Jennifer Mackesy and Julie Uhrman: the bold business case for 7-a-side women's football

0:04David Cushnan:And welcome along to the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast, the sports industry show from Leaders where we talk to the people worth knowing in the business of sport this week. I'm David Cushnan, content director here at Leaders. Hot week in London, just me with you this time. but I did have some company in the studio when I was joined by Jennifer Mackesy and Julie Ehrman, a head of the third edition of World Sevens Football, which is taking place in London at Brentford's GTEC Community Stadium over the next few days. A great chance to sit down with Jennifer, who has created and is funding the Seven Aside Women's Football Competition, which will this week feature eight WSL clubs, including Chelsea and Manchester United.

0:49David Cushnan:She's a minority owner of Chelsea Women and also NWSL club Gotham FC. So she's got real transatlantic interest in women's football. And from Julie Ehrman, well known, of course, across the industry over the past few years as the president and co-founder of Angel City FC. She's recently transitioned to a special advisor role at the NWSL Club, freeing her up to make her public debut as co-founder of World Sevens Football alongside Jennifer. Lots in this. The concept, its creation, what they've learned from the first two tournaments, which were held last year in Portugal and Florida, operating outside, but in collaboration with the existing structures of women's football.

1:34David Cushnan:There's a message for the sceptics about the business sustainability of women's football and a little bit more on what everyone can expect when World 7s lands in London over the next few days. So settle in and spend the next half an hour or so in the company of Jennifer McEasy and Julie Ehrman. Jennifer McEasy and Julie Ehrman are in the studio. Welcome both. Welcome to London. First of all, how are you enjoying this fantastic heatwave that we're having? Well, I brought it from Los Angeles, so I'm pretty used to it. But yeah. I just want to talk about the weather. Everybody wants to talk about either we're talking about the weather or we're talking about the fact that AC doesn't exist.

2:13Either one.

2:14David Cushnan:Correct. And we could do a whole podcast on that, but we won't. It's great to have you both here ahead of this weekend's World Sevens football in London at Brentford's GTEC Stadium. And we'll talk more about that shortly. Jennifer, you are the co-founder of this whole thing. For those who are maybe a little less familiar with it, just explain to us what World Sevens football is. Sure. And thank you so much for having us, first of all. I've enjoyed London as well. I left 50 degrees and rainy in New York and came here. So nice to have the tides turn a little bit. But anyway, World Sevens football is a seven-a-side tournament series for professional women's football clubs.

2:57essentially that's what we're doing and what we're doing is is trying to add another element of entertainment to the women's football game by creating an atmosphere something very different than what you've seen before innovating it in a way that we haven't seen been done and we're super excited about showing it to london and to the rest of the uk and give us an idea of of how

3:19David Cushnan:this idea came about the genesis tell us the origin story sure so julie and i as co-founders and Justin Fishkin were together two summers ago, and we saw this format, and we spent some time going to some friendlies. We had Chelsea come over, I think, and it was Arsenal, Gotham Football Club, and Washington Spirit, and we saw sold-out stadiums in D.C., and we saw the energy around these fan bases wanting to see these clubs that they normally wouldn't have the opportunity to see and wouldn't have the opportunity to see play against each other, the energy that that brought. And that was one of the reasons why we thought this could be an incredible opportunity for us to build this sports platform, to be able to show the world that we can elevate these female athletes and these clubs on the world stage and be able to compete together.

4:12David Cushnan:Now, Jennifer, you've been front facing on this from the start. Julie, you have been spotted at previous World Sevens football events, the two editions that have happened so far, but you're making it official now. Is that right? You are officially on the team publicly. Yeah, no, officially a co-founder of World Sevens football. Been really excited to build this alongside Jen and Justin. As Jen said, we are building something that's complementary to the 11 space. We intentionally want to grow women's football and believe that there is a huge audience of fans that would love football but are looking for something different, more exciting, more festival-like, more entertaining, more content forward.

4:57And so this platform of 7v7, fast football, 15-minute halves, no offside, music playing throughout where you really get to see the technical skill of these players as well as their personalities allows them the ability to connect with their fans, grow their fan base, allows the clubs to grow their brands and allows this ecosystem to grow because all of the financials we're putting into the clubs and the teams that are trying to grow the sport.

5:24David Cushnan:So two editions so far, May 2025, the first one in Portugal, and then you were in Fort Lauderdale in December. Jennifer, tell us about what you learned from those first two editions. How long is this podcast? Because this is a startup. Okay, let me rephrase that. Give us the headlines of what you learned from those first two events. Sure. So we learned a lot. But what we learned is that the proof of concept for what we're doing is there. The response that we got and the energy and excitement that we saw both in the venue and people watching it on TV was really incredible. And we brought together different teams from different parts of the world to both of those two tournaments.

