Highlighting 'Just Women's Sports,' with Founder Haley Rosen

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0:42Welcome back to The Deal. I'm your host, Jason Kelly, alongside my co-host, Alex Rodriguez. Alex, you are currently on vacation celebrating a big birthday, joining the ranks of us old guys. So happy birthday, partner. I'll say it again and again. We're going to celebrate when you get back. And, you know, interestingly, today's guest in a way speaks to one of the next chapters of your life, which is being an owner of a couple very high profile sports franchises. Haley Rosen is the founder and CEO of Just Women's Sports, someone we really wanted to talk to in part because you're now the governor of the Minnesota Lynx.

1:18This is an area that you and I have been talking about since the inception of the show a few years ago. This boom in women's sports, it's undeniable. It's amazing how far ahead of the curve she was. Yeah, it really is fascinating. I mean, she went to Stanford, and I think she kind of backed up into this with one of her side hustles. And it was really interesting how while she had a little side hustle, she got to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars, I think$400 ,000 to be exact. And off she went. And then she quit that regular job and made that side hustle her regular job. And here we are a couple years later.

1:53Well, and I also love when we're able to talk to someone who is already, at least by association, sort of part of the deal cinematic universe, because the folks she has convinced to invest in just women's sports, Billie Jean King, David Blitzer, both of whom have been guests on this show. I mean, these are the folks who really understand the business of sports quite holistically, and they are betting on this megatrend, which, I mean, is a pretty easy megatrend to bet on at this point, don't you think? I mean, you're sitting and watching this on a daily basis. I think, yes, Jason, but it's easy for us to play Monday morning quarterback and say, oh, how easy.

2:34But the fact that she did it Saturday morning and she was ahead of the curve and she was a risk taker, I get especially kind of excited about episodes like this one because for us and for our listeners, a lot of them are great entrepreneurs who are trying to raise capital. One thing is to raise capital. The other thing is to raise capital from blue chippers like Joe Sy and David Blitzer and so many others. I really want to get into the details on how and what made her raise this capital for those kind of folks. Yeah. And what she saw in terms of the media landscape, you know, we've had a lot of people on this show who've been very successful in media, both in front of the camera and also behind the camera.

3:13You know, I'm thinking of the Stephen A's and the Richard Jeffersons in front of the camera, but also, you know, folks like Mark Shapiro, who obviously at ESPN and now at WME has made such an impact on what the media world really looks like. This is something that, to your point, was not as obvious back when Haley founded Just Women's Sports. So excited to get into that. All right. Coming up next, Haley Rosen.

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4:20Welcome back to The Deal. So excited to have Haley Rosen with us. She is, of course, the founder and CEO of Just Women's Sports. I read it every day. It is the go-to place to understand what's happening in the booming world of women's sports. Haley, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me and reading our newsletter every day. I love it. I love it. It really is. It's a must read. And I guess let's start there because that feels like the tip of the spear in terms of sort of getting people into this world. How do you sort of come to that idea? And then we want to talk about how you build the business, but the initial idea, where does it come from?

4:57Yeah. Yeah. Well, a little bit of background on me just because it's relevant to this idea. I was a soccer player in college and then played professionally for a little bit in the U.S. and abroad. That experience really led me to this idea. I was playing before the 2019 World Cup. I bring up that timing just because I think it was really the start of everything we're seeing. You know, we were just starting to sell out stadiums. You know, the stadiums were small. Attendance was up. It went from a small number to a slightly bigger number. Brains were coming on board. But the main thing was that you could feel there was a shift.

5:28There was something happening. This was there was an energy and excitement and momentum that was really starting to build. I had a bunch of injuries. I retired sooner than I probably would have liked and kind of jumped into, you know, the quote unquote real world, got a job. And when I was working, I'm just like a sports fan, like born and raised in L.A. I follow the Lakers. I follow the Dodgers. I just wanted to follow the NWCLE and WNBA. Just like I didn't think anything of it. I just wanted to follow sports that felt part of it. and I couldn't do it like at all. And I started hunting for, you know, it looks like my friend just got traded.

6:01Where can I find that information? What's the NWSL standings? Can I go see that goal? Like I started just looking for this information and everything I did see was just very weird to me. Felt very young, hyper feminine, a lot of lifestyle content, which, you know, there's a place for all of this. But my question was just like, where are the sports? Where are the highlights and the stats and where are the sports? And that question is what led me to Just Women Sports. I basically grabbed an Instagram handle, called it Just Women Sports, started posting the type of content I wanted to see and sort of snowballed to what I'm doing today.

