Olympic Gold Medalist Kendall Coyne Schofield Talks Growth of Women’s Hockey

17:22Vanessa Perdomo:Oh yeah, I've heard of her. Let's dive right into that conversation with gold medalist and player for the Minnesota Frost, Kendall Coyne-Shofield. Kendall, you're coming off your fourth Olympic Games, claiming gold in Milan. It feels like there's a lot of momentum right now for women's hockey. What does it feel like coming back into the PWHL right now and coming out of the Olympics? Well, I mean, coming back with a gold medal, there's no better way to get back into the PWHL season other than that. That was the goal going over to Milan and to be able to come back home with a gold medal. being able to do it with such a special group is only going to carry momentum forward into the second half of the season.

18:05Vanessa Perdomo:But I think what's so special about the second half of the season is that there is a season. There is more women's hockey to be played. There's more women's hockey to be seen. There's more women's hockey to be celebrated because the last three experiences I've had at the Olympic Games, as soon as the Olympic Games doors close and they announce the game's over, people wouldn't see or hear women's hockey and see the best of the best play for eight plus months. And then from the international standpoint, it could be over a year. You know, when we were in college, we would take the year off of school to be with the national team.

18:38Vanessa Perdomo:Our college players went back to school and they're competing for an NCAA championship. For all of us pro players that played in that gold medal game on both teams are returning back to our PWHL teams, are back in action, and our buildings are full. Yeah. Do you feel like it's almost different this time coming back and going into the PWHL than it really ever has before? I mean, you're coming out of these Olympics. There's so much momentum. So does it feel different going back into the league with the excitement that there was for this Olympics? It feels different, definitely. I think because of the momentum that the Olympic Games carries, while that has felt similar from the other experiences, from this time around, the momentum doesn't stop.

19:18Vanessa Perdomo:It doesn't, you know, the conversation isn't just the Olympic Games. It's about the PWHL. It's about winning the Walter Cup. It's about how, you know, incredible this league is. And, you know, and it's we're in season three, halfway through season three. And just I think you look at the success of the Olympic Games, that success was because of the PWHL. And now here we are going back into the PWHL. And it's just I think what people don't maybe see is, you know, the days in between. I think for, you know, before the PWHL existed, a lot of people talked about women's hockey every four years at the Olympic Games.

19:49Vanessa Perdomo:Now we have the opportunity and the ability and we should talk about women's hockey every day. It should be part of our mainstream conversation because you can see us and you just look at the success that players are having coming off the Olympics. We're waking up every day. And this is one of my favorite lines to say is that we return to our day job as professional hockey players. And we have never been able to do that. So, Kendall, you had brought up a point there, which I'm really excited to talk about, which is you said you guys are coming back with a lot of success for the players. And that brings up this partnership with Elf.

20:19Vanessa Perdomo:Can you tell me about that and how the partnerships and the sponsorships are different for you and those opportunities that you have now? Well, I think a lot of people want to talk about the success of women's sports and like how women's sports is having a moment right now. But I think when you really break down the success of women's sports, you need to break down the partners that have been alongside women's sports. And when it comes to ELF and the partnership with the PWHL, they've been with us since day one. And I think there were a lot of people who, you know, wanted to sit on the sidelines and say, hey, let's see if this is going to be another iteration of women's pro hockey that, you know, comes and goes or it's professional by name only.

20:55Vanessa Perdomo:But ELF immediately saw the how successful the PWHL was going to be. They saw the best players in the world wanting to be a part of this. And they said, let's put our weight behind this. And I think when you look at the, you know, how incredible Elf is and, you know, they've been disruptors in the women's sports world for a long time now. They said, we believe in this and we're going to partner with this. And it just brought so much credibility to the league from the from the get go. And that's what we needed because women's hockey didn't have that credibility. They didn't we didn't have that sustainable model where we could wake up every day and call ourselves professional hockey players.

21:29Vanessa Perdomo:and that be our singular job. This time around, it was different. And you look at the weight and the resources and the finances and the support that ELF brings. It's allowing this league to be successful and ultimately the players to live out their dreams and our dreams of being professional hockey players. And I think what's so special for me, I'm one of the lucky ones that gets to work closely with ELF. I've had the opportunity to bring young girls to games and be able to do a pep talk with them after games and just to hear their voices and see their faces and hear them say, I want to be on the Minnesota Frost.

