AfZ Episode 25: Nancy Hensley of Mercury/13

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of Azure for sports podcast, the last one for calendar year, uh, 23. So I have two surprises for you. Number one, it's the last one for calendar 23. Number two, we have a guest host, Sierra Brandenburg, who I get to work with on a daily basis and I'm much better person for that. But uh, outside of our day to day job, um, managing our sports business here at Microsoft, Sierra is also one of my most favorite people in the world and one of the most intelligent people in the world. So I figured, well, why not raise the property prices here and get someone really good at hosting on instead of just listening to me. Sierra, welcome.

Speaker A: Thank you. I'm honored to be here and I appreciate you letting me co host alongside you.

Speaker B: Anytime. Listen, I'm just following you now at this point, so no pressure. Here we go. Right. Today's episode is amazing. We're talking about um, women's sports and specifically another of my favorite people in the world, um, is going to come on and have a chat with us about their project that they, that they've started called Mercury 13 as a founding partner. Nancy, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker C: Thank you. Happy to be here with you guys. And I, I'm lucky I get both of you.

Speaker B: So Nancy, tell us a little bit about Mercury 13, how it got started, um, and then what you're doing specifically in women's sports.

Speaker C: Sure. So Mercury 13 is a multi club ownership group. We're specifically focused on women's football. So like, let's just establish, we're going to say football, not soccer for the purposes of the conversation. Football.

Speaker B: We're talking about round balls here, we're not talking about m. Round balls.

Speaker C: Right. And uh, we are very driven to really, we drive resources and raise the profile of women's football teams, uh, through the work that we're doing. So we're going to go in and buy, um, invest and inject resources into women's football teams. Primarily focus in Europe, but uh, globally we're uh, starting in Europe and really unlock the full potential of this sport.

Speaker B: That's so, that's interesting. And, and I'm um, 100 cognizant the fact that we completely glossed over who you are and what you are and what you do. And, and I, I, because I know you and should know you because you are world famous, you write for Forbes and so I'm just assume everyone is you. So I'm terribly sorry. I'm, I'm gonna, we're gonna litter you with questions here, but I want to talk about you just for a little bit and then I'm going to land a question that I have for you. I know that um, you have a brilliant corporate career and see sweet positions at STATS perform m IBM. Tell us a little bit about you Nancy, your journey and how it ended up here at this amazing work that you're doing with Mercury 13.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think I have ah, an interesting path to coming into women's football. Um, I spent two decades in big tech in IBM, all around data and AI. I've always been in love with data and analytics, um, from very early days just because I understood the power of data and how it can change people's lives and solve problems, make us smarter. So I've always just focused my career around that and as things evolved more so around AI, um, and got to do a lot of different roles within that. The great thing, one of the great things about IBM was that it, they moved me around into different roles. So I did field sales, technical sales, I did product, uh, marketing, I did regular marketing, I did development, I did uh, digital transformation, but always in data and AI. Uh, so I got a 360 view of this world of data and AI and then I got the opportunity to jump into sports, sports tech, which honestly I didn't even know sports tech was a thing until, you know, not too long before I jumped into it. And so I got to combine my love of sports and my love of data into a job where I was the chief product and marketing officer. Got to do some really cool things in terms of really innovating in and around bringing AI into a lot of the capabilities that we were doing across the portfolios, whether it was in the betting, the team performance, the media. That was a lot of fun. And in the, in the process of that I started to see some very interesting trends on, in women's sports. Not just in seeing how fast they were growing, but also some of the inequities or many of the inequities that were, were pretty pervasive across all women's sports but really stood out for me in women's football. And so I started reading more stories and I started listening to podcasts and I started talking to um, players and athletes. And it really like the, the drive that I had to help promote women in tech started to rise for me for women in sports and women in football specifically. And I got the privilege of meeting uh, one of our, found our founder, Victoire Kojavina. He was on a panel that I had talking about some of the challenges of women in football. And so, um, when this past summer, we just started talking about this idea that she had and she literally just had a baby. She was like two weeks from having a baby. And we're having this conversation about what if we could create this new vision for multi club ownership around women's football and really just accelerate the success of the sport through the right resources and management and just thinking about building it differently. And so a few of us got together in London and literally it was within weeks that everything just took off. Like it came together very quickly. Uh, it's an amazing group of people where we cover commercial capabilities, football expertise, um, you know, just the depth of expertise in football and finance and operations, like, is a, is pretty amazing. And it came together very quickly and, and we're off and running.

