaker 4: the ninety minutes of soccer and the best product on

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Speaker 4: the field, which, as I said before, we.

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Speaker 3: Have, but you're really joining a community.

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Speaker 4: You're joining something much bigger than that, and I think

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Speaker 4: we often our fans feel that very much.

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Speaker 2: Do you think, you know, when you first became into

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Speaker 2: this ownership group, did you expect the you know, the

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Speaker 2: fever that there is right now for women's sports to

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Speaker 2: you know, obviously you did a lot of you know

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Speaker 2: research into it. What do you think has changed even

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Speaker 2: over the year of ownership that you've.

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Speaker 1: That you're in.

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Speaker 4: It's funny you asked that, because actually, when I go

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Speaker 4: back to our original thesis, and it's only been a

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Speaker 4: year since we invested, one of the kind of three

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Speaker 4: markers of why we were excited about women's sports is

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Speaker 4: that there was an opportunity to join culture in a

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Speaker 4: way that it hadn't been before. No One a year

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Speaker 4: and a half ago, when we started looking at this

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Speaker 4: opportunity was talking about women's sports in the way that

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Speaker 4: they are now. There wasn't the Kaitlin Clark effect. No

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Speaker 4: one was walking dow the street wearing you know, and

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Speaker 4: everyone watches women's sports shirt. And it's incredible to see

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Speaker 4: a year later now it feels like when I say,

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Speaker 4: you know, women's sports wasn't a part of culture, people kind.

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Speaker 3: Of laugh me out of the room because now it's

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Speaker 3: so much a part of culture.

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Speaker 4: And so that feels like again in an athlete driven world,

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Speaker 4: in a real world with Kaitlyn Clark, and it feels

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Speaker 4: all of a sudden like there is such a surge

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Speaker 4: around women's sports that now it's very much.

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Speaker 3: A part of culture.

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Speaker 2: Do you think that's changed the way that you can

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Speaker 2: approach partners and marketing and things like that for the stadium,

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Speaker 2: for you know, jerseys, for everything encompassing.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely.

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Speaker 4: I think when we were first having conversations with potential partners,

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Speaker 4: they would all, you know, they'd sort of say like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 4: women's sports, we should think about women's sports, and it

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Speaker 4: kind of mentally goes into their Often it will go

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Speaker 4: into their like community relations bucket or their political bucket

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Speaker 4: of like.

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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, this is something we should do.

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Speaker 4: What we've tried to do over the last year is

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Speaker 4: really make the business case for this is not something

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Speaker 4: that your brand should do just because it feels good.

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Speaker 4: This is something your brand should do because the economics

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Speaker 4: are there. And we've seen with the partners that we have,

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Speaker 4: for the partners that have bet on us early and

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Speaker 4: like CarMax, for example, is our Jersey sponsor. They committed

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Speaker 4: to us before we had even ever stepped foot on

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Speaker 4: the field in the new Media deal, and they've seen

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Speaker 4: tremendous rois. So the partners that kind of saw from

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Speaker 4: the beginning of like we're going to bet early on

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Speaker 4: this because we believe in what the outcomes will be

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Speaker 4: are really getting that ROI. And so we're able to

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Speaker 4: have a very different conversation now of don't just do

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Speaker 4: this because it feels good, do this because it's going

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Speaker 4: to be the right thing to do for your financial

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Speaker 4: investment as well.

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Speaker 2: When you're thinking of future financial investment for yourself for

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Speaker 2: next three ventures. You know, obviously Gotham was kind of

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Speaker 2: the first leg of that a is there any other

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Speaker 2: things that you're looking at to expand the portfolio and

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Speaker 2: looking to invest in.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, we look at new investments every day. Would say,

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Speaker 4: we started next three with the belief that as legacy

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Speaker 4: NFL owners. My family has co owned the New York

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Speaker 4: Giants for the last thirty years, and the opportunity was

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Speaker 4: to leverage that kind of legacy ownership and move it

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Speaker 4: forward to think about and help propel what investments where

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Speaker 4: we thought sports would be going in the future. So

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Speaker 4: if we said, you know, thirty years from now, when

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Speaker 4: we look back, what will sports look like, and we

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Speaker 4: can we have a seat in really driving what that is.

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Speaker 4: So we are we didn't set out to just you know,

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Speaker 4: to make this one investment in Gotham. We have made

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Speaker 4: other investments and we continue to always be looking at

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Speaker 4: new investments because it's really important for us to continue

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Speaker 4: to stay on the edge of where sports is going.

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Speaker 2: And if you had to think of where you think

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Speaker 2: sports are going in the next let's say ten years,

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Speaker 2: where do you think that that is?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think there's a lot of different different ways

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Speaker 4: I could go.

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Speaker 3: I would say I would say.