6:08Those two tournaments were consistent in that they were in a sort of a beach destination environment. So this is a little bit different here in London, which, again, like I said, we're super excited about this sort of slight change in the formatting of what we're doing. But what we learned was that what we created was what we want. So we created a stadium within a stadium and where it's an intimate environment and every seat is the best seat in the house. And the programming that we have, in addition to the football that's being played on the field, was incredibly important to us. And we've just sort of refined some of those things as we've gone along and kept the things that worked really well, added some new things on.

6:53One piece is the social content that is being created around this. It's extraordinary. In the first tournament, we had so much organic content that we didn't expect to have that we weren't able to necessarily capitalize on. Tournament two, we built on that. This tournament, we have 65 creators and influencers who have asked to come to the tournament and be a part of it. So that's something really exciting that we learned that we've been able to develop as we've gone on. And, you know, the little lessons learned. We have a small but mighty team. We've got a great production agency. And we are just, you know, all heads down this week getting ready.

7:35And I think when people walk into that stadium, they're going to be blown away with what they see. If I could add, what's been, I think, really surprising is how World 7th football is growing the entire ecosystem of women's football. Obviously, it's incredible for the clubs and the players. They get the opportunity to play more minutes, to build their brand, to connect directly with their fans. From a viewership standpoint, we saw over a million viewers, and it grew from tournament to tournament two. We were with DAZN in day one. For the second tournament, we had HBO and TNT and TBS. But not only did we grow the broadcasters, but the number of commentators was incredible.

8:13We were giving players, current players, opportunities to start building on skill sets that they might have after their playing careers is over. So we had commentators that have never broadcast a game before utilizing World Sevens football as their sort of launch pad to do that, which was really special. Because the whole idea is that we need more opportunities for women and more opportunities for them to hone their skills, whether it's on or off the pitch. And World Sevens allowing them to do that multiple times a year.

8:41David Cushnan:How important was it to do something different in terms of format? I suppose one option you had was to run some kind of 11-a-side exhibition. This move to 7-a-side feels very smart, and I think I said this at the time when it was first announced, in that it sort of removes you from the current structures and governance of women's football, football in general, and presumably gives you a bit more freedom to do that. to do what you want and to mix up the format a bit. How important was it to be different in this market as it stands? I mean, when we talked about building World 7's football, the idea was really to grow the game and to build something that's complementary to what already exists.

9:26You have six prominent domestic leagues that play a number of games. We have the Champions League. We have the NWSL playoffs. There's a lot of opportunities to see 11 v 11. The challenges with women's football today is that it's incredibly fragmented. You have the best players in the world playing in six different leagues around the world. You don't really get the opportunity in the 11th game to, on a consistent basis, see the best play the best from a team perspective and the best play the best from a player perspective. What 7 allows in a new format is the ability to create an environment where truly the best is playing the best.

10:00In a fun, exciting format that the players love. They love short-sighted games. Fans love short-sighted games. So not only are you creating an environment where the best playing the best, which we can't create in the 11 environment today because it's so fragmented globally. But now you have the opportunity to bring in younger fans, different fans that want something to do on the weekend, that want to build community, that want to have an exciting weekend with friends that's different. So you can bring in a younger audience, a more male skewed audience, a family skewed audience, and you get to see the best players.

10:32You can't do that in the 11s game. But this complements it from the perspective of now that I've fallen in love with Aaron Cuthbert on Chelsea, be, I can go watch her play all season long in the WSL. And that's what's really important to us, is that one benefits and grows the others, and they can work together. I would just add to that, to your point, even though we're technically not governed because we're a seven-a-side tournament, we feel really strongly about partnering with the federations, confederations, leagues. And one of the reasons why we're here is because leagues have approached us, And they see this as a wonderful complement to their regular 11-a-side season.

11:10So for us, that was really important.

11:13David Cushnan:You two both have interests in clubs as well. And I wonder, which gives you a really interesting perspective as you're building this, how much convincing have the clubs needed to be part of this? You've got a great selection of clubs playing in London this weekend, for example. There's obviously a prize money element, which is clearly going to be a factor in their thinking. What have the discussions been like with the clubs and what sort of questions have they been asking of you? So I'll start by saying when we decided to do this in Portugal, we had Adrian Jacob, who is remarkable. And he luckily had a lot of relationships and he was able to go to these clubs that are the biggest, best clubs in the world and say, take a chance on World 7s.