Speaker A: Amazing. And I can definitely say, I mean, I think I grew up playing, playing competitive soccer on a travel team and on a development program. So the work that you guys do certainly holds a special place in my heart and I'm super inspired by everything that you guys have, have started in the journey that you're on. Um, you talk about how data really has played a role in your career and bringing sports data to life is something that really drives you, I'm curious. And what the role of data is in the work you're doing with Mercury 13 and um, you know, the strategies and decisions in women's football.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's several aspects to that. I think first of all, one of the things I noticed was the difference in the amount of data that's collected and accessible around women's football. And I think a lot of that has to do with the accessibility and the quality of even the broadcast, because it's how a lot of data is collected today. So we're not seeing the depth of data and certainly not the analytics and the predictive capability we see on the men's side because the depth of data just isn't there. And that got me thinking about why, why isn't it there? Because it's how we connect with fans. Right. And so if you want to get to know your favorite players or teams, we, we as fans do that through data. And so we. That big part is missing. And so part of it is to, to give the industry a voice to say we need to do better at this. We need to make sure, not that we're collecting more, not just that we're collecting more data, but also that we're collecting data down the path of all of the divisions because we're missing the rise of talent in the women's side. Right. Because we're only collecting at the top levels right now. Um, you know, you look at someone like, I tell the story all the time, but Sam Kerr, and you can't find several highlights of videos of her goals in her early career. Sam Kerr, like, that wouldn't happen on the man side. So we're missing this rise of talent. We're missing a lot of the ways that we connect with fans. Also when it comes to things like injury data, like a lot of the. Everything that's built now is really built around the men's and, you know, we are built differently. And so for us to be able to solve some of the problems that we are experiencing with ACL tears, we need more depth around injury data. We need to be able to figure out a way to operationalize that data. Um, we also believe that empowering the athlete is really, really important. Um, you know, giving them what they need to make sure when they step out on the pitch that they are in an optimal form makes the coach's job better. Right. It gives the coach the more strategic job, gives the athlete the job of managing their own bodies. And to do that, I think we need more advancements in combination of all of the data that exists today, bringing that together in a very consumable way for the athlete. Right? Yep. And we have the building blocks to do that with the advancements in generative AI. So we should be, we should be getting there.

Speaker B: I agree. And the thing that, that is, I think frustrating, um, is one word that comes to mind. But also it's, it's, it's, it's incredibly the disparity between men's use, collection ability or access to data. And then the same for the women's, um, version of whatever sport it is. Look, we all see the stats, right? Women's sport is on the rise and it, and it really is a rising tide that's riding all ships. I mean, we look at rugby, for example, right? Absolutely. Blown through. The BBC just reported blown through the ceiling in terms of viewership. FIFA's announced, um, not only increase, increased in viewership, even though the World cup was a, a different than expected, maybe, if we can put it in those terms. Right. But they still captured the viewers, um, even if the big players were not in the quarterfinals. Right. Um, but we still talk about we need to get equity between access to data and the capabilities in which data provides the teams between men and women.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Now, why do you think that is?

Speaker C: I think it's just that the. Look, we, we can't forget that women in some countries were banned from playing professional football until not too long ago. Like in the UK which is one of the biggest markets right until 1971, there are countries like Italy that just professionalized women's football just within the last few years. Like this is, it's a very, very nascent sport for us in, in reality on the women's side where it, it, it's, you know, got um, decades and decades of history on the men's side. So I think we're in catch up mode. But I also think that we have this second mover advantage where we can build this differently and we can't. We can be more aware of what makes sense from the data, not just the data from the, the players and the team, but also the data that, that the fans want. Right. So how they can connect with their favorite players. So I think we are well aware that there's this disparity because we've been in catch up mode and because it is relatively a new sport business, um, in the world of sports compared to, you know, some of the history of football going back to the 1800s.

