April 9, 2025 • 32 mins
What does it take to grow women’s sports into a billion-dollar plus business? Kate Johnson, Global Marketer at Google and Olympic Medalist, explains how she’s leveraging everything from technology to media accountability to build the industry from the inside out. She shares Google’s investment strategy, approach to supporting creators, and how she’s building the infrastructure women’s sports needs to scale.
- 00:29 Meet Kate Johnson: Olympian and Executive
- 01:56 Kate's Journey to Rowing and Olympic Dreams
- 06:04 From College Rowing to Olympic Success
- 08:58 Transitioning from Athlete to Executive
- 12:58 Kate's Role at Google and Women's Sports
- 15:13 Challenges and Innovations in Women's Sports
- 20:10 The Future of Women's Sports and Technology
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Having the background as a young teenage girl who had
found this sport that she was passionate about and feeling
seen by a brand showing up and advertising as like
these are goals that I can actually set for myself.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It had an impact on me. Welcome back to Courtside,
where we're going to break down the business of women's
sports with the people shaping its future. So grab your popcorn.
I'm your host, Laura Currenty. Today on court Side with
Laura Crenty, we're talking about what happens when you bring
an Olympians mindset to the business of sports and why
(00:36):
that perspective might be exactly what our industry needs right now.
My guest is Kate Johnson, a silver medallist and vice
president of Global Sports and Entertainment Marketing Partnerships at Google.
Before she was leading global strategy, Kate was on the
podium literally in two thousand and four as a medalist
with the US women's rowing team. Now she's channeling that
(00:57):
competitive edge into Google's multi layered investment in women's sports,
backing leagues, teams, creators, and the infrastructure needed to support
it all. In this conversation, Kate and I dig into
the playbook, how our experience as an athlete informs her
approach to leadership and decision making, the metrics Google looks
at when evaluating partnerships, and why creators are becoming one
(01:18):
of the most powerful accelerators for women's sports. We're also
going to talk about what's still missing and where the
next wave of innovation and opportunity is likely to come from,
from rowing to revenue models. This episode is packed with
insight for anyone thinking about where women's sports goes next,
and more importantly, how to be part of building it.
Let's get in the boat with Kate Johnson and we're
(01:40):
back in the studio with brand executive Kate Johnson, but
more importantly, a decorated olympian. Kate. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Laura,
you're such a natural. Love hearing your voice, Kate. I
start all of my shows with this very simple question,
when did you fall in love with rowing? Oh? My goodness,
it's so you know.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I've been reflecting on this a lot lately because a
journal that I started keeping when I was in eighth
grade before I found rowing, has re entered my life unexpectedly.
I thought I'd lost it. I found rowing as a
freshman in high school, we'd move from California to Oregon.
And you know, I'd been inside in a swimming pool
in California, which wasn't a problem, but when you moved
(02:20):
to the rainy state, You're like, oh my god, I
need to get outside. So I found a new sport
that took me outside. And you know, I always say
it was one of those things where it took a
coach saying I think you're going to be great at
this for me to decide, like, I'm going to just
keep showing up till I figure this thing out.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I did not row in high school, but we had
an incredible crew team, and I remember the endless amounts
of ERG competitions and ERG talks that would circulate the halls.
Talk to me about what that was like training starting
in high school all the way through to what ended
as an Olympic journey.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean, it is amazing how much you could talk
about the thing that you are absolutely upset with to
the exclusion of people who are just sick and tired
of hearing it. But I I mean I would people
say it clicked, like I fell in love with this sport.
You know, I grew up in Portland, Nike's backyard. They
ran this campaign in the nineties called if You Let
Me Play, And I remember these young young girls and
(03:18):
women being in these posters and these advertisements in seventeen
magazine if you Let Me Play, I'll be more likely
to succeed in the classroom, I'll be more likely to
seed in life.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I do believe this.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Having the background of Nike in my upbringing as a
young teenage girl who had found this sport that she
was passionate about, and feeling seen by a brand like
showing up and advertising as like these are goals that
I can actually set for myself.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It had an impact on me.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So, you know, it was my sophomore year in high
school when I set the dream of going to the Olympics.
I'd been rowing for less than a year. I had
had a taste of what it felt like to compete internationally.