12:00Because at that time, there was no proof of concept. They didn't know what to expect. And they stepped up and they came and they were full on partners. And they obviously had incredible experiences. So that has helped. I think the sort of word of mouth and what people are seeing out, whether it's in social media or whatnot, I think has helped us with those future conversations with clubs. And again, as an owner in multiple clubs, we are looking for ways to grow our brand, to give our players the opportunity to grow their platforms. So for us, this is a no-brainer to say yes to this. So, you know, are there logistics that you need to sort out?

12:43Yes. But the goal should be everybody should want to get to yes and figure out how to get to yes, because it's really the right thing to do based on where we are and our trajectory as clubs, I would say. Well, I mean, yeah, and the biggest surprise is once you've participated in a tournament, they want to come back full stop. They want a full commitment from us when it's over. Jonas, who's the coach of the San Diego Wave, talked about how special this tournament was. It was an end-of-season tournament, our second tournament in Fort Lauderdale, and he talked about how this tournament actually increased their collaboration and it increased their teamwork, how he saw players perform and show up in ways from a personality standpoint and a technical way that he hadn't seen all season long.

13:30The makeup of this tournament and the style is so different that he actually said, after eight months of being with these players, I actually learned something new, and they showed up in a different way where they had to come together for celebrations or their walk-ins. And that element of learning more about his players and their way of team bonding. He was like, we have to, I mean, luckily they won the tournament, so they have a pretty good chance of coming back. But he's like, you don't get that opportunity. Again, in the 11th space, it's different. It provides a different level. And that's what we love to hear because now people are saying, how do I come back?

14:06What's it going to take to be part of the next tournament?

14:09David Cushnan:Tell us a little bit more about the entertainment side of things. You've got, presumably part of the mission here is to build and grow the profile of players and work with them to be able to give them what they need to be able to do that. We obviously know the media social world that we live in and the opportunities for the best athletes to be broadcasters, to be content creators in their own right. What's the overarching entertainment strategy, I suppose, and give us a flavour of what we might be able to expect in London this weekend? So I think there's two pieces to that. One is the entertainment factor for the fans, but I also just want to touch on, I don't know that it's necessarily the experience for the players.

14:54So what I will say is that we've got, in addition to our leadership team, we have a player advisory group made up of some of the most world-renowned players, and they are incredible. I think you should name Doc. Let's name Doc. Okay, so Anita, Sante, Caroline Sager, Laura Georges, Kelly O 'Hara, and Tobin Heath. So again, they have been absolutely incredible partners with this. And when we built this, we sort of say we built this by players for players. So from the moment they arrive in London, we have an opening reception this evening where we will be gathering everybody together. We will be honoring.

15:33The clubs are going to be participating and they will be representing a local nonprofit organization. So we're going to talk a little bit about that tonight. And then from, again, from the moment they arrive at the stadium until the closing party, which will be at the end of the, after the final game and the awards ceremony, we want them to have this incredible experience. So that's the players. For the fans, we have a DJ. We have a fan activations. We have smoke. We have, what else do we have? Merchants. We have Merchants. Yes, we both have her. So we're really trying, and the game presentation that we're putting on will be unlike anything I think most fans have ever seen in a football match.

16:19We know that when players play loose, they play better. And in the 11th game, that's really hard sometimes. It's really stressful. There's a lot counting on you. In this environment, we're really trying to encourage that looseness so they can have fun and play free, and that's what creates these incredible competitions, these incredible goals. And it brings out the personality of these players that the fans fall in love with, current and new.

16:45David Cushnan:There are so many startup competitions, leagues happening in sports around the world. We listed a few out on the podcast last week, actually. It's everything from the International Dance League to the World Fencing League. There's lots of new competitions, startup competitions, and they are all facing similar challenges in terms of what's your media strategy? How do you commercialize it? What is the funding model for this? Is it a disruptor? Is it something that's complementary to the existing system? And in a lot of cases, they are startups like World 7s Football that are coming into a very, very well-established sport.

17:25David Cushnan:And I wonder how you think about the transition, if indeed you feel it is a transition that you are keen to make from the initial novelty, the initial excitement of something new and different, and transferring that or transitioning that over time into something that feels like a really meaningful sporting competition, a credible part of the overall women's football calendar. Is that a journey you're looking to make? And if so, how do you attempt to navigate that? Let me answer it this way. DeLuyne Touche came out and said that women's sport is going to be a$3 billion revenue-dating business. Global sports is$500 billion.