Speaker B: Right, yeah, that's a good point. Um, and, and look, I do believe it is catching up, even though that it's a silly thing to even be saying out loud at the end of 2023 is that it's catching up. Right. How crazy is that do you think? And that's. I'm going to drill in a little bit, Nancy, on that second, um, mover advantage there. Do you think that we're able to pick up on a lot of the work that we've done and some of the work that Sierra and I have done with um, male oriented, um, um, sports teams, um, around deep analysis of the things that you mentioned, fan engagement, ticketing, player safety, player health. Do you think we'll be able to take those lessons learned from there and shortcut the time to value and in the women's, um, sport based on what we've already done, I think some of

Speaker C: it, um, but I also believe that there's a lot of people that are looking at game analysis of the women's game and seeing that it's played very differently than the men's. And so just taking an existing predictive model and adapting it to women's data is probably not what we want. I think we got to build it differently from the ground up. We. What's different about the game and how do we build more models based on that? And I think there's a lot of leading scientists that are starting to take a look at this and some interesting data out there. Um, I think a lot of us don't want to just repurpose things from men's to women's. I think we want to say what do we really need to grow this as a business, both commercially as well as for the fans, as well as for the players, and just build it from the ground up.

Speaker A: So, so with that, Nancy, how, as you guys continue on the journey with Mercury 13, you know, how do you guys plan to address some of the, the challenges, um, that, you know, that women's football clubs are faced with in terms of commercialization and fan engagement? What does that look like for you?

Speaker C: So that's a great question. So we believe very, very strongly that women's football is a very different business to men's. And one of the ways you can say that is if you just look at the revenue, where does the revenue come from? Men's versus women. So for men's, like 60% of the revenue stream is broadcast and match day. For the women, 66% of the revenue stream is commercial and prize money. It's very, very different. Right. And so we know this. The other, there are some other interesting statistics here, is that 52% right now of the top 25 most marketable athletes are women. And because the salary difference has been so tremendous, these women have become masterful at social media and fan engagement because they've had to, because they need to do that from an endorsement perspective. So there, there is a great opportunity for them to drive more engagement. They generally, women, female athletes may not have as many followers, but they drive two times more engagement. And then from a brand perspective, fans are 54% more aware of brands that are aligned with sponsoring, uh, women's sports. So there's a stronger brand alliance as well. So all these things add up to the ability to really drive commercial success, which we believe really needs to be focused on. The other interesting thing is when you think about who is the father, who is the woman's football fan, right? And a lot of times, well, in most sports, a lot of the experiences are built for men, right? But half of the women's football fans are women. And women own like 85% of the influencing of buying power within the households. And the women's football fan is younger, they're more educated, they're more diverse, and the, and so choosing partners and sponsors that align with that will also help us progress the game quite significantly. I mean, the nice thing is, is that we look at women's football as this cultural force, and it's. It's a movement that's embedded in female empowerment. And female empowerment is kind of big business these days. When you think about the Barbie movie that grossed over a billion dollars. Right. Or one other fun fact I saw this week was that Taylor Swift actually increased the GDP by 4.3 million as a result of her first 53 concerts. So think about that. So, um, this is the case where you've got this underserved fan base of women's football fans and an undervalued asset in women's football. Like, these are huge opportunities for us.

Speaker B: Agreed. Um, and. And we're Swifties, by the way, in the south, so we helped with our gdp. We're absolutely. We are not shaking it off. Yes, it is incredible. But I mean, look, she's breaking records everywhere, left, right and center. And I think she's doing it the right way. She's doing it smart, and she's doing it as a role model. Right. For others. And. And in terms of empowering the ownership of what you create, which I think is brilliant. Right. Um, and my daughters are, uh, My daughters are keenly aware of that. And. And they, um, not only now want a record deal, they also want a movie deal as well, because they want their concerts in the movie theaters. Of course. Come on. I'm more power to them. Um, but, um, leaving Taylor aside, and. And we may bring back. Bring Taylor back. And. And obviously, we'll have to talk about, um, Kelsey as well. So we. We'll figure that out. We can't get a podcast done without it. We need the ratings. Come on. I'm kidding. Um, I want to talk about the product. Right?

Speaker A: The.

Speaker B: The World cup was it, um, French Telecom Orange. Right.

Speaker C: They.

Speaker B: They did this. This viral commercial that showed the brilliant goals and the brilliant set pieces and the brilliant defending of these soccer players, Mbappe and so on and so forth. Right? And then it was all. It was. It was bs, Right? Because it was all just taking the men and skinning it onto, uh, the actual female players. So it highlights that the product is there. You're looking at some of these go. They're doing bicycle kicks, they're doing insane headers. Right. They're doing bended like Beckham. Everything is brilliant. But when it comes to looking at the value in which a woman's soccer team presents for rights holders versus a, uh, men's soccer team for right holders, that doesn't jive.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker B: Right. How are we going to fix that?

