Community – the secret to creating tangible value for women’s sports

Author 22
Lorraine Moalosi
An illustration of women playing different types of sports such as tennis, football and running. This is to show creating tangible value for women's sports is important

“Alone We Can Do So Little. Together We Can Do So Much”. This is my favourite Helen Keller quote. It really communicates the power of community. Think about all impactful changes throughout history. They might have started with one person but they accelerated in growth when people united and came together in a shared mission. It was with this thought in mind that we at Data Talks, launched our very own women in sports community. Because we understand that community is the secret to creating tangible value for women’s sports.

In today’s blog post, I will be discussing:

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Why community is the secret to creating tangible value for women’s sports

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The tangible value our community is creating for women’s sports

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And how you too can become a part of the impact

Before we dive right in...

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    Why is community the secret to creating tangible value for women’s sports?

    There is power in numbers

    When we first started our Women in sports: beyond the hashtag initiative, we focused mostly on profiling women in sports. This was because we knew how terrible the visibility for women’s sports is. One of the people we profiled was Alba Pardo – the co-founder of Women in Action Sports Network. She too was passionate about making a change in the sports industry. We also profiled:

    1. Maria Caicedo Cabrera (Colombia)  – the director of America de Cali official sports training school in Bogota. 
    2. Soleen Al-Zou’bi (Jordan)Head of Women’s Football & Assistant Technical Director at Jordan Football Association
    3. Lucy Mills (Spain) – Co-Founder READY, Women’s Football Advisor and Board of Directors Lewes FC

    Check out our Podcast to see a full list of some of the profilees.

    The more people we profiled the more we realized that there is power in numbers. There is power in people coming together with a shared mission and taking all the necessary steps to make a change. And this is when we decided to make this rapidly growing community available to everyone! Because anyone who wants to be a part of the change, should be given a chance to. No matter where they are from, the level of position they hold – united, we can make a difference.

    “There is power in people coming together with a shared mission and taking all the necessary steps to make a change”

    Women’s sports communities are growing faster than men’s

    Our Women in sports: beyond the hashtag community growth has grown exponentially. All within a very short period of time. Of course, this is due to the fact that each one of our community members is super passionate about the community. Additionally, this growth follows an industry wide phenomenon. According to The Sports Innovation Lab report on The growth of women’s sports community:

    1. Women’s sports has a community growth score that is 40% higher than the general sports fan community (2.1 for women’s sports vs 1.5 general sports).
    2. The women’s sports community growth score is trending up year-on-year vs. general sports, which has a downward trendline
    Graph showing that women's sports communiities are growing faster than men's
    Source: Nielsen Sports Women’s Sports research 2018

    This is something that we want to leverage in order to create a lasting legacy in the world of sports in general.

    How we are creating tangible value for women’s sports through our community

    Earlier in the blog, I quickly touched on the fact that there is power in people coming together with a shared mission and taking all the necessary steps to make a change. So maybe you are wondering what our shared mission is. 

    The reason we started our community is because we want to prove once and for all that women’s sports is not an afterthought. It is not something you think about after you have thought about the men’s team. You don’t just allocate whatever is left of your budget to the women’s team once you are satisfied that the budget is plenty for the men’s team. Women’s sports is a lucrative industry with a lot of opportunities for commercial success. And all of our community members believe this too. This is our shared mission.

    For the optimist, you might be thinking well isn’t this a given? It is obvious that women’s sports are and can be even more successful. But did you know that as recently as the end of October 2022, FIFA had to reject TV offers for 2023 women’s world cup for being too low? FIFA president Gianni Infantino said that they had rejected bids of just 1% of the value of men’s World Cup rights deals for the women’s tournament.

    Crazy right!

    So you see, there is a great need for a community such as ours because we believe in the power of women’s sports. And we have all the faith that we can help women’s sports organizations and the individuals that work in them reach great commercial success.

    The impact our community is making

    With our women in sports community platform, we aim to bring everyone together to:

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    Network and meet one another - accessibility is an important factor for making change. How can you truly make an impact if you don’t know who else is an ally and where you can turn to for support?

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    Exchange skills and experiences - our community is all about creating tangible value. Not just talking all day long. Because anyone can do that. But not everyone can put their money where their mouth is and really make a difference.