Speaking of scores, back then, US rowing would rank you nationally,
so you know, your rowing club in Poughkeepsie or Portland,
Oregon or wherever you know would submit your your test
(04:07):
scores and then you'd get ranked.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
And there was something.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
About seeing your name ranked on a national list of individuals.
You know, the first ranking I got was tenth, and
so all of a sudden I was getting.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
After only rowing for a year, after rowing for a.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Year, I was getting feedback right away that I had
you know, I had, I had something here right, And
there's a saying or don't float, But to know that
I had the foundation of you know, being strong on
the ergometer was definitely you know, confidence building. And then
it just became falling in love with the sport. You know,
I rode the single in high school. I rode the eight,
so I knew what it was like to compete for myself.
(04:41):
I knew what it was like to compete for others.
And I do think you know, they say rowing is
the ultimate team sport, but you cannot go out in
the boat without all nine women in the boat. And so,
you know, you it made you feel really responsible early on.
You know, you didn't want to mess up for fear.
You know, you didn't want to show up late because
then the boat can't launch without you. You didn't want to,
(05:02):
you know, do something that would keep you from missing
practice or get grounded. And yeah, I think that that
self responsibility, responsibilities to self responsibility to others was ingrained
early on, and that was part of kind of my
obsession with it. Was like it felt so good to
show up for others, but then also to like figure
out how to always better your best, which was.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
The name of the game. I love that. You definitely
don't want to be dead weight in the boat, that's
for sure. Don't want to be dead weight. No, so
give us a quick snapshot of your Olympic journey. There's
only so many people that get to achieve that moment
of greatness. What was that like for you? Well, you know,
when I.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Was getting recruited to colleges, so you know, four years
as a high school rower was the top recruit in
the country. By the time I was getting recruited to schools.
And it was right around that time where Title nine
was adding a lot of public universities women's rowing programs
were being added to balance out kind of the Title
nine requirement of public institutions. And so rather than just
(05:58):
the IVY leagues, I was looking at you know, Michigan,
you know UCLA, certainly, you see Berkeley likes you know,
traditional and non traditional rowing schools, and I went to Michigan.
I built you know, I was part of the first
class of recruited women. We built a rowing program. We'd
never been to the national championships before I got there,
and by the time I graduated, we were second in
the country. So being a part of building something was
(06:19):
really exceptional. I think it set me up for the
Olympics because in my kind of generation of Olympians, the
women's eight had placed I think fifth or six at
the Sydney Olympics, and so we were really in a
rebuilding moment for US women's rowing, and that kind of
that adage of you stand on the shoulders of giants,
like I was so aware of the women that had
(06:40):
come before me. And then what we had is this
opportunity to build something brand new with Title nine kind
of at our backs, pushing this feeding system into the
national team system. And so, you know, US rowing would
identify the top forty women in the country from college,
invite you to a training camp, and you literally were
compete with everyone until you made the boat. And that
(07:02):
there's something about that dynamic that's quite exceptional. You know,
you compete against everyone, and then you make the boat
and you have to make it work, like you make
it click, and there's there's both an art and a
science to it. There's and it's the same thing in
the corporate environment, right, Like there's dynamics to teams that
are like almost unspeakable, you just can't say it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
But like you know that team.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Thrives because of just the way they gel, you know,
so you do as much science as you can to
get to the right team. And my team, my team
was scrappy.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
We were green.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Very few of us had ever took Two of us
had only been to an Olympics. And you know, it
was phenomenal when I in my Olympic year, I actually
broke my eighth rib eight times and it looked like
I wasn't going to make it. And I chose a
word that I wanted to define myself in that Olympic year.
And the word that I chose was relentless. And I
didn't tell anybody this was my word, but it dug
(07:50):
me out of this massive hole. It was, you know,
on my mirror when I would get dressed in the morning.
And by the time our coach launched us for the
Olympic final, he went down the boat and shook everybody's hand,
and he grabbed my hand and said I don't know
what you did to make this boat this year, but
you were absolutely relentless.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And I just share that because it's like a skill I've.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Gone back to again and again even in my corporate life,
like picking a word to get yourself, you know, reignited, refocused.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Or even out of a hole. And so you know,
relentless is very much the word of twenty twenty five
in the world of building in women's so I would
say it's more applicable than ever. Relentless, resilience, I've got
a bunch of bar words that I live by. So
talking about that skill set right, because you go through
this incredible journey so many athletes that have competed at
the highest level, such as yourself, that have seen and
(08:38):
experienced so much and then it's over, and then it's
over and you pivot and so much of that identity
shedding and also reconfiguring who Kay Johnson is post rowing.