18:11That's about 6 % of the total sports market. There's a lot of upside here for women's sports, generally speaking. Women's football, and particularly, has 500 million fans growing to 800 million fans. We've got the World Cup and the Olympics coming, which consistently grows fans and then has an opportunity for fans to connect with these players. these teams moving forward. The number one media asset today is live sports. Live sports. And that's why you're seeing a lot of these new emerging sports come to space because people want to go to events. They want to have shared experiences. They want to see the best athletes in the world.

18:46They want live sports. And the reason that we're building World Sevens football alongside the Levin's game is because it continues to build the Levin's game. You're going to walk away from this London edition of World Sevens Football talking about Aston Villa, talking about Chelsea, talking about London City Lionesses, probably for another reason that people are talking about it right now, talking about these clubs, right? And that's what we want. We want to grow the community and the ecosystem that is investing in the sport. There are so many fans without the opportunity to see their best teams or see their best players.

19:17So when you create these festival-like tournaments and you bring these clubs to those markets, to those fans, that's how we can grow it. And that's how we eventually can monetize it and continue to drive the revenue, not only for the clubs, but for the players. So it's super exciting to see all these emerging sports because you have fans everywhere. You need to build a compelling experience and it takes two things. The fans need to be enjoying it and the players need to be enjoying it. And that's what we've built. Yeah, and I would just add that what we've built, we have a lot of football purists on our team and the product on the field is incredibly important to us.

19:53So there are other sports properties out there that are doing something similar, but it is not with the most elite teams and the most elite players. And for us, for this segment of our business, that's super important. We also have a Rising 7s where we have youth tournaments and we're looking to do some other things as well. But for these global and interleague tournaments, we feel really strongly about delivering that. And that's where I do think there's staying power. This isn't a fad. These are the same players in the same clubs you're watching day in, day out play on 11-a-side. So and, you know, when we were deciding on the rules, there were some things we were considering.

20:31And at the end of the day, we made some small tweaks to to the normal 11-a-side regulations. But for the most part, we've kept them as is to sort of keep the integrity of the product on the field. And that's why this Athlete Ambassador group is so important because the quality, if the quality isn't high, then it becomes a spectacle, then it becomes a gimmick. And what you'll see Thursday, Friday and Saturday at G Tech Stadium at Brentford is the quality of the product on the pitch is exceptional. And then you get to see the players' personalities. So you're getting the best of the best.

21:05David Cushnan:Looking at slightly more broadly for a moment, as I mentioned, you both have interests in and a lot of experience in women's football more generally. What's your, as investors, as people who have lived and breathed it, what's your current assessment? What's your current health check on women's football in particular? Well, I was going to say in the next couple of years, you'll see your first billion dollar valued club. And we've seen that with the Valkyries in the U.S. and the WNBA. Angel City is worth$335 million, according to Sportacore. Gotham's over$200 million. So you're seeing the valuations of these clubs grow.

21:42I think what I would say now is in the next five years, you'll see a break-even club. That's not our goal for today's tournament. That's not even our goal for tomorrow's tournament. Right now, it's about investing and building the brand and building the players and highlighting this sport. You know, sponsorship and media is super important to us. But if you're so focused on the bottom line too early, you don't, you miss out on building the product. But what we're starting to see is the revenue is following. The ticket sales are great. The sponsors are showing up. Media is showing up. And again, this is the most valuable asset out there.

22:15So I think that's going to be the biggest change, not in the immediate near term, but in the next, you know, five to seven years, it's actually going to happen. It's going to be happening much faster than you see in the men's game because there's so much pent up demand to support women's sport. What they need is a great quality product. They need the best playing the best. They need the biggest stars and they need an experience that's fun. And that's what we're delivering.

22:37David Cushnan:You will be aware, though, that there are a lot. There are skeptics who there are. There are skeptics. Skeptics that don't want us to succeed. Well, there are skeptics who I think would question the sustainability. What would you say to them? I mean, you just have to look at the macro economic factors. We are 500 million football fans today. It's growing to 800 million. Last year, Deloitte and Touche said that women's sport would be a$2.5 billion market. They were wrong. It was more, right? It's now projected to be$3 billion this year. All of the statistics are up and to the right. Everything is growing.

23:16And that's without the fact that we have this incredible World Cup coming in 2027. And then we have the Olympics coming in 2020. There is so much momentum. So it's hard to give the skeptics that much faith because the data just doesn't support it. You see Disney Plus picking up the Champions League rights, right? You see the NWSL doing a media rights deal for$240 million, right? You see the WNBA doing a media deal for$2.2 billion that's not grown to over$3 billion because they've hit certain triggers of growth that has grown the value. So the data doesn't support the skeptics. The fans don't support the skeptics.