22:03Vanessa Perdomo:My dream is to be a professional hockey player. And then for them to, you know, they have their elf gear and they have their elf shirts on. And it's really special to see that momentum, to see the dream be blossomed. And for these girls to know that they have a path in the sport as professional hockey players, if they're good enough to do so, just like a lot of the boys that they've grown up alongside that have always had that dream. Right. And I think it's interesting that what you're saying there, too, because partnerships are what make a league really valuable, obviously. And seeing a company like Elf see value in the PWHL before you even drop the first puck.

22:39Vanessa Perdomo:Right. How big is that for you and for the league? And did you even have real sponsors like that in previous iterations of leagues? There were definitely partners who helped us get to where we are today, for sure. But I think, you know, there was so much hesitancy, I think, around, you know, the start of something new. And I think, you know, with women's hockey, if history repeats itself, a lot of people were saying, oh, this is going to be another league that'll come and go, you know, this will be another one of those. And it wasn't. And I think even for the players to see someone like Elf to come behind the league before the league even started as a player, what am I saying?

23:22Vanessa Perdomo:Oh, this is the real deal. You know, Elf is putting putting themselves right out in front of this new league. It's here and it's here to stay. Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk more about like the previous iterations and and how you got to this point. Right. And I watched the documentary that came out on Peacock, The Rise, where, you know, it went through the whole inaugural season. Right. And and you were such a big part of that. And I obviously a lot of people don't know. And for people who don't know who are listening, how big of a part you played in that. There's no PWHL without you. And you had, you know, fellow players even saying that.

24:00Vanessa Perdomo:You know, what did that feel like having, you know, that recognition from from teammates, from other players in the league? Sports are it takes everybody. You know, there were so many people who contributed. And I think like any great team, everybody has a role. Some roles are different than others. Some roles require a little bit more than others. But every role is critically important to the success. And that was no different when it came to the PWHL. And I would say my role was definitely one that consumed a lot. it took a lot but I was committed to this goal I was I was not going to stop until we achieved what we deserved and and that's a sustainable viable professional women's hockey league and for me it was never about playing in it it was always about building it I've been lucky to be able to have played in it now for two and a half years and it's been a dream come true but for me I when I truly mean it when the ultimate dream was was to build it for the next generation because I couldn't keep, you know, I run a hockey camp every summer, you know, over a hundred, hundred girls come to the rink.

25:02Vanessa Perdomo:I put on my first pair of skates and all, I look at these girls and just to look at them and know that they don't have the same dream as all the boys that they see in this rink because simply because they're, they're girls. Like, I just, I just can't go to bed at night accepting that. And I wasn't going to accept it until I was a part of changing that. And so I was, you know, whatever it took day in and day out. I mean, it took five years. I would say honestly every day for five years of putting in the work, whether it was an email, getting on a plane to come to New York, sitting in front of someone trying to tell them, hey, this is the right thing to do.

25:35Vanessa Perdomo:We're going to have success. People ask me all the time, are you surprised these buildings are full? No, I believed in this wholeheartedly. That's why I woke up every day and chased it. And I woke up every day to try and create it because I knew that we were going to be successful. I knew the sport had this, had this much, you know, weight behind it. And it was just a matter of finding the right infrastructure, finding the right investment, you know, Mark and Kimber Walter saying yes to saying we, you know, we are going to be the single entity owners of this league. It's partners like Elf saying, yes, we believe in this wholeheartedly.

26:08Vanessa Perdomo:We're getting behind it. And it's all the right people at the table. And that's why we're having the success that we're having in such a short period of time. I can't wait to see what 10 and 20 years down the line looks like because it's, you know, incredible, you know, two and a half years in. But, you know, for me, it was I just I believed in it so, so strongly. And I knew we had a worth and it was surrounding ourselves with the right people who believed in that worth alongside us. And it's it's our partners like Elf. It's, you know, Mark and Kimber Walter. It's Billie Jean King and Alana Kloss.

26:36Vanessa Perdomo:It's, you know, our lawyers that were there with us every step of the way. And you look at the people who are running the league now. We have we have a super team. We have an A team running this league and this league is here and it's here to stay. Yeah. And like you said, filling arenas, sold out crowds, which is really amazing to see in such a short period of time. But that does go back to the investment, right? You have to invest in spaces like this, play in places where the NHL teams are playing in order to make that sort of a splash, right? To have partners. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, people are celebrating, you know, Madison Square Garden being sold out, TD Garden being sold out.

