Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships: B2B Marketing Lessons on Leveraging Athlete Ambassadors with CEO of PARITY, Leela Srinivasan

There’s an athlete right now that uses, knows and loves your product. 

So why aren’t you partnering with them to promote your brand? 

The global sports sponsorship market is expected to grow to almost $108 billion by 2030.

And there’s around $1.3B in projected revenue this year from pro women athlete sponsorships. 

Feel like you’re missing out yet? The message is clear: sponsor a pro woman athlete (or two). 

In this episode, we’re talking about B2B marketing lessons from professional women athlete sponsorships with the help of our special guest, PARITY CEO Leela Srinivasan.

Together, we talk about experimenting with new channels, finding your match, and much more.

About our guest, Leela Srinivasan

Leela Srinivasan took the reins as CEO in May 2023, when Parity had amassed a network of over 800 women athletes and paid out over $2 million in sponsorships. Under her leadership, the company is poised to increase both numbers exponentially – and become a household name – as it enters its next phase in the fight against gender pay disparity in sports.

Prior to joining Parity, Leela served as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for three-high-growth companies: digital payments provider Checkout.com; Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey; and recruiting software company Lever. She developed her initial passion for community, customer centricity and data-driven marketing earlier in her marketing career at LinkedIn and OpenTable. She serves on the board of Upwork and on the board of advisors for the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where she earned her MBA.

Leela lives in North Carolina with her husband Joel and three middle-school girls. There are no dull moments.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships:

• Experiment with new channels. Keep a budget to try new things. Whether it’s simply posting to a different social channel or sponsoring a pro athlete, the Leela says, ”As a marketer, your livelihood depends on being able to find new channels to replace channels that were once working really well that suddenly stopped working, to find ways to stand out from your competitors. Because what happens is if you're doing one thing, then six months later, everyone else is probably trying to do it too. So you have to keep things fresh. It doesn't mean you have to devote your entire budget to experimentation, of course. You need to certainly put money where you know things are working, but over time that mix is going to change as a marketer. And so I think it's smart. It's actually self preservation in some ways, to keep trying to just find ways to experiment on the edges and tap into something that can really give you a fresh perspective in the market.”
• Find your match. There’s an athlete out there right now who would align strongly with your brand values. Use them as the face of your brand to humanize the name. Leela says, “Find something that really feels right for the brand and allows them to kind of carve out their own space. There are so many directions that you can now run in; New leagues springing up, new sports coming to the fore, new athletes with incredibly interesting stories.

Quotes

*”When you get those people, those athletes, those influencers talking very naturally about something that they find joy in or that they believe in, it's just another level of awesomeness when it comes to ambassadorship or testimonial.”

*”There are so many stories waiting to be told. If you're willing to be creative about the types of athlete that you work with, there are always athletes that can be within budget that can do some incredible storytelling for you.”

*”I always had some money in what I called my rainy day fund or my slush fund. That budget was mine to make discretionary investments where I wanted to try things, where maybe the ROI was less proven or the path was a little less trodden but it was worth the opportunity, worth that risk to try something different because, God forbid you just become this terrible vanilla marketer that is doing the same as everybody else. You have to find ways to break through. I mean, that's the fun part of marketing. Why wouldn't you? So I always had some experimentation budget just tucked away for when these types of opportunities came up.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Leela Srinivasan, CEO at PARITY

[2:03] Leela's Journey to PARITY

[5:17] Understanding Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships

[9:55] History of Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships

[14:27] Current Landscape and Opportunities

[24:07] The Gender Disparity in Sports

[24:51] The Influence of Women Athletes on Marketing

[27:00] Creative Campaigns and Athlete Partnerships

[28:16] The Importance of Originality in Marketing

[29:56] Investing in Women's Sports

[32:38] Engaging with Brands and Athletes

[35:37] The Power of Authentic Athlete Endorsements

Links

Connect with Leela on LinkedIn

Learn more about PARITY

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

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