Heroine Hit March

A monthly newsletter covering the most interesting women’s sport sponsorship, marketing & innovation

Introducing Team Heroine
Athlete Roster

I’m excited to introduce Team Heroine Athlete Roster which enables brands and organisations to partner with New Zealand’s most exciting Football Heroines and soon-to-be cultural icons as we head towards the FIFA Women’s World Cup in NZ in just over 1 year.

I feel privileged to be helping on and off-field legends:

👉 Ali Riley - Captain NZ Football Ferns & Angel City + Content Genuis
👉 Hannah Wilkinson - Goal Scoring Powerhouse + Artist & Musician

👉 Rebekah Stott - Electric Defender + Cancer Survivor
👉 Katie Bowen - Smart Playmaker & Favourite Teammate
👉 CJ Bott - Right Foot Rocket & Global Explorer
👉 Erin Nayler - NZ Football Fern Goalie & World Adventurer

If you are a brand or organisation and interested in accessing opportunities like the below then get in touch;

✔️ Brand Ambassadors
✔️ Branded content
✔️ Guest speakers
✔️ Social media Influencers
✔️ ‘Money can’t buy’ experiences
✔️ Employee engagement & DEI initiatives
✔️ Product promotion & store visits
✔️ Whatever else your imagination allows

Check out more details and their bios HERE

Gotta-know

🎾 19 year old tennis star, Emma Raducanu adds USD$4m Vodafone deal & Porsche to her British Airways, Evian, Tiffany & Dior sponsor portfolio

🏉 NRLW will expand to10 teams and raise salary caps to increase average player earnings by 28%

⚽️ Delta nabs a sponsorship of the NWSL and Mastercard expands it’s NWSL partnership by sponsoring their Players Association

🎾 25 year old tennis number 1, Ash Barty announced her retirement and former Matilda, Moya Dodd offered this insight as to why it shouldn’t be a shock

⚽️ Adidas X Stella McCartney have launched a collection celebrating the Arsenal WOMEN’S team - I love that it has been designed with the women’s team in mind FIRST (not secondary)

Offsiders Award

Sadly my ‘Offsiders Award’ is back and unfortunately there are two winners this month.

Worse still both incidents took place in my home country, NZ who apparently prides itself on pioneering women.

Worse still the incidents involved the 2 Women’s World Cups that NZ are proudly hosting this year.  

1. Stuff’s double Offside naming of women’s cricket team

Media outlet Stuff, reffered to the White Ferns incorrectly not once but twice.

They called them the Silver Ferns (netball team) and then the men’s Black Caps cricket team.

NZ Rugby did a brilliant job of calling Stuff out by creating a fun guide to the national women’s team names but then found themselves being called out just days later.

2. NZ Rugbys IWD Offside social media post

The All Black’s International Women’s Day post missed the mark on a number of points.

They missed the chance to celebrate the Olympic Gold medal winning Black Fern Sevens or the Black Ferns who will play in the World Cup this year and instead used a male player with a sexual assault history and another who had a very public sexual encounter in an airport toilet while on tour.

The post also thanked the women in the All Blacks’ lives for letting them succeed...leaving some feeling like a women’s role in society was seen as a support role.

I don’t think we can blame the individuals who were involved in these shockers but rather the culture that still exists around viewing women’s sport as secondary or as an after-thought and one which continues to be underfunded and undervalued by these types of organisations.

Women’s Sports & Bars Match Up

New research by pub group, Green King found that nearly 50% of UK sports fans think pubs should show more women’s sports on live TV.

Currently only 8% of pubs show women’s sports fixtures.

39% of people believe that their local pub doesn’t feel welcoming when it comes to watching women’s sports.

Cue The Sports Bra, a sports bar that is dedicated to women’s sport and is launching in Portland.

Based on the insights from across the Atlantic and the PR and support it has already had from the women’s sport community it will no doubt be a huge success.

In fact they have already killed their kick-starter campaign and are set to open this Friday 1st April.

If I was the marketing manager for a beer brand, I would be looking to secure a license with The Sports Bra that I could activate as a pop-up bar around key women’s sport events and partnering with the Sport’s Bra for global expansion!

Women’s Rugby State of the Union

I was honoured to be featured alongside some of rugby’s best for Stuff’s webseries, State of the Union.

Check out the 7 episode series HERE and catch me in:

📺 Episode 3: The Case For Investing In Women’s Rugby
- I discuss how women’s rugby is wrongly measured

📺 Episode 4: Flex Appeal - Selling Rugby’s New Stars 

- I discuss the opportunities for brands to be bold and am featured alongside entertaining Black Ferns & Sevens personality Ruby Tui

Women’s Sport into the Metaverse

Naomi Osaka x Fortnite Icon Series

Mega-game franchise, Fortnight and Naomi Osaka have partnered up to feature the tennis legend in their Icon Series.

She’s cast as an ‘Original Spirit’ and you can pick different ‘Court Queen’ ‘skins (outfits) and choose which style of tennis raquet weaponary to use to play in the Naomi Osaka Cup battle.

You have to check out the video trailer.

Osaka didn’t stop there, last week she partnered with Cryptocurrency exchange, FTX to become a brand ambassador and will be paid in equity and crypto.

The deal will see the FTX logo displayed on Osaka’s apparel and the production of branded content with the aim of attracting more female users. 

W Series Team Cortdao

Earlier in the year, I predicted that a women’s pro team would be one of the first sport’s teams owned by a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation)....essentially giving fans financial ownership and decision making power over the team. 

This month the W Series announced the launch of Cortdao, a team supported by a DAO that will race when the W Series kicks off in Miami on 6th May. 

They’ve already been asking for input from fans on gear designs and doing merchandise give-aways on their Discord channel.

The Rise of ‘Progress-washing’

Women’s sport has achieved so much in the past months hasn’t it…..?

💵 US Women’s soccer team equal pay settlement
💰 Women’s FA Cup prize money increased tenfold from £428,000 to £3m

……….or has it?

I often find myself on a rollercoaster with these ‘breaking’ announcements.  

First, on an extreme high, I’m ecstatic for a ‘win’.

Then, coming down to a reality of ‘wait that’s it? We’ve still got so far to go!’

CEO of TBWA NZ, Catherine Harris perfectly captured my feelings in her International Women’s Day article; “It’s Time to Talk About Progress-Washing” - Is incremental progress being used to ignore and ‘wash’ over the work left to be done on women’s equality?

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see progress but I think we need to keep the gains we do make in perspective.

Lewes FC brilliantly summed this up in their Equal FA Cup campaign that acknowledges the FA Cup prize money increase but calls for further action. 

Progress-washing is officially my new favourite term!

Here to help

If you are an agency, sponsor, sport organisation or broadcaster that needs help with your women’s sport strategy or project then get in touch rebecca@teamheroine.com