Speaker C: I think it's, you know, we, we just talked about the focus on the commercialization which is going to drive more the sponsorship and the brands. One of the things that drives me absolutely nuts is that more big brands aren't jumping on this, right? Women's sports in general, not just women's football, women's sports in general. Because it not only is something that is going to touch the heart of a lot of fans and customers that they want to get to, but it is part of that big movement, right, that, that cultural movement that we see. And so if they want to get to specifically even Gen Z fans, right, this is a great way to do it. But you're right, the quality is there. One of the things that we saw with the World cup this year is there were eight new teams and one of those teams advanced to the round of 16, which was Morocco. So we saw this new diversification of talent we've never seen before. And even though it was heartbreaking and it was just even hard to watch the Netflix documentary that just came out, like, I just couldn't watch us lose again. But one of the good things that came out of that was that we saw this diversification of talent, uh, across multiple countries emerging and that is good for the sport, right? So the quality is absolutely there and we've got to just drive more focus. And that's what Mercury 13 is going to be doing, right? We're going to be driving the commercial viability of these, of, uh, these teams. We're going to raise their profile, we're going to bring in sponsors, we're going to do what the NFL did, is we're going to globalize this sport, right? So we're going to make those connections beyond just the local borders. But of course local is going to be important because in most towns, like football is everything. So we'll have that combination of making those local connections, but also globalizing and really shining a light on this talent. I mean, even Sam Kerr, people don't really even know a lot about her career, right? I was on a, uh, podcast a few weeks ago and we had played Two Truths of a Lie. And one of my truth was that one of my favorite, one of the teams I support had Sam Kerr on the team in their early days and I totally got him. So, you know, people, she was uh, on Chicago Red Star. So, you know, we just don't know enough about even the biggest players that people know that are a household name today. So just raising their profile and really focusing on the commercial that creates that flywheel of effect that will start to drive more focus, more sponsorship, more brands, more revenue and then that just improves everything.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm curious on that, on the hyper focus within Europe and then beyond that, you know, what are some of the factors that, that you look at some of these clubs as you explore continuing to invest in the uh, in the sport?

Speaker C: So that's, that's a great question. So first of all we talked a lot about the commercial upside, right? Kino, can we transform, strengthen, accelerate the brand and globalize it? That's a big feature. Um, football operations that are open to being data driven, being consistent, having a little bit more structure. Right. That's going to be really important. A lot of these teams have kind of been flying by the seat of their pants. Um, community led growth. Do they have support of the community around them? That is so important. Like we, it does us no good to globalize if the community is not strong and supporting them around them. So we look for that as well. And then also we look at what's going on with the leagues, the dynamics around that league, the support, the governments. Um, for example, you know, we've seen some interesting uh, movement from both the Australian and the English government around infusing more resources into women's football. Um, we saw the Italian government pass actual laws around the professionalization of women's football a few years ago. So those kind are the kind of dynamics that sets us up well for being able to truly get that flywheel going for the, for the team and create some success.

Speaker B: I think success is, is something that um, I'm very interested in. And again I draw comparisons to the male counterpart of this because it's easy, it's known, it's out there, it's valued. Right. And, and talk about, you talked about the, the local communities. In football, um, in Europe and, and certainly in, in Western Europe there's a high concentration of, I was going to say provincial, but that's South Africa of little um, town based soccer organizations that have a fervent following. Right. And these guys, I mean it's, it's football garden and job. Right. One of the things that's interesting for us, I, I don't see that concentration in the US because number one we're so much bigger. Right. But they're, they, we've got great things like the NWSL are ah, putting in San Diego wave and we got the Chicago Fire from your hometown and we got. So one of the things that's interesting for us is that do we have the same ability in the US which is one of the biggest markets from a commercialization perspective. The. To follow the model that you guys are doing in Europe and England today.