6:37And so at what point do you determine this is a business and a business which needs money and you need to go find that money? so it's funny looking back because i feel like i was both like stumbled into this and also like knew exactly what we were trying to do from the start when did i think it was a business and could be a big business like right away like as soon as i kind of uncovered that like no one was really talking about women's sports and i felt like what did exist just didn't feel true to what it was i was like this is a huge opportunity this is crazy this doesn't exist i feel like there's so much happening here.

7:13Like we got to go in terms of like, you know, I need money and we're how we do this. I feel like I just kind of really did kind of stumble into early days. Like truly I was working in tech and I was like out with friends one night and was like talking about this. I like started becoming obsessed with the idea that there needed to be more women's sports coverage. And, uh, my boyfriend now husband at the time was like, well, you could like start an Instagram account. Like, you know, anyone could do it. I was literally in the back of a cab in New York and grabbed the Just Women Sports handle and just like started posting.

7:46And really quickly, we went from like no followers, no content strategy to like 40 ,000 followers, 100 ,000 followers. And it just kind of started going like that. And I think really quickly, I sort of caught up with like, okay, there's something here. There's an audience that's excited. What do we need to do to turn this into like a real content business? So Haley, JWS, you're in that cab. You're talking with your boyfriend then, your husband now. You're kind of brainstorming. You're really excited, as most entrepreneurs are. But you're still so far away from actually raising capital. Talk to me about that first$400 ,000 that you raised.

8:22How difficult was that? What was your pitch? And what was, you think, the hook that got them to be first? That's always the hardest. Yeah, yeah. The first check we ever raised was the easiest check, and I would pay for that. later down the road because when I was working in tech, I was living in San Francisco at the time. I had some mentors that were VCs and working in sort of the venture capital space. And so when I was thinking about this and becoming obsessed and excited with the idea, I got connected to Eric Chen, who was our first investor. And he's a very early stage pre-seed investor. He meets founders when they're kind of in the ideation stage.

8:58And I was coming to him really as a mentor saying, I believe in this. I'm excited about it. I don't know exactly what it looks like, but I think I'm going to quit my job and do this. And he was like, great. And here's seed money. Like, let's go, let's figure it out together. And that was like, I think I was going to do this any way I look at it just because I think I was young and crazy enough. But, um, I think that it forced a lot of stuff quickly. You know, we had to like set up a business and set up a business account and think about hiring and think about like, what are our goals? And like, if we're going to raise another round of capital, what are the key metrics we're going to like measure ourselves against?

9:36And so it kind of just got me going in a more serious way really quickly. And I think it was fortunate to meet, obviously it was very fortunate to meet Eric. I mean, that initial funding lasted us, it was like almost two years. We built like the initial brand, we launched our initial show, our newsletter, the content strategy, the early team was all from that initial check, which did come really easily. And then later rounds were tougher. You know, we've been really fortunate kind of jumping ahead, but we're really, really fortunate to have some amazing investors around the cap table, Joe and Clara Sy, David Blitzer, Michelle Kang.

10:12But, you know, I give them so much credit because when we were raising in, it was like 2022-ish, you know, people were talking about women's sports the way they're talking about it now. You know, no one believed like truly like when I say like I would walk in the room and honestly, I feel like people took the meeting because I'm a female founder and it was a kind of interesting topic. But like they were not taking this seriously. No matter what metrics I pulled up, no matter how much I could show that this space is growing, look at our engagement, look at, you know, everything is up into this right.

10:45And legacy media is behind. People were like, maybe this should be a charity. Women's sports has never worked. Why do you think it'll work now? I just feel like we were kind of banging our head against the wall. And I really give that group so much credit for listening and like believing true believers in women's sports as sports. So I sort of jumped ahead. But we're really fortunate to have a lot of great people. I want to come back to that fundraising in a second, but to fast forward to today, sort of sit with today for a second, sort of this moment in 2025 where, you know, expansion teams are going for$250 million in the W.

11:23You know, we saw the transaction, you know, last year for Angel City, you know, they're in your hometown at a then record valuation of$250 million with Willow Bay and Bob Iger coming in to become the control owners there. Did this happen faster than you thought it might in terms of the rising valuations? I mean, you are intimately familiar with sort of all of the inputs and outputs here. Like from a business perspective, how do you gauge it right now? I think this is the moment. And I think it's like it's felt slow, slow all at once. And it feels like this is the all at once moment. I did feel, you know, we launched in 2020.

