Big Viewership for MLB's Fall Classic; Briana Scurry Talks Goalies

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1:25If you're playing money ball with a huge bag of money, you're going to be really, really good. Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports, where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Damian Sassenhauer. And I'm Vanessa Perdomo. Michael Barr is off this week. Coming up on the show, we'll recap the Major League Baseball season and a wild World Series between the Dodgers and the Blue Jays.

2:04We'll talk with two-time World Series champion and MLB Network analyst Al Leiter for his reaction and insight. Plus, we'll hear part of my conversation with National Soccer Hall of Famer Brianna Scurry, part of my new Business of Soccer series. All that is on the way, but first, we take a look at a company that wants to revolutionize how brands invest and partner with women's sports. Trailblazing Sports Group CEO Sarah Gofferson sat down with us recently along with Michael Barr to talk about her company and how it's boosting women's athletes in the women's sports space. Let's listen to that conversation.

2:37Sarah, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Thank you. It's great to be here with you all. I appreciate the time. You are the founder and CEO of Trailblazing Sports Group. Tell us about that. Well, we are a company that is just nearly four years old. And I founded Trailblazing after 18 years at ESPN, overseeing brand partnerships. But I really believe in the power of the purse and the power of brand marketers to really impact the growth of women's sports. So I really wanted to do just focus on women's sports, although I love doing our college football and Monday night deals and NBA final partnerships.

3:20I really want to focus the next chapter of my career on just talking to brands about the ROI within women's and how they could invest authentically and connect with the growing fan base of women's sports. We are a boutique brand partnership firm and having fun doing it. Sarah, I'm curious, you know, when you were seeing things at ESPN and working on those brand deals and what drove you to do this, particularly in women's sports, were you seeing a lot left on the table there for women's sports and not a lot of attention being paid there that you realized so many people could benefit from something like this?

3:59And what sports necessarily were you thinking, wow, they really deserve more investment from the brand side? Yeah, I think I mean, I think ESPN was very early on. I mean, we're at the Women's Sports and Summit where I'm where I'm doing this podcast. And this is, I believe, their 15th year. So they believed in the power of women's sports early. And and I, you know, working with with that team to get our brand partners like the Nikes of the world early on. But I did see some signals coming out of the pandemic where brands were asking, how do we lean in a little bit more? What could we do that's on the spots and dots and presenting of the WNBA games?

4:44So what really energized me was working with a few clients. So we worked with Google to create the first WNBA studio show. There was no WNBA countdown until about five years ago. We worked AT &T to do the Sue Bird and Diana Frosty mega cash. I really was seeing some signals of brands wanting to lean in. And I wanted the opportunity to just work with brands across the ecosystem. So not just within the ESPN platforms that we had, but also work with teams and work with leagues and work with athletes. because I do think that brands, again, have the first. So if they can fuel athletes and can fuel the growth in teams and leads, the ecosystem will be better for it.

5:36So, Sarah, what I find most interesting is the way you create this incremental in-game advertising inventory, right? So, for example, in the middle of the game when there are free throws going on or goals or whatever, I guess stuff pops up on the rail of the show, kind of like what we're receiving when we're watching any sports these days. Talk to us about that business, about the future of that business, about the power of advertising in that way. Yeah. Well, it starts with the fact that women's sports fans are consuming 60 % of women's sports content via streaming channels. And it's really because they've had to over the years.

6:15You couldn't just pop on a linear broadcast and find women's sports. So women's sports fans have been trained to actually search out women's sports content via CTV and via streaming. So we thought, OK, well, there's an opportunity here to do more than just have a 30 second spot that lives within the linear broadcast. So Trailblazing partnered with a company called Transbit. And what we do is we create incremental in-game inventory for advertisers around the biggest moments in women's sports. So if an advertiser wanted to target every three-point shot within the WNBA, we could actually serve a picture-in-picture or an L-bar unit within the game without having to go to commercial break after.

7:06If they if, let's say, a medical company or a health care company wanted to injury timeouts, we could then serve an ad that's contextually relevant within moments in sports. And what we really love about it is for a long time, we would say, oh, you know, we're trying to buy all, you know, the inventory in women's sports. We just can't stop. And this is sort of debunking that myth of like, listen, we can inventory and we can create opportunities. So we're excited. It's called Trailblazing Moments. Across a number of different sports, LPGA, tennis, WNBA, and WSL. I know we are running out of time, but I would like your reaction to something.