27:12Vanessa Perdomo:You know, that's going to, that's going to become the norm. You know, I think for, you know, I'm starting to get to a point where if the, if the building isn't full, I'm like, Oh no, what's going on. Right. Because we, that's become the norm of playing in front of full buildings. And, you know, there's a, there's a game tonight, you know, people like, Oh, women's or men's, you know, not, not be like, Oh, it must be a men's game. Cause there's more than there's, you know, no, there's a game tonight. Well, who's playing, you know, the wild or the frost, which is where we knew we could get, which is where we are and it's only going to keep getting better.

27:41Vanessa Perdomo:Before the iterations that you played in before, what were they like and what was it like that drove you to get to the point where you made that call to Angela Ruggiero at first? Yeah, it was, you know, the best way to describe it is professional by name only. I think when you have to have another job in order to continue to play hockey, you're not a professional in hockey. you're professional name only and quite frankly you're an amateur because you need to do something else to in order to be able to continue to play and that was the reality for for all of us you know we would practice a couple times a week I never attended a team practice because I wasn't moving to the state of Minnesota when I'm from Illinois my full-time job was in Illinois my you know my my benefits everything I needed were here in Illinois I wasn't going to go there for$7 ,500 salary, you know, at that point.

28:31Vanessa Perdomo:And so I think that's, that's one thing, you know, is so special and has been so long overdue is, you know, we wake up every day and we're hockey players. You know, we have multiple athletic trainers and strength coaches and chiropractors, massage therapists, nutritionists, you know, skills coaches, goalie coaches, head coach, two assistant coaches. The list goes on and on and on a general manager, you know, there, This is professional. What you do every day is professional. And so we didn't have any of those resources in order to be truly professional. And we still found a way to be as good as we were.

29:07Vanessa Perdomo:That was professional women's hockey player Kendall Coyne-Showfield. Up next, we pivot to focus on college sports and all the intricacies that surround NIL right as March Madness heats up. That's straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. I'm Michael Barr with Vanessa Perdomo. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports, Bloomberg Radio around the world. This sports spotlight is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One offers no fees or minimums on checking accounts. Did you know that two new expansion teams will begin play this year in the National Women's Soccer League? The 2026 season will see the league expand from 14 to 16 teams, with Boston Legacy FC and Denver Summit FC kicking off their inaugural seasons in March.

29:55Vanessa Perdomo:Capital One, what's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank for details. Capital One, N-A member FDIC. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Smart Talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO, Arvind Krishna. And I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them, pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example? If anybody has more than 10 % of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30 % more productive today, with the goal of being 70 % more productive, so we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it we say you can leverage what we did we are happy to bring out all our learnings including what needs to change in the process because the biggest change is not technology it's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things to listen to the full conversation visit ibm.com smarttalks

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31:45Vanessa Perdomo:Go to Sonesta.com to book your stay and unlock the best rates with Sonesta Travel Pass. Here today, roam tomorrow. Join now at Synesta.com. Terms and conditions apply. This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr. And I'm Vanessa Perdomo. As March Madness continues to blow us away, we wanted to check in on the crazy business that is college sports right now. Name, image, and likeness keeps changing. The way the schools pay their athletes keeps changing.

32:23Vanessa Perdomo:So we are bringing in an expert now to give us the rundown on the current NIL market. Justin Giangrande is the founder and CEO of Network, a sports marketing and management agency dedicated to college sports. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. First of all, tell us about Network and the company.

32:42Michael Barr:Network is a collegiate sports marketing and management agency. We are coast to coast to New York, South Florida and Los Angeles. Started about four years ago, if that makes sense, and really have just been laser focused on being the best collegiate sports marketing agency in the college and NIL space. My background had been in sports representation and marketing specifically for about 22 years after I graduated from University of Florida. Kind of got to live through those glory days back in the day with Tebow. And yeah, that's a little bit about network. We have three areas of the company, three divisions.

33:22Michael Barr:One, talent management, you know, representing talent in this era of College Sports 360, negotiating their deals with the school and, you know, collectives, really branding them and building a brand strategy and giving them a playbook to make themselves marketable. And then we have an advisory side of our business, works with schools and conferences on their overall strategy of revenue generation. And then lastly, Network Studios, which is our content and storytelling side. Obviously, if you have talent, getting their word out and their stories is important for them to become marketable.

34:00Vanessa Perdomo:Justin, you said you started four years ago. And since the implementation of NIL about four or five years ago, right, it has changed, I feel, massively every single year. There's all of these ebbs and flows that's working. How have you seen it change and how are you adjusting every year to everything new in NIL?