Speaker C: Uh, I think. Well, honestly, I think in several ways the European model is going to follow some of the successes that have happened in the US around the commercialization of football. So let's take Angel City. Everybody talks about them. This is a team that is currently the most high valued team of the NWSL teams. Their latest valuation was something like 180 million. Their franchise fee a few years ago is 3 or 4 million dollars. That's a pretty good return. They did that by really focusing on the commercialization, bringing in those sponsors, bringing in those brands. But also they did that by focusing on the fan. What does the fan that's coming to an Angel City game want? Right? What kind of experience do they want? What are their expectations? And so they do those things, but they've not won a league, right? They've not won a title, but they're the most valuable team. So I think it's really interesting. The culture of football in the US is very different than the men's side. And so if you go to a women's game and you look around, there's a lot of families, there's a lot of young kids. And when the match is over, it's really interesting because nobody leaves, right? The parents stay in the seats, the kids all go down towards the pitch. The players spend sometimes hours interacting with the fans. Now, what other professional sport do you see that happen? Right? And so I think that we can take that culture and some of the ideas around commercialization and bring that forward to Europe and have the same kind of success that we saw in the likes of Angel City or San Diego Wave. The, the evaluations of the teams in NWSL are just really interesting, compelling. I mean, they're like the lowest team, which I think is my team is still in the 40 million, still had a 12x multiple. Um, so the value is definitely there. And I think that it's just about shining the light on what a great experience it is to go to a match like. And yeah, and I talk about all the time. I mean, I, I love going to the Red Stars matches and just being a part of that culture.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. Um, and I, I am also aware that I said Chicago Fire instead of Chicago Red Stars.

Speaker C: I mean, my Red Star scarf back then there.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker C: I know, right.

Speaker B: I mean, there wasn't any more of a leading indicator that I should have said the right Name, if it was ever. Um, one of the things, though, that I think about, um, Angel City is you have Hollywood taking over, and with that comes a lot of eyeballs, and a lot of people are just default, um, fans because they. They love Natalie Portman, right? So they think Thor is the best movie ever and she should be in the next one in the lead thing. Oh, my gosh, she owns the soccer team. I'm buying tickets or I'm signing up for the fan club. Right. Um, versus the Red Stars. So if you look at the meteoric rise of Angel City versus the steady 12x multiples that we have with the Red Stars, right? How much of that is attributed to I've got Hollywood exposure versus I've got just Chai Town exposure, right.

Speaker C: I mean, probably a lot, right? They. But they. Well, I will say they did a good job on the commercialization in terms of the sponsorships that they've aligned with. But, yeah, I mean, it's. It's the Taylor Swift effect. How many 50s now watch NFL? That never did before. Um, so that clearly is important. I think it's part of that globalization effort. I mean, it's. We can say the same thing about Wrexham. Nobody knew who Wrexham was. Nobody knew about the small town in Wales. Nobody knew who all these players were until Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhinney came along and put him on the map. So, you know, I. We joke around, like, if you want to grow a sport, you need sponsorship money in a Netflix documentary.

Speaker B: That's exactly it. That's right.

Speaker C: And Taylor Swift.

Speaker B: Taylor Swift, yes. So when is the Taylor Swift produced Netflix documentary on the next women's team? Because we. We have welcome direction. Right. We've got, um, the mission to Burnley because Burnley got promoted into the league. Where is the. Where are all the women's documentaries lining up here?

Speaker C: There's a new W and. Well, it's a women's national team documentary. It just came out under.

Speaker B: Right, but where. I think it's very hard to watch them because, I mean, those mean depending on which side of the fandom you lay on, right. It's either extremely easy or extremely difficult for me, is personally very difficult. But, um, I think. But where is that sort of cradle to grave that captures that essence of what it means to people. That captures the essence of what this. It's more than just a product and a ticket, the sponsorship and a rights discussion. Right? So you look at Rexam, I mean, these people in their pubs and they have songs about it, for goodness sakes. And now they're mega stars and all that. But put all that aside for a second, right? That's why I think, going back to that earlier question, Nancy, is that that fever pitch that every time there's a football game or a football conversation or an ex. Right. That m. We see in Germany and Italy and the United Kingdom, does that happen here? Right. And if I, I don't. I don't see it in my hometown. And, and we have a, A, a woman's property here. But how do we get that sort of fever pitch here?