7:52Tell me. I, being the old geezer, I always think of what moment really started for women's sports to really put it on the map. And you got to go back to me, to 1973 with Billie Jean King going up against Bobby Riggs because that was on linear TV. And I remember that very well. And my mom, I'll never forget this. My mom, now, she's not a big sports person, but I remember her watching this on ABC and my mom saying, you get that, Bobby. You get that, Bobby. She sure did. She did. Just your reaction to it. Just, you know, about a Billie Jean King thank you. Yes. Was she, Billie Jean King, I mean, my company is named Trailblazing Sports Group, and I think Billie Jean is the ultimate trailblazer.

8:48and you know her her book for sure is a privilege is is one everyone should read um so she is you know to to me the godmother in sports I've had the privilege of meeting her um a couple of times my you know 12 year old daughter I think eight or nine at the time met her um with me and then again without me and just said thank you for all you do for for women um you know a young girl i'm excited for the future so uh there's totally there's totally that feeling like when meeting her and speaking to her that it's less like genuinely thank you to what she did and and the goal that she had at the time to not take less money and to take yeah women's tennis away and say, guess what?

9:40If you don't want to pay us, we're going to figure out ourselves. And truly what she did in the 70s, it's crazy. Yeah. When you think about where we are today. Yeah. And I don't know if you've heard, you know, but she had a she was a big part of Fowdy and the U.S. Women's National Team and their fight for equal pay. She, you know, Fowdy will tell you stories of Billie Jean coming into their meetings and really encouraging them. And she still continues to be a big part of the women, you know, Women's Sports Foundation. She founded that with her check, her first equal paycheck. So, but I think for me, the moment was the 99 World Cup.

10:22I went to that game at Rose Bowl Stadium as a kid from San Diego and seeing that, that was the moment. So I think when everybody says, oh, this is women's sports, we're having, you know a moment it's caitlin clark it's like no no like i love that you went back to 73 but you think about the night the 94 dream team and the atlanta olympics with cheryl swoops and and then you think about the 99 um you know world cup so women's sports is is been on the rise and i think it's finally getting the due and i think you know we still are undervalued i mean there was a a great McKenzie report that said, you know, it's going to be valued at$2.5 billion by 2030, which sounds like a big number because it's valued about$1 billion today.

11:14But, you know, then you hear Bateman talking about how the latest NHL team is going to be valued at a$2 billion franchise fee next year. So I just think that women's sports is still very undervalued. And And I think there's a tremendous opportunity for brands and companies to increase the value that they are putting towards it. Absolutely. You know, it's interesting, Sarah. I had recently spoken with Brianna Scurry, who was the goalkeeper of the 1999 World Cup team. Oh, yeah. And she had pointed out to me that this moment that we're in right now is actually the same formula that we were in in the 90s when it was World Men's World Cup, then FIFA World Cup then Olympics then Women's World Cup and that's exactly what started the trajectory of women's sports so she said take a look at what happened then and what's about to happen again and it's going to be just the same as it was back then so it's going to double from that momentum and I thought that was really interesting to take a look at that formula that we're in I mean Vanessa I just I listen to your, you know, the business of soccer and think about this.

12:26So you've got the 27 World Cup in Brazil, 28 Olympics where the women are defending their gold in the United States. Then you will have the 31 World Cup stateside. So you're just going to have a tremendous wave of women's soccer and interest in women's soccer all on Netflix, which I'm sure they got for a coup. so it's going to be an exciting time for women's soccer I think over the next eight years. Our thanks to Trailblazing Sports Group CEO Sarah Godfreyton for joining us. Up next my conversation with two-time Olympic gold medal winner and 1999 World Cup champion Brianna Scarry. For Vanessa Perdomo and Michael Barr I'm Damian Sassauer you're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

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15:12Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports, where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Damian Tassauer. And I'm Vanessa Perdomo. Michael Barr is sadly off this week. We're gearing up for the World Cup coming to the States with a new series, The Bloomberg Business of Soccer. You can catch new episodes on the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast feed. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, and all your favorite podcast platforms so you never miss a new episode. On the latest edition of The Bloomberg Business of Soccer, I focused on goalkeepers.

15:52I spoke with former U.S. Women's National Team goalkeeper, National Soccer Hall of Famer, and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Brianna Scurry. Let's take a listen to a portion of that conversation. Guys, I'm fangirling over here, if you can't tell. I was a former goalkeeper, so this is really a dream for me. Brianna, thanks so much for joining the business of soccer. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks for thanking me. So I appreciate that. Goalkeepers unite. Exactly. So that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. So I think one of the things that is really interesting when we're talking about, obviously soccer's coming up a lot this year.

