营销者为女子体育重写打法，RAJ Sports 携手 Treasure AI 重构球迷数据运营

For decades, women’s sports have been considered an afterthought.

Women’s sports fans had to “go chasing” to find a platform or channel that streamed the games, said Karina LeBlanc, EVP of strategic growth and development at RAJ Sports, during a panel at Treasure AI’s Agentic World conference in Miami.

As a former professional soccer player, LeBlanc saw how the inaccessibility of women’s sports frustrated fans and players alike.

These days, she said, women’s sports are easier to access and reach a much wider audience, but the work still isn’t done. So RAJ Sports, a sports operator and investor, elected to partner with Treasure AI, an agentic CDP and marketing platform, to gain a better understanding of who its customers are and what they want out of women’s sports.

“For 85% of my career,” LeBlanc said, “the marketing strategy around women’s sports was essentially, ‘Here’s what the men did. Let’s do it for women.’”

But women’s sports is a whole different ball game. (No pun intended.)

Getting the ball rolling

RAJ Sports, which owns the WNBA team the Portland Thorns and the NWSL team the Portland Fire, was looking to flip the tired women’s sports playbook.

In addition to RAJ’s own first-party data, which includes ticket and merchandise sales as well as social media and email engagement, it receives leaguewide data from the WNBA and the NWSL, all of which is funneled into its data warehouse.

But having data isn’t the same as being able to make use of it and understand how to reach new customers. The biggest challenge for RAJ Sports has been “making sense of the whole pool of fans” across both teams, John Torris, chief commercial officer at RAJ Sports, told AdExchanger.

Treasure AI has helped them develop audience segments and determine who to target with what content, said Torris.

Making money moves

In men’s sports, a new fan’s first interaction with a team tends to be buying a ticket to a game, said Torris.

But for women’s sports, the data revealed that the entry point for many fans is buying merch. By the time they choose to attend a game, he added, “they feel like they have a connection with the club or the players.”

This, of course, means that marketing to potential new fans looks entirely different for men’s versus women’s sports. Last year, RAJ Sports opted to take the Fire’s ecommerce and merchandising strategy in-house, said Torris. The move helped RAJ influence the fan experience directly by developing what Torris called “expressive” merchandise and apparel that helps cultivate an “intimate relationship” with the team. The Thorns are currently in the process of taking their ecommerce in-house for next year’s season.

One piece of apparel sold at the Fire’s “Sneakerheads Night” was a T-shirt featuring pictures of Nike sneakers designed by the team’s players. The shirts sold out in minutes of the arena opening.

But T-shirt sales alone aren’t enough to keep a business afloat.

RAJ Sports also deploys ads through a blend of social media, email and linear TV to get more loyal viewers and ticket buyers.

The company can run many of its commercials through its own sports network, Rose City SportsNet. The network is a local station that streams all Portland Fire matches, as well as a number of Thorns games.

And, of course, in addition to the linear option, RAJ Sports also has a paid streaming app, called Portland Fire+, where fans can access live programming and behind-the-scenes content on mobile.

A net win

As women’s sports continue to expand, more brands are pursuing partnerships with WNBA and NWSL teams.

Partnering with a sports team can serve as a “validator” for brands, particularly emerging ones, according to Torris. Sports fans are often “loyal to a fault,” he quipped, meaning that brand partnerships can rapidly build exposure and relationships with a team’s fanbase – as long as the brand resonates with the fans’ values.

For instance, both the Thorns and Fire have a partnership with baby product brand Nuna. The partnership includes activations aimed at mothers and their children, like on-field toddler and baby races during halftime.

While men’s sports also have a strong sense of “fandom and loyalty,” the energy around women’s sports – and thus the messaging that resonates with them – is entirely different, said Torris. Men’s sports fandom tends to be more focused on wins and losses and the quality of the athletes’ performance, he said, whereas women’s sports fans tend to be more enthusiastic about the sense of community and the broader experience of being at the game. Though, of course, they still want their own team to win.

If the Portland Fire loses a game, “we would have a standing ovation with 15,000 plus people cheering them on through the end,” said Torris. “Nobody leaves, and I haven’t seen that in men’s sports.”

Rather than encouraging people to come watch the local team win, RAJ Sports instead focuses its advertising on the experience itself. “The message is like, ‘Come and try it, and we hope you come back,’” Torris said.

And often, they do come back.

As LeBlanc put it, based on her own experience, “People are like, ‘What is this energy?’ Because it’s inspired and it’s positive. And people are like, ‘I want more.’”