‘Mission and capital can coexist’: Golden State Valkyries’ Jess Smith on pitch to sponsors
Digiday ·
The WNBA’s newest team must navigate measurement demands and marketers wanting to share in the ‘mission’ if it’s to establish a commercial foothold.
The Golden State Valkyries are the WNBA’s youngest team. Since their inception two years ago, they’ve been competing not just on the court but in the boardroom, seeking out sponsorship investments as spending in women’s sports rises.
Capturing the team’s fair share of that spending will be crucial to its long-term sustainability — and the Valkyries are up against teams with years of data and precedent to back up their pitch to potential partner firms. To make up the distance, president Jess Smith has been working to tailor exclusivity rights and meet marketers’ increasing demands for sponsorship-impact measurement, including a data partnership with talent agency The Team, while doubling the team’s marketing headcount, per Sportico.
The work is paying off so far: the Valkyries are the first women’s sports team to notch $100 million in annual revenue , aided by over 40 partners including long-term sponsors Carmax, Rakuten, Kaiser Permanente, among others. Sponsorship income alone increased 30% year on year, according to Smith. In this conversation, she explains how Golden State positions the Valkyries to potential sponsors, and how they’re meeting marketer demands for more data.
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