16:25That's why we have this podcast. We're around the corner from the World Cup. But I think in the conversation of soccer and the conversation of stars, goalkeepers get lost in this conversation. Would you agree with that? I do agree. It's a very interesting thing because America and I think the world likes goal scorers and not too fond of those of us who try to stop goals from being scored. So, I mean, it's so interesting because it's exciting. I mean, it's more exciting when a goal is scored, although we obviously think it's better when a goal is stopped. I love a good save. It's always been a thing.

17:02I know, right? We love a good save. I mean, athleticism is, everyone should really pay attention. That's the best. Yeah. I know. Lack of appreciation, I guess. I don't know what to say. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to start with your journey in your career. And obviously we have to start with the 99 World Cup, which, you know, is the greatest performance from a team, greatest moment in American sports. But I'm not biased at all. Don't worry about that. I don't detect any bias. So I want to start with, you know, kind of the overall arching aspect of the tournament. It's 1999. It's a World Cup in the U.S., but it's women's soccer.

17:39So it's kind of new. I want to what was your take, you know, throughout how it grew, the fever grew from group stages to the final? Well, the fact that we were even having a women's standalone event such as the World Cup was interesting and had never really been done on the scale that we were doing it. Originally, I don't know if you know this, but originally the tournament was supposed to be played regionally in small high school stadiums of two to five thousand people. But the committee decided to try to blow the doors off the thing and put it in football stadiums. And that was like three years, two, three years before.

18:19So we literally went door to door for two years selling our game and said, please, please come to our tournament. We're going to have it right here in the U.S. in your backyard. And you don't want to miss it. And so we were educating and letting people know. So then when we finally got to play our first game, you know, our giant stadium in front of 76 ,000 people, it was truly a dream come true. I mean, it was way beyond any expectation. I mean, because there's a certain level of desire of a dream that you want to create. And then when you're actually living in it, it's very different. And so we were very emotional, that game.

18:57And, of course, now that it was happening, we had to get to business. We had to get to work. So we had a fantastic game that day and beat the team Denmark 3-0. Yeah. And obviously, I know that one of your dreams when you were younger was to be an Olympian. And you played in the Olympics, right, a couple of years before that. And that was also in the U.S. in 1996, which is kind of the first Olympics where we see women's sports become a big thing. Right. You guys win the gold medal. The U.S. basketball team wins the gold medal. and that spurs the WNBA. And then you go into the moment of the World Cup.

19:35Did that have any momentum, do you think? Or was the World Cup still kind of this new concept? Everybody knew what the Olympics was, but not everyone maybe knew what the Women's World Cup was. I think the 96 Olympic Games had a lot of momentum in it. One of the things that happened, I don't know if you recall, but they didn't show our game live at all on NBC during that 96 Olympics. because they were showing all these other different sports, but they didn't show our game live, even though we had 76 ,000 people in the stands and were favored to win. And so what you saw, if you weren't at the stadium, you saw snippets.

20:12So by the time 99 rolled around, they decided, hey, maybe we should show the whole game once in a while. People might want to watch it. So they did. And so that was one thing that changed. But I also feel like that Olympic Games was the year of the woman. It truly was. and a lot of our collective sports teams in the United States won gold. And I think that really had a shift in how women's sports was perceived, especially team sports. And so when we were trying to do this standalone World Cup tournament, a lot of people were skeptical because they were like, oh, well, yeah, the Olympics, of course.

20:48Who doesn't want to see the Olympics? And who wouldn't want to go to a game, a gold medal game? And they were saying, well, this is very different. But we believed differently from them and we thought we could pull it off. So I feel like the two combined tournaments really had an impact on each other. And so for me, we had great momentum going into the 99 World Cup because of the 96 Olympics. Right. And so you win in the ultimate fashion of penalty kick shootout, which it's my favorite way to win, I think. It's just like the most incredible feeling. I don't think there's anything that beats it.

21:26But did you expect the fervor that you guys got after winning 99? I feel like we kind of thought there would be some real fire in women's game, especially in women's soccer after we won. But I don't think we truly understood the magnitude. At least I didn't. You know, went from relative obscurity, you know, leading into the World Cup start to completely everybody knowing who I was right after we won. A lot of fame and a lot of, you know, notoriety and truly relief that we had won, actually. Yeah. Getting back to goalkeepers a little bit, you know, and you mentioned it that maybe at the time there was obviously all these other factors that led you to not be the most marketable player.