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    Be part of making a difference - like I mentioned before, our community members are passionate people. Giving them a platform to exercise their passion and find like minded people to potentially collaborate with has been a great privilege and honour.

    But do you know what makes our initiative different? We focus on creating tangible value for both the individual and the sports organizations they work for. Additionally, we cover all bases with our Women in Sports: Beyond the hashtag initiative.

    Check out these other blog posts:
    Sports organizations need a CDP
     Why Sports Organizations need a CDP to grow and thrive

    Learn more >>

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     Women in sports: beyond the hashtag – time to make a difference

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    Everything You Need to Know About NFTs in Sports

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    Creating tangible value

    These are the five areas we focus on:

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    Sharing our insights

    Based on our experience and industry research on best pactices for increasing revenue, selling more tickets and merchandise and negotiating sponsorship agreements of higher value. We were at the Spobis 22 event in Dusseldorf, Germany, sharing insights on how we can make innovation more inclusive in the sports industry. Catch us at more events in the coming months. 

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    Bringing more education

    On best practices for greater success. We write blog posts for women in sports specifically on our blog every month. But we are boosting this so that our community has a constant supply of educational material.

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    Opportunity matching

    Matching everyone in our community with the right opportunities within the industry. At the Spobis 22 event, we invited one of our community members, Lucy Mills, to join us and share more on her area of expertise: Web 3.0 and women’s sports. So if  you think you could be our next collaborator, then join our community to pitch ideas!

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    Women in sports profiling

    Bringing the stories of fantastic women in sports and their allies to the forefront. Here are a few great examples: Arianna Criscione talking about the state of women’s sports, Robert Vilahamn talking about how men can be allies of women’s sports and Julia Roca Valverde talking about how to host the best sporting events.

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    Community building

    Making sure no one gets left behind, the very topic of discussion in this blog post.

    So you see, our community is built on something bigger. It was not just an afterthought or quite simply a trend to hop on. Women’ sports is not an afterthought. And we are here to help our community members prove this is a real tangible value. We are creating tangible value for women’s sports organizations. 

    How we help women’s sports organizations

    As a company, we have the vision for “a world where it’s simple to create an impact and make a difference”. So, it was with this at the center that we created our Data Talks CDP, to make it easy for sports organizations to sell more tickets, sponsorship packages, and merchandise. We especially want to help women’s sports organizations with this so that we can prove once and for all that women’s sports is not an afterthought. And this is where the whole Data Talks team has been rallying around women’s sports.

    From our CEO and Founder, Stefan Lavén, who is the biggest cheerleader of women’s sports, to the whole team who helps run this initiative – this is a deeply held passion of ours. Our product, a sports customer data platform, helps sports organizations:

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    Grow their contact database, continuously

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    Collect supporter data with contact information and merge it with your sales data

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    Find out which supporter segments they should target with their ticketing campaigns

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    Send out relevant ticket offerings to those segments in a way that supporters will really appreciate

    Women’s sports organization  (e.g. clubs, teams and leagues) that use the sports CDP sell more tickets, sponsorship packages and merchandise, something that is greatly needed. So you see, I really meant it when I said that we cover all bases. 

    Bringing individuals with a passion for women’s sports to build a community so we can amplify our voices to make change happen faster is super commendable. But we went the extra mile to ensure that we put our money where our mouth is. We believe in the commercial value of women’s sports. So we always want to help women’s sports organization achieve this success sooner rather than later. Once again, a passion that our CEO and Founder, Stefan Lavén, shares.

    So if you would like to see how we can help you with this, feel free to book a meeting with Stefan Lavén.

    Stefan

    Book a meeting with our CEO and Founder, Stefan Lavén

    Join our community

    There has never been a greater time than now to rally together to make a difference. When we propel women’s sports forward, we change the entire sports industry for the better. Would you not want to be a part of such a great initiative and community? Join our community today if you would like to:

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    Meet like minded people who share your passion for propelling women’s sports forward

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    If you would like to exchange skills and knowledge with highly skilled professionals in the women’s sports space

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    Find great opportunities to collaborate with our community members

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    If you would like to share your story with the rest of the community

    Want to be part of the impact?

    Join our community >>

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