12:05I did feel like there was a couple of years there where I was banging my head against the wall. We as a company, our audience growth was crazy. Our engagement was up. We were doing so many things that I think media companies, you know, you'd love to see as a media company. and we were still struggling to get people bought in, get brands on board. All of a sudden that's changed. The conversation has completely changed and that feels like truly over the last year or so. And I think the big shift from my point of view is that brands are really bought in. They're not talking to women's sports in sort of these subcategories.

12:41They're talking about investing and sponsoring women's sports from their sports marketing budgets. And to me, that's been the huge unlock because all of a sudden you're seeing not just investor dollars go into the space, but brand dollars go in. And I feel like that's been a huge unlock. So Haley, you mentioned some of your investors, some of the great blue chip investors in this country. What is the difference of your pitch for, say, a Josiah, Clara Sy, David Blitzer versus a Kevin Durant? Is it different or is it exactly the same? That's a good question. Maybe it should be different, but I think it's exactly the same just because I'm a bit of a, someone told me I'm a one-note politician.

13:21I kind of like see this space how it is and it's really hard for me to say it any other way than like how I see it and I believe it. I think what resonates with them is slightly different. Like talking to Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman, like we're going to talk kind of like as athletes and like something that always stood out to me with KD is like he's a true hooper. Yeah, he's a baller. new information but like he's really into women's basketball and he always has been and that was like really fun to meet him and connect and be able to talk about that and it wasn't like oh do we think women's basketball like oh it's the right thing to do to support it was like here's my favorite player here's what I'm excited about do you think that team overperformed or underperformed like those are really fun conversations to have and then I think with you know Joe and Clara when I was saying we need to get out of treating women's sports as charity and treat it like a business, they were like, yes, 100%.

14:17We've been saying that. So, you know, I kind of am what I am for better or worse, but I think what resonates with FOS depends on, you know, where they're coming from. All right. So Jason and I are investors. We can do a little role play here. Give us your one note. 30 seconds. Give it to us. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I just got nervous. Okay. Here's my 30 seconds is legacy media is really well set up around the legacy leagues. NFL, NBA, maybe the MLB. And that starts with, you know, what they prioritize or temples, how they build their audience, how they work with sponsors. The whole thing is really, really well set up for those properties.

14:51It's not as simple as just add in more. You know, the legacy companies, they're not great at men's lacrosse or men's soccer. It's not just, you know, women's sports. So if we want that same type of industry and ecosystem in women's sports, we have to go build it. And we have to go build it around soccer and basketball, NWSL, WNBA. We have to make their temples, our temples, build their audience, work with sponsors in that way. And I think if we do that, we can build up this audience and create an industry that is just as big, if not bigger, than men's sports. But it starts with media. I love it.

15:24You're hired. Let's go. Write the check. You write the bigger check. I'll send you the term sheet. I'll write the smaller check. So to that end, I mean, you went exactly where I wanted to go, Haley, which is this notion of you have this opportunity and challenge to build something new, to understand an audience from the ground up. And you saw the metrics, which obviously then you use to get the sponsors and all of that. But I think it's fair to say, and I want you to keep me honest here, that this audience consumes differently. It has different expectations. It has different rhythms. It has all sorts of, in a very positive way, different characteristics.

16:07What are those? And then what do you do to create different products for that audience? I think yes and no with the whole premise of this. I really believe and I think we're seeing as women's sports pushes further and further into the mainstream that women's sports fans are sports fans. Yeah. And they consume sports the same way sports fans consume sports. I think there's two things with women's sports fans that are important to keep in mind, but I don't think it's sort of unique to women's. Women's sports fans are a next gen sports fan. And I think that's really, really exciting. And it means sort of two things.

16:4480 % of our audience at Just Women Sports is under the age of 34. Heavily Gen Z, heavily millennial, which means they're consuming the majority of their content on digital channels. And so, you know, we talk about cutting the cord. This audience didn't have a cord to cut. They're cord nevers. Yeah, they're cord nevers. And so I think those are like really the two unique things about this demographic is they're younger and they're digital first. Beyond that, like sports or sports, it's been the whole thing. And so I think that's like really exciting. And this is something I've said to a lot of folks around women's sports is I think there's legacy properties that are really trying to think about how do we capture and engage this next gen sports fan?

17:25How do we build for a digital sports ecosystem? Women's sports is starting there. That's the opportunity. And that's part of why I'm so bullish is let's not go backwards. Let's build for where sports fans are going. I think that's really cool and exciting. And Haley, how do you generate revenue for your company, for JWS? This is a really good question. My mom asked me this all the time. We have a sponsorship model. So we work with brands via ads or sponsorships. And, you know, I think it's the same way a lot of these athletes and teams and leagues work, you know, generate revenue as well. We obviously don't have the rights dollars coming through, but this whole thing is very sponsorship driven.