Speaker C: I think, both for the men and women's, it's coming. Um, I mean, we're already seeing some successes, like the Kansas City stadium that they just built. They sold out the tickets already. Um, I think it's coming, and I think that there'll be more interest. Even the documentaries, you'll start to see more of these stories unfold. Because the interesting part is really the stories of the people, right? And to me, just hearing some of the stories of these players and the things that they went through to be a professional women's player, it ha. It's not easy, right? The, uh, they didn't have the same resources. And this is, this is now. It's not, it's not just. This was 20 years ago. This is still now that, you know, players are making $60 a week playing the top tier professional women's football. It's, you know, we have a lot of challenges to solve there. And so hearing these stories and educating people. I was at a conference a couple months ago, and I was talking even about the, the football ban. Most Americans don't know these stories. They don't know the challenges. They just assume that these players are making the same amount of money. And I think when you hear people like Abby Wambach tell the story of standing on stage with Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning and winning the award, all reach the same kind of pinnacles in their career, all walking off into retirement, and those guys thinking about how they spend their millions of dollars, and her thinking about, how do I get a job so I can get health care. Right? That kind of just shines the light on the challenges. And so I think telling the stories, educating people, you'll start to build that. It may. That tribalism that we see in Europe that, you know, we might be a long way up from that because it's been rooted in decades, right? Decades and decades of families. Uh, and maybe we'll get there. But I think we've got to tell the stories and we've got to Shine a light on the challenges. And we've got to shine, show the world how talented these women are.

Speaker A: Yeah. So we're kind of in a world right now in the US Where a second professional women's league is being announced, and that'll effectively double the number of professional women's football clubs. I'm curious on your thoughts of kind of what the opportunity now looks like, and how does that change with all of these new clubs coming online, um, to continue growing the sport, but also how does that change the landscape of the commercialization opportunities as well?

Speaker C: So I think, um, it changes the accessibility. Right. So the more opportunities there are to watch women football, to me, that's great. Like, I still. There's still, you know, looking at teams in Europe, I really struggle to try and get those games. Whether it's watching it on the FA player, which is not great, the Women's Championship League, trying to figure out how to get to zone working for me so I can watch Syria. Like, the accessibility still isn't there. So I think the more matches we have, the more leagues we have, maybe we don't want to overdo it. Then it's going to raise the profile significantly. And I think brands will start to take notice. I mean, that was my Forbes article. Like, hey, brands, it's time to pay attention. Like, you know, this is. All the data is there. We don't have to prove it anymore. Just in the last 24 months, there's research paper after research paper, data that just shows people want to watch women's sports. Right. The tenants is there, and it's. And it's pervasive across all sports. We're seeing it in hockey, we're seeing it in volleyball, we're seeing it in basketball, we're seeing it in football. So I, um, think it'll be helpful even on the commercial side, because maybe, just maybe the brands will finally take notice to say, maybe I should just think about doing women's sports or rotating more into women's sports and not doing the same thing that I've always done, which is I do the Bears or I do the packers or I do. You know, this. But think about what power sponsoring women's sports will bring to the brand. And I think the more matches, the more accessibility, the. The more we'll have that conversation.

Speaker A: And how does Mercury 13 kind of look at maintaining sort of that balance between the commercialization success and inside of the house and really the sporting integrity of the women's football team that you guys are investing in or have already invested in.

Speaker C: So I, you know, we really think that they are the one feeds the other.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: You can't. For us to be able to get the best product on the pitch, think about the resources that those players need, the fact that they need to travel better so they're not exhausted when they get there because they've taken so much, some crappy form of transportation or crappy flights like, uh. And to do that, all of that to make it better for them, we have to make it sustainable business. And that comes from the commercial side. So we do see it as this flywheel where we can, you know, really accelerate and amplify the brand, shine a light on the players and the talent, get the right commercial sponsorships that helps infuse more cash because we know where the revenue comes from on the women's football side. Right. This is where it comes from. And that's going to create a better product on the field. So they're not mutually exclusive at all. You have to. One needs the other in order to sustain.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. So as you guys look toward the next year beyond what's, what's next for

Speaker C: Mercury 13, so we are very close to acquiring our first few teams, so we're really excited about that. We've done a lot of diligence, so we really dive in on a lot of those different aspects. We talked about the football operations, the league dynamics, the community, the commercial opportunity. Um, and so we'll be going after just all of the things that are in our playbook and putting them into, play into for the first teams. Um, we already have those kind of laid out from probably through June. And then we'll also be looking at, um, additional acquisitions as well. So we're really excited for the growth and you know, seeing even just some of the opportunities on the world stage like at the Olympics, that I think it's just going to be another great year for women's football and we're just riding in the high from this past year.