34:21Michael Barr:You're absolutely right that it changes every year. Each year has, you know, it's crazy to starting off, you know, the first year people didn't believe it was legal. regardless of it being legal, if that makes sense for college NIL. People still felt like it was very much a dirty secret. Schools didn't want to talk about it. You know, so I guess the first step of this in the phase was just people understanding that it was legal. And then the second step was, okay, boosters and people realizing that this could be advantageous for people to change, you know, their college trajectories. So some boosters and schools latched on to seeing it as an opportunity.

35:02Michael Barr:Then we saw a normalization of people realizing, okay, this isn't going away. Then the next step was people trying to figure out, you know, how do we manage this? Can this be managed? Is this an advantage? Is this right? I mean, I guess that's what we're kind of seeing now, right? You know, obviously, with Trump calling that council recently, you know, we're seeing people realize that unless we gather everyone on the same page, I guess the chaos is going to continue. Now, when we say chaos, I actually think it's been good chaos because college sports has never been hotter. Right. You can't look at the Super Bowl and the college football championship and tell me that the college football championship and just the storylines in college sports are not more interesting.

35:45Michael Barr:I mean, look at the Lane Kiffin saga. So it's definitely been crazy. And Vanessa, that's kind of the point of what we do at Network. We're laser focused on servicing both high school and college clients and really understanding this ecosystem. I think for a while, people thought that NFL agents and that it was the kind of the same or that you could realize that it was the same ecosystem. I think everyone's pretty clear now. It's a whole different set of rules, different timeline, different set of general managers that we're seeing, front office people.

36:16Vanessa Perdomo:So, you know, it's probably harder to work in college football than in NFL.

36:20Michael Barr:It's funny you say that. It is harder. You as representation need to be way more knowledgeable. When I say that, you know, this is something we should talk about. No contracts are standardized. So having representation in college sports is is even more important than pro because you can absolutely gain an advantage if you have good representation who understands where to push, what language to include, how things are done, if that makes sense. You absolutely can, if you have leverage, you can have a huge advantage. Whereas obviously if you look at college, both pro, NBA and NFL, those contracts are standardized, right?

36:59Michael Barr:So the chances that you sign an awful contract are very slim, even if you didn't even have representation, right? So like you said,

37:07Vanessa Perdomo:it's definitely tougher we're talking with Justin Giagrande founder and CEO of Network now there there are recent deals that have been made Colorado quarterback Julian Lewis he inked equity NIL deal with Jim Weed now first of all what is Jim Weed and where can I buy some

37:27Michael Barr:first of all not the Jim Weed you're thinking but ginweed is actually an all-natural energy drink from the cassie brothers who are long serial entrepreneurs in the cpg and beverage space it's sold all over the country if you go check it out most convenience stores 7-eleven and around the country have it and yeah i mean they're a mid-sized company already and growing rapidly and you know julian has always wanted to be entrepreneurial. That's one of the reasons I was excited about working with him and his father, TC. You know, from the beginning, they said, look, obviously endorsement deals where cash makes sense.

38:06Michael Barr:That's great. But if there's ever an opportunity for me to really grow alongside a company that can be significant, let us know. And so, you know, we recognize that this is a great size company. It's out the gates. It's already had multiple rounds of funding. They have a team that has a track record and it aligned with him. And so, you know, it's cool. were kind of seeing we did, you know, photo shoot and some activations year one. Now we're doing a larger footprint with him at the face of it. And so, you know, hopefully I always joke with my team, this is kind of tongue in cheek, but my goal is, you know, doing an equity based deal for one of these college kids where they exit so well that they don't even want to go play pro football because they've decided they're just going to retire off of their exit.

38:47Michael Barr:Now we'll see, we got to get a unicorn. But yeah, that's absolutely what happened with Julian and we're excited about it.

38:54Vanessa Perdomo:I think that's really interesting. And the interesting part of that deal, like you said, is the equity part of it. How often is that really happening in NIL deals that they're getting equity instead of like a paid sponsorship?

39:05Michael Barr:That's a great question. It depends on where the, let me, let me use the words. I think it's less than pro because I think the talent is still, they haven't had the track record of being a commodity. Does that make sense? So if it's, If you're a younger brand, I actually think it's like taking a shot. If you're a younger brand, placing some bets because your valuation of your company is not so high that you're giving away a big chunk, it could be advantageous for you, right? Like at the end of the day, you're not a proven model as a company either. where, you know, so I am seeing as these guys, you know, as these talents step into the arena and have success right after they have a year or two, now we're seeing more and more brands say, all right, well, we've seen them prove it on a scale at college.

