Behind the deal: The NWSL & IMG

Last year saw record-breaking media rights sales for domestic football leagues around the world. These were a significant milestone for the media landscape, showcasing ground-breaking analysis, partnerships, and distribution strategies.

One of these deals was for the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) negotiated in partnership with IMG. Together, we secured four media rights deals with Prime Video, CBS Sports, ESPN, and Scripps Sports, marking one of the most lucrative agreements for any women’s sport league to date.[1] For a nascent league of 12 years, it was a remarkable moment for women’s soccer both globally and in the US.

When our partnership with NWSL began, the league was coming out of a challenging period. It was also an inflection point that presented an opportunity, not just to grow revenues but to elevate the sport, reach fans at an unprecedented level and showcase world class athletes in a way that had never been done before. Working closely with NWSL’s newly appointed commissioner, Jessica Berman, and the wider team, we spent time thoroughly understanding the leagues goals, and how best to shape them into an attractive media package. Throughout the entire process, it was key to immerse ourselves in our client’s business and meaningfully collaborate.

The work began with detailed market analysis, conducted by our analytics arm, Endeavor Analytics, and a team of media analysts at IMG. The forensics included a deep dive into the property’s attributes, a rights valuation, and an analysis of the media landscape to determine the ideal partners for the NWSL. Our secret sauce is the alchemy of our high-level data analysis and real-time ‘in market knowledge’ which produce insights to drive an actionable strategy. This balance of science and art underpins our domestic advisory business.

We faced a common challenge in women’s sports – the NWSL were a league without performance data having been distributed on an unrated cable network with modest reach, with only one appearance all season. This posed difficulties when presenting predictive ratings for partners to financially model. To overcome this challenge, we constructed a compelling story around the NWSL’s future growth. Our narrative pointed to other metrics such as the exponential value seen in expansion teams and the increasing number of brands that sought to invest in women’s sports.

To reinforce this growth narrative, we brought the league’s official partners to the forefront in an unconventional way. The discussions saw national brands such as Ally Financial, Nike, CarMax and Adobe at the negotiation table, encouraging the networks to increase their investment, promotion and scheduling commitment – and in return pledging their support with significant media sponsorships.