Women’s sports has moved into mainstream culture faster than many brands have adjusted their marketing strategies.

When Emily Tisch Sussman’s family became majority owners of Gotham FC, a professional women’s soccer team for the New York and New Jersey region, in November 2023, women’s sports had yet to reach the cultural prominence it commands today. Brands treated the category less as a major marketing opportunity and more as a cause to support.

“When brands were talking about women's sports, when opportunities were coming, they were thinking about women's sports really as a bit of a charity, like something almost like a Title IX,” Sussman said during a keynote conversation at the EMARKETER Future of Digital summit this week. “So the real investment wasn't really coming.”

That calculation is changing.

Gotham recently announced a multiyear front-of-kit sponsorship with CarMax worth $4 million annually, according to Sussman. The size of the partnership reflects how brands are beginning to treat women’s sports as a business capable of generating measurable returns rather than an experimental investment.

Women’s sports is building fandom differently

Traditional sports fandom often comes down from parents. According to Sussman, women’s sports has an opportunity to reverse that flow.

“Traditionally, we've had fandom built through generations, top down, the grandfather to the father, maybe to the daughters, maybe to the granddaughters,” Sussman said. “When we think about building fandom in the women's space, we don't have that.”

Instead, millennial parents and Gen Alpha children can become the initial fans who bring the rest of their families along.

For marketers, that creates an opening to participate while those loyalties are still developing. It also means building a women’s sports strategy around more than inserting ads into games.

Gotham is attempting to position itself at the intersection of soccer and New York culture. Awareness of the club in the New York-New Jersey area stood at just 2% when Gotham surveyed consumers last summer, according to Sussman.

“Our games should and will feel we're getting there as buzzy as Knicks courtside playoffs,” she said. “Our game should be where the energy is.”

The strategy works in the other direction, too: “Everywhere culture happens in New York, Gotham should be part of that at all times.”

The opportunity extends across sports

Women’s sports fans may also prove less attached to individual leagues than marketers expect.

Sussman has tested that idea through She Pivots, her podcast and media company, which sponsors NASCAR driver Destiny Spurlock. She brought athletes from the WNBA, NCAA, and Paralympics together around the partnership, betting that fans interested in one female athlete would want to discover others.

“The fan is essentially sport agnostic,” Sussman said. “They want to show up for the athletes, and they want to know who else to follow.”

That behavior could give brands opportunities to build partnerships spanning leagues and sports rather than treating each fan base as a separate audience.

There is also considerable whitespace to fill. Sussman pointed to data from Denver Summit, a new women’s soccer expansion team, showing that 70% of its season-ticket holders were not season-ticket holders of local men’s teams.

“Think about an industry that has 70% net new fans,” she said.

Marketers shouldn’t wait for the next big moment

The 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup offers brands another opportunity to put that strategy into practice.

Sussman argued that some brands waited too long to capitalize on the men’s World Cup and risk repeating that mistake with the women’s tournament. With the competition taking place in Brazil, US audiences will also benefit from favorable viewing times.

“I would say you want to be authentically on that train before it blows up this summer, and then everyone's going to be scrambling to try to figure out how they engage,” she said.

The expanding strength of domestic women’s soccer adds to that opportunity, as prominent US and international players choose to compete stateside rather than overseas.

For marketers planning 2027 budgets, credibility built before attention peaks is worth more than a sponsorship bought after it does.

“We have the opportunity to really build it in a very authentic way, starting day one,” Sussman said.

Watch the full session.

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.