Can you talk about that transition and what led you
to the world of marketing.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I mean that transition is brutal, and nobody tells you
how hard it is going to be. You know, if anything,
it feels like bad juju to even think about what
comes next while you're still trying to train for your
Olympic goal. I mean, I stood on that Olympic podium
in Athens and I knew I was done. And it
was incredibly scary because I was kind of new in
my rowing career. But I knew I'd found everything. And so,
(09:16):
you know, I tested myself enough that I was ready
to go explore other parts of myself. So I threw
myself into New York City, which felt incredibly overwhelming, incredibly
like and choose your own adventure. You know, any dream
you could dream was possible here. But I think the
thing that I missed the most, and people ask me this,
like what did you love the most about the Olympics?
And you know, the thing I love the most wasn't
actually that podium moment was the structure. It was the accountability.
(09:38):
It was again showing up for your teammates and for
others and finding your best amongst a group of people.
And so when I decided, Okay, what do I want
to do next, you know, I looked at the things
that I loved about rowing. I loved international travel. I
loved again working towards a common goal with a group
of people. So I didn't know what I wanted to do,
but I had the parameters of like how I wanted
to work and the way I wanted to work, and
(10:00):
I think that led me to certainly to sports marketing
in a very random way in that I wrote a
letter to the editor of New York Magazine kind of
sharing a point of view on Tiki Barber's retirement, and
an executive at IMG had read this letter and then
kind of inner office mailed it to me as I
was starting as an assistant in this company, and from there,
you know, that led to me really getting a signed
(10:22):
to an Olympic marketing client, Johnson and Johnson at the
time was a sponsor at Beijing two thousand and eight,
and so my first real job within you know, sports
marketing was working on the Beijing Olympics, you know, fresh
out of the boat literally, and it's been an incredibly
rewarding career. It's taken me all over the world. Like
I said, I lived in London for four years working
(10:42):
on the London twenty twelve Olympics with different clients, and
then moved to Visa after London to lead originally their
Olympic marketing vertical and there was a moment in that
and I do have to share this where, you know,
a job opened up above me. It was the head
of Global sports Marketing at Visa, the VP of Partnerships,
And I remember watching these dudes come in and interview
(11:05):
for this job, and my you know, my boss is
interviewing them and I'm kind of watching and I'm like,
these guys are my peers, Like what am I doing?
Why am I not throwing my hat in the ring.
So I sent my boss a note and I said,
I think I'm I going to go for this job,
and he's like, yeah, let me think about it, you know.
And he came back to me after a weekend of
thinking about it, and he's like, you should. You should
throw your hat in the ring. And so I just
say that because you know, we hear that quote like
(11:26):
men are ninety percent likely to go for a job
they're fifty percent qualified for. Women are fifty percent likely
to go for a job they're ninety percent qualified for.
I was so qualified for that job, but if I
hadn't thrown my hat in the ring, I probably wouldn't
have been tapped for it either, you know, Like that's
what kind of women are up against a little bit
is like and so so I share that just to
say like, that's why we need, you know, female sponsors,
(11:48):
Like I say, fine, go get yourself a mentor, but
more importantly, go get yourself a sponsor. Get someone who
will advocate for you when you're not in the room,
who will say, put that woman's hat in the ring
for that job, you know, because you know it Just
it doesn't happen enough for women.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I don't think. I think the journey that you've been on,
the experience the mindset you talked about, relentless resilience. When
(12:22):
you're a competitor, I often think of like what do
you have to lose? Like you leave it all on
the field or in your case, the water. And now,
in your role at Google, have been one of the
most instrumental and influential executives shaping the commercial side of
women's sports. And I have to ask, twenty one years
since you stand on the podium in Athens, what your
observations have been in your role at Google in terms
(12:44):
of what you experienced as an athlete and now what
you're helping to shape as an executive, and has all
that much changed? Are you seeing strides in the trajectory
of where we're headed. What would you caution?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
You know, it's funny because like when you pause to
reflect on where we are today, what I see are
the million little steps, big and little steps that were
taken along the way. Right Billy jan King and the
Women's Sports Foundation. I remember that travel and training grant
that I applied for when I was a rower that
the Women's Sports Foundation offered, you know, that was supporting
(13:15):
young women.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I also remember, you.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Know, having to advocate to get your name on your
jersey right when the men automatically got it, and in
these D one schools, it was like an added budgetary
item to get like your name on the back of
your kit. Like that's where we were then. That's not
even a conversation now. So in some respects, I'm like, man,
this has come so far. In other respects, I'm so
over having the same conversation that we are still having.