39:51Michael Barr:So I'm seeing more and more of it than I used to, if that makes sense. And I think this generation grew up watching the Steph Curry's and LeBron's being entrepreneurial. I mean, I know DJ Lagway and Malachi Nelson and And Julian Lewis and Davi Belfort, some of my quarterbacks, they all grew up watching those guys, as we've heard so long, build the empire around them. It's not just about endorsement deals for cash.

40:15Vanessa Perdomo:I want to talk about not just the younger athletes that are still in the sport and some just left the sport, but I want to talk about the athletes that have been in business for a while, like the Fran Tarkingtons. That was the first venture that I realized that, my goodness, yeah, it's like, what are you going to do after you are done with your sport? So I bring the same question to you. Is that a question that is asked by a lot of athletes to you?

40:47Michael Barr:About what? What they're going to, could you clarify just what they're going to do?

40:51Vanessa Perdomo:What they're going to do after their sport is over in terms of when they're done, can they still work out a deal with you guys?

40:59Michael Barr:Yeah, absolutely. So part of our process is going through a branding strategy and figuring out how to position them, one, who they are, who they want to be, how they're differentiated from other talent that's out there to the marketplace. But then we truly build a three-year roadmap for them. Okay. Now, that's not after playing, but three years is a long time to try to project out, right? And so you have your short-term goals, your mid-term goals, and then your long-term opportunities that you're working towards, if that makes sense. And yeah, so, you know, that's something. And I think, honestly, one of the things you're talking about, Mike, like, I think talent signs with us because we know that no matter what, we are going to be there.

41:39Michael Barr:We've built some businesses with some of our clients, if that makes sense. And these are guys that, you know, maybe have not had the fanfare of their careers have panned out like they originally wanted. So I think we're known as being more entrepreneurial as an agency, right? That's the benefit of being boutique. It's not always about the bottom line for us, if that makes sense. And I definitely am seeing some of these kids become entrepreneurs and have their own ideas while they're still in college, which is really cool because like you said, some of them are not going to all pan out as NFL or NBA players.

42:12Michael Barr:And if they can use this moment to gather attention when they're relevant and build something that's sustainable, well, then NIL has done something for good for them and their families.

42:22Vanessa Perdomo:Justin, how do you, though, build out a roadmap for three years when you're considering things like the transfer portal and things like that? How can you build out deals and work with the athletes in that way to build for the future if they really are going to be leaving a school? And how does that work with deals they sign with the school, with the collectives and all of that?

42:45Michael Barr:So let's take the last piece. How does it work? Well, schools are getting smarter. Obviously, everyone is seeing that the transfer portal exists. So more and more brands are taking into account and understanding that that's a risk. I think they're looking at the longevity of the client's potential before they go pro. That's something too. I think we're seeing brands. It's actually interesting, Vanessa. We're seeing kind of two different sides. I'm seeing brands take like very long bets. Okay. Like example, Red Bull for a client, DJ Lagway. It's not to say they didn't care where he went to school.

43:24Michael Barr:They do care where he went to school, but they're kind of betting on him for like his entire career. Like that's how they're positioning. Like we don't ever intend to not be in the DJ Lagway business. So yes, you know, and this is a great example. He transferred after Florida this year. He's at Baylor. And so we've had to reset the activations, the marketing plan. But that's actually been a very fun process because obviously with a big brand like Red Bull, that's across the entire country and world. Right. So the marketing strategy and how they're using him is different. I guess to your other question is, you know, how do you account for understanding that the transfer portal world exists?

44:01Michael Barr:You know, you have to do I think it's kind of going back to what I'm just saying is like making sure that you understand that you really can only plan from an endorsement deal perspective and activation perspective a year out. Right. And then you also understand that the goal is for these guys to get to the NFL or NBA. So you have to take that into account from a timing perspective as well.

44:20Vanessa Perdomo:That was Justin Giangrande, founder and CEO of Network. That's it for today. Thanks for joining us. Tune in again next week for the latest on the stories moving big money in the world of sports. And don't forget to catch our podcast on all your podcast platforms and go to Bloomberg.com to subscribe to the Bloomberg Business of Sports newsletter to stay up to date on all our juicy insights. Hey, now, you're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports Bloomberg Radio around the world.

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