22:16But I also think it's interesting when we're looking at goalkeepers, it's a cyclical thing. I mean, there's only been really three goalkeepers of the U.S. women's national team in the last 30 years. I mean, 30 years. That's really crazy. But I think that there's something there, too, that, yes, the other players and other goalkeepers in general and internationally have been able to find some footing. but there also has to be this other element to it like this first, right? You were this iconic first player, the 99ers and all of that. Hope Solo was very notorious for many things, you know, positive and negative, made a lot of headlines.

22:59But I would say that a lot of my friends who are casual fans don't really know who Alyssa Nair necessarily is by name. So I think there has to be this other thing that propels people beyond for people to notice goalkeepers? Do you think that's on the media side? Do you think it's a personality thing? Like, what would you say that that is? Well, yeah, that's a really fascinating point to make. First of all, let me say that when it comes to winning, with the women's side, the teams that are playing the World Cup and the Olympics tend to be the same people. On the men's side, it's different. So when you talk about cycles, World Cup is first and the Olympics are right after.

23:46Every single cycle, Team USA has won either the Olympic gold or the World Cup championship. And so I think in those few cycles where we were winning Olympic gold instead of World Cup gold, it's the same team. And so you have that notoriety. I feel like what happened with Alyssa is I think that the light shifted from goalkeepers being able to essentially take the game by the scruff of the neck and get the team to the final. And then we figure out how to win it to, you know, the field players. You know, you had Megan Rapinoe. You had Abby Wambach. You've had a lot of different players. Now you have Kristen Press, Tobin Heath, Lindsay Horan, all these great names.

24:33And the goalkeeper, Alyssa, didn't have to do as much, I feel like, as Hope and I had to do. And so her name wasn't really in the media that much. But the truth is, in my opinion, she proved herself in 2019. Because there was no way that that team would have won that World Cup if it weren't for Alyssa. and but she was greatly overshadowed by Alex Morgan by Megan Rapinoe and just by all the different things that were going on and the first time us winning World Cup in a long time so there was a lot going on there and and that got a lot more attention than Elissa did unfortunately but she is a brilliant goalkeeper I've met her several times watched her play and she's got all the goods And we've been very blessed with great goalkeeping here for the women's side for decades.

25:25Yeah, absolutely. Also, she's a PK saving machine. Yes, I know. Exactly. You can bank it, right? You can take it to the bank that she's going to save at least one, if not two. I think it's interesting, you know, in your new, your like second half career, you know, you work with brands. You said you have more partnerships now. You've been part of a team and things like that. Have you had conversations with brands about the power of goalkeepers and telling their story? And like we said, I mean, if I was a brand and I was going to invest in a player, I would invest in a player who's going to be in that seat for 10 years.

26:02You know what I'm saying? So have you had those conversations with brands? I have had those conversations, not only with goalkeepers in general. I mean, I explained to them how goalkeeping is a foundation of a team. And at one point in time, if you go back in time and look at every single team that's won a world championship or Olympic championship at one point in time in that run, the goalkeeper had the team on their shoulders. And so if you don't have strong defensive goalkeeping, then you're not going to win. That's just how it works. And so who better to have represent you if you're if you're a company that wants to, you know, talk about strength or teamwork or camaraderie or leadership.

26:44goalkeepers are all those things wrapped into one. And in my case, I feel like, um, not only my goalkeeper, but I was also a trailblazer. And so I understand how to, how to literally, uh, blaze trails and, and make, make something there that was not there before. And so for me, um, I think the important thing too, with goalkeepers is we're, we're, we tend to be rather cerebral in our ability to, you know, decide where, who goes where and shift our teammates in positions to be strong as a team. I mean, I feel like one of my greatest traits was my ability to communicate to my backs and put them in the right position for them to be successful.

27:27And so all these steps of success, these attributes of success are all the same, whether you're on the pitch or in the boardroom. That's a portion of my conversation with all-time women's soccer great and my personal hero, Brianna Scurry. Check out an extended edition of the conversation as part of the Bloomberg Business of Soccer. You can find that on the Business of Sports podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, and all your favorite podcast platforms. Up next, we recap the World Series and talk the upcoming baseball offseason with two-time World Series champ Al Leiter. For Damian Sassauer, I'm Vanessa Perdomo.

28:02You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.