(13:41):
The last five years have been insane, like the acceleration
the hockey stick. I say the last five years because
you know, five years ago when I started at Google,
we had a conversation with the espns of the world
and the wnbas We're coming into a partnership and we
were sharing that, Hey, look, if we're going to do
the WNBA, like we have a math problem, like there's
not enough inventory in the marketplace for us to invest in,
(14:04):
and so you know, being Google.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Can you we pause on that just for one second.
But I think it's a really really important point because
I do think there's such a misnomer and why aren't
brands spending more money? And when you say that there's
literally not enough inventory to buy? Can you talk about
that dichotomy? Because I do think it is a point
of both contention and confusion if you're not in the
inner workings of our industry to understand there's money that
(14:29):
should be spent. But until all of these you know,
parts of the ecosystem come to fruition, is really difficult
to actually spend that money.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
It's really difficult to spend that money. It doesn't take
just like it's not a brand that solves it by themselves,
it's not the league that solves it by themselves. It
is like the ecosystem has to solve it. You know,
brands have to hold media partners accountable. Leagues have to
hold media partners accountable. Leagues have to hold brands accountable
to how they activate. You know, an example, there would
(14:59):
be decouple rights. I mean, I have a crazy story, Laura,
when I in my final year at Visa, we went
in to sponsor the women's soccer team, the US women's
soccer team, the most winning team in the world. All
we wanted to do was sponsor the US women were
we allowed to know at that time US Soccer did
not let you decouple the rights?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And how long ago is this?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
This was this was ahead of the twenty nineteen Women's
World Cup, and the conversations we had to have where
I'm like, are you kidding me? I mean, this is
I'm saying I want to sponsor this team and you
actually won't let me. You're forcing me to sponsor the men.
If it were reversed, you know, you just like roll
the women's rights in. You know, you don't hold the
brand value a bonus media, bonus media. You know, brands
(15:39):
don't actually have to activate, no accountability there, like you know,
it's a freebie. And it was just insane to me
that we wanted to have the reverse conversation and like
we literally couldn't. So we had to get really creative
about language and our contract about you know, no less
than fifty one percent of our dollars. We're going to
the US women's team, because that's who we were going
to stand up, right, you know. Fast forward to a
(16:00):
year and a half later when I joined Google. The
good news was like, you know, we did go to
the WNBA, and I said, listen, this is where we're
going to start. We're going to start with a WNBA.
But it wasn't just like a brand to league conversation.
It was a brand media partner league conversation. It was
a three way party Laura gent Teli at ESPN, ourselves,
and then certainly Kathy and team over at the WNBA.
(16:21):
And we were saying, okay, so for the twenty fifth
anniversary of the WNBA, what's ESBN going to do?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And we could say that as Google, because we spend
a lot with Disney, we spend a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
With you can put your thumb on the scale.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
We were able to say like, hey, listen, like you know,
we're going to spend in all these other places, like
come on, let's add to some production here. And the
reason why that's so important. I share this just for
anyone who's listening and trying to figure out what the
business case is that they need to take forward to
sell Executives on this, Like Lorraine was amazing our global CMO,
you know, but she also still held us accountable to
(16:53):
the math. We're not a charity. Brands are not charities,
and women's sports, by no means is a charity. So
how can we influence the system and such that we
can help our investment grow, because that's good business, that's
good for us, that's good for everyone. And so you know,
we committed verbally to you know, increasing the level of hours.
We far surpassed it. I think we've even stopped, like
(17:13):
we have to come up with new numbers because we
blew right by them. We had three hundred hours of
content that we wanted to contribute to the sports ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Off the back of that partnership. We've long since succeeded that.
And when you say three hundred hours, that's in production,
it's in production.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
It's like content that wouldn't have been there if it
weren't for us, if it weren't for us, leaning in.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Which I think is really interesting, Kate, Like you're saying,
you know, to help our investment grow. I actually haven't
heard it positioned that way. A lot of the conversation
you