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Speaker 4: The focus on the in game experience and then continues

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Speaker 4: to be really important if as the home viewing experience

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Speaker 4: gets better and better. What are the reasons you're going

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Speaker 4: to show up. It needs to be really unique, it

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Speaker 4: really needs it needs to be special, it needs to

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Speaker 4: be you know, you're joining a community. So I'd say there,

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Speaker 4: you know, there's some some work to do around that.

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Speaker 4: Then I would say, you know, fandom has gone from

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Speaker 4: this in person kind of uh dictated by your geography

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Speaker 4: type experience where you were a fan of what you

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Speaker 4: could find on TV too. Fandom is now digital, so

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Speaker 4: you can be a fan of any team anywhere, at

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Speaker 4: any time. So how teams connect with their fans and

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Speaker 4: storyteller around that will be really important. As I said before,

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Speaker 4: I think we're also in an athlete driven world, So

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Speaker 4: how do you how do you connect as teams? How

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Speaker 4: do how do athletes connect directly with potential fans will

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Speaker 4: be super important. So as we think about what the

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Speaker 4: future of sports look like like, what are the composition

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Speaker 4: of what those sports will be?

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Speaker 3: I think is really interesting too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And you know, taking back to the n

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Speaker 2: of cell like looking at the future of it. The

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Speaker 2: new CBA was announced this year and there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of amazing things in there. One of the biggest things

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Speaker 2: that made headlines was the elimination of the draft, expansion draft,

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Speaker 2: the college draft. When you look at that from the

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Speaker 2: owner's see, how do you think in terms of building

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Speaker 2: rosters for the future, that's going to operate and impact

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Speaker 2: the way that league operates.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so obviously all all to be determined because it's

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Speaker 4: all new. I would say from the way that we're

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Speaker 4: thinking about at Gotham is and we've always thought about this,

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Speaker 4: regardless of what the you know, legal documents said, is

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Speaker 4: we want to create a place where players want to

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Speaker 4: play and where players can thrive. And you know, we

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Speaker 4: are continuing to always think about how to improve that.

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Speaker 4: But in a world where players can go anywhere, I

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Speaker 4: think that just becomes even more important. Is you have

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Speaker 4: to create a culture in an environment where players will thrive.

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Speaker 1: And you know, the league is expanding.

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Speaker 2: It's expanding every year now, It's gone from ten teams

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Speaker 2: just three years ago sixteen by twenty twenty six. What

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Speaker 2: do you think has to happen to sustain that growth

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Speaker 2: and make sure that every new team that comes in

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Speaker 2: is successful.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that sustainability is really important. Those are

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Speaker 4: conversations we have at the league all the time. Is

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Speaker 4: this is not a moment in time. We're creating a

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Speaker 4: league for the future, So how do we support new

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Speaker 4: teams coming in? How do we ensure that we have

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Speaker 4: you know, there's a competitive One of the things I

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Speaker 4: think is really unique about the end of your Cell

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Speaker 4: is that there are competitive games every weekend you don't

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Speaker 4: typically see, you know, the best team and the worst

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Speaker 4: team on any given weekend could compete and have a

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Speaker 4: great game. And so having that competitive dynamic is really important.

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Speaker 4: Having that great fan experience, as I said before, is

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Speaker 4: super important, so that any fan in any market should

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Speaker 4: feel like this is a fantastic experience when I walk

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Speaker 4: in that stadium, when I engage with the team, and

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Speaker 4: how does you know, how does the media support that?

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Speaker 4: So every time you turn on the TV and you're

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Speaker 4: watching one of the games, it should feel like a

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Speaker 4: great experience for the fans at home. And so all

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Speaker 4: of that I think will all lead to the league,

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Speaker 4: you know, continuing to be able to grow in the

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Speaker 4: way that it's grown so far.

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Speaker 2: So this year's final is going to be at CPKC

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Speaker 2: Stadium in Kansas City, the first stadium built for women's soccer, specifically,

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Speaker 2: when you look at that and now it's there. The

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Speaker 2: championship is constantly at a you know, neutral site. Is

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Speaker 2: that something that you're going to look at in the

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Speaker 2: future to host the NWSL Championship.

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Speaker 4: We don't have any plans to right now, but you know,

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Speaker 4: we would love to discuss that in the future.

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Speaker 3: I think the idea of the championship.

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Speaker 4: Being in the first ever stadium built just for women's

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Speaker 4: soccer is incredible. I mean, they of Kansas City has

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Speaker 4: absolutely raised the bar of what it means to be

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Speaker 4: an owner to host it. To have a team be

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Speaker 4: able to host a championship in a stadium like that

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Speaker 4: is really special.

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Speaker 2: That was my conversation with Gotham FC co owner and

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Speaker 2: lead governor Carolyn Tish Blodgett. We spoke ahead of the

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Speaker 2: team semi final match with Washington.

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Speaker 1: I'm Vanessa Pernomo.

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Speaker 2: To hear more from the Bloomberg Business of Sports team,

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Speaker 2: subscribe bl Bomberg dot com, Slash Podcasts, or on your

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Speaker 2: favorite podcast platform. M m HM