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18:51arguably the most notable thing you have done with just women's sports is to treat the coverage like sports coverage and i do think and and i want you to i truly want you to argue with me if you disagree with this but part of the premise of women's sports need to stop being treated like charity, I think, bled into the content up until a certain point that the content was like, look at these girls, like they're trying so hard, like good for them and we need to support them. And listen, we could talk the rest of the day about sort of the take world of sports right now. But part of what it does feel like you're trying to do is to give sports fans what they want, which is a place to be like, OK, this team won, this team lost.

19:39This person played well, This person didn't play as well. This is sort of what's happening in the league right now. This is who seems to be like surging, who is falling back and all that. Is that a fair assessment or how would you characterize it? Super fair. And I think like to look at what we do critically, I still think we just women's sports could even do better with this. I think it's hard to not sort of fall into this trap. But yeah, I think it's when we say you have to treat women's sports like sports, we mean it in every category. And through a media lens, that means you have to be honest and real and authentic about it.

20:13And like, believe me, I was an athlete. I really empathize and I get it sucks to be criticized. I get it sucks the scrutiny and also media coverage around women's sports. fuels this whole thing. And I think as a fan, fans want authenticity. I love soccer. I love watching soccer. I love watching the U.S. Women's National Team. What I do when I watch the team is I debate, you know, should that player have gotten the look? Does someone else deserve more time? Did she play well? Did she not? And not because I'm trying to be a hater, but because you love it and you care and it's exciting and it's fun.

20:45And so we need that in women's sports. And we need to get comfortable that if we're going to have real conversations, it's not all going to be rainbows and butterflies, there's going to be times where there's criticism and critique and can't just all be good, good, good all the time everyone tried. And believe me, these women are the best in the world at what they do. They know when they're playing well. They know when they didn't play well. They know. I think they can handle it. And I agree with you. Like, I think on the men's side, the take culture has maybe gotten a little crazy. But, you know, I think where is the Charles Barkley on the women's side, where are the people that can bring fun and joy and real conversation?

21:23I think that's really, really critical. And that is what I want just women's sports to do and be. And I think there's times where we have hit that. There's times we've gone too far. There's times we haven't gone far enough. But I think that's where we have to push this space because that's what we all love about sports. It's fun to be a fan. We have to be allowed to have fun with it. Yeah. It is interesting to see the, you know, I say this as a more than, you know, mildly interested viewer in the sense that I also want to understand where media is going. I mean, we talk about it on this show all the time.

21:55You look at what Candace Parker is doing, you look at what Chanae is doing, and Rebecca Lobo, I would put in that category as well. It's like, these are real ones saying the real things on air and in a way that I think is super compelling. So let me ask you this. How do you think about new products? You're in the business across the board of different media properties. What's working maybe better than you thought? What's working not as well in terms of what your audience is engaging with, sort of media type-wise? Yeah. So I think three thoughts here. One is I think the platform really matters.

22:31I say digital, I talk about social a lot, but I still think as a sports sort of world, we're not paying enough attention to the role that social media plays in building these communities, building the fandom. And I'll give you an example. Last year for March Madness, when Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, you know, blew up, it was awesome, you know, biggest viewership ever. We could see on our social channels that this was going to be an absolutely massive final four. And I often say social media is a leading indicator and TV numbers are lagging indicators of where the interest and excitement is.

23:07I don't think we realize that enough in women's sports. And I think we need to pay more attention and figure out how to like really utilize that. And then in terms of the type of content, I think there's two things that we want to do really, really well. One is we want to bring you news. We want to provide that service to a fan. And I think this is something we often take for granted on the men's side. It's really easy to be a casual fan of men's sports. You can follow trades and, you know, it's NBA free agency right now. My phone is blowing up with every trade that's happening, that can often be hard to follow on the women's side, not for the biggest names, maybe not for the biggest teams.

23:44But I think across the board, it's too hard to find basic information. So news is a really important service that we want to provide. And I think a really important piece of the ecosystem. And then two is sort of what we're talking about. I call it that wave to content, but really it's who's driving the cultural dialogue, who's having those conversations in public spaces. And you mentioned Sinead and Candace, I think they do a really good job at that. Who else is doing that? Who else is going to say something? And maybe people will agree or maybe they'll disagree. But just, you know, bringing those fan conversations to public forums, I think is a really important piece of driving interest and continuing a dialogue.