Speaker B: Oh, I agree, I agree. Um, and the future is bright at Mercury 13. I mean that, that's for sure. I mean, if we could just bottle your passion and energy for what you're doing and then I, I'll have my people and Sierra's people talk to Taylor's, uh, people and we can have this documentary done with you at the helm. But in all seriousness, I mean, sport is, is our business. That's what we do. That, that's how we, we make, ah, a living and provide for our families here. And having practitioners such as yourself involved in it, um, is amazing, number one. But number two, it makes a difference because the, the thing that I, I'm an unabashedly proud girl, dad. Right. And I tell them there isn't a single thing on earth that you can't do that I can do. Whether that's kicking a ball, whether that's writing a research paper, whether that's going to Mars.

Speaker C: Uh, right.

Speaker B: You can do everything probably better than I could ever do. So what you're doing in terms of equality transcend sport, right?

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: I always, I always lay a sport into how it transforms and changes the world we live in today. And it's such a great vehicle because it's the universal language. Right. And it is the, the, the great equalizer out there. So I, um, applaud you.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: I think it's brilliant what you're doing here. And one thing I'd love to be able to see is how do you take your success and then come out of the world of football and then apply that to basketball. WNBA is absolutely in his room right now. Right. Hockey. We think about pickleball. I'm totally kidding on pickleball. I don't want pickleball. We'll do curling before we do pickleball. But I just love to see the expansion of this or I'd love to see many Mercury 13 iterations come up and spread across the entire gambit of sport. So in closing, happy holidays.

Speaker C: Thank you. You too.

Speaker B: Thank you very much. Um, and what is the one prediction putting you on the spot now? No, no, two truths in the lie here. What is the one prediction? And we'll have a show at the end of next year to see how, how we fared among. And don't, Sierra, don't you worry, I'm coming to you too. What is your one prediction that you have for women's sports globally? It could be football or otherwise. That will happen in 2024. That hasn't happened yet.

Speaker C: So there was a prediction that we were going to go over a billion in 2024 in revenue. Women's sports, I think we're going to blow way past that. I think it's going to be closer to 2 billion. I think that we are on the, the cusp of some great growth. We've already seen it start to happen. It is pervasive across all sports. And the beautiful thing about the women's sports community is we all talk. So I have, um, some conversations later today with some of the WNBA people. I've talked to the Formula One team Like we all talk about how we lift each other up and I think when you get that kind of power of women working together to help other women and raise the sport, then nothing can stop us.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: I love it, I love it that I'm fired up right now. I love that. Sierra, same question.

Speaker A: That's a tough one to follow. Um, I think my prediction is looking into the next year, seeing the growth in, on the sports betting side of women's sports and leagues and then kind of seeing how that expands into a different demographic. Right. That um, that may currently, you know, be doing some of the, the sports betting today. I'm so, I'm so interested to see the growth there and I, my prediction is, is that we'll continue to see that rise. I know it's been on the rise, but I think we'll see dramatic growth

Speaker C: of that next year. That's a good one.

Speaker B: That is a good one. Um, I don't think I'm going to get off the hook on this one, so I'll give you mine as well. Um, so I, I, I, maybe this is more of a want than a prediction, but I predict that we're going to see a blended fan, right? We're going to see someone who just loves the game and whether that's a male or a female that's playing the game is irrelevant because the product is equally as good no matter who is on the field. And a lot of, a lot of what we spoke about earlier in the podcast will need to come to bear in terms of having the right data sets available and having the right manipulation of those data to put into practice for coaching and for players health and safety and fan engagement, etc. But I really see a world in 2024 where a blend, a blended SP sports fan is the fan that we're going after versus we're gonna go after a male or a female counterpart of that. So that's mine.

Speaker C: I love that prediction. I hope we're already there.

Speaker B: Yeah, it would be nice, right? Would be insane. So, um, Nancy, again, thank you so much for spending some time with us. I love what you're doing. It's been an absolute pleasure in uh, speaking with you. Sierra, thank you so much for the guest, uh, hosting here. You've, you finally showed me how it should be done, so thank you, I appreciate that and thank you everyone for tuning in and listening. If you have any comments or questions, drop them in the uh, in the comment sections below or just send us an email to here at Azure for Sports podcast. And this is us closing out for the calendar year of 2023. I can't believe it is already the end of 2023. So hope you have a wonderful, safe and happy holiday season and we will see you early next year with our next episode. Thank you everyone. Goodbye.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: It

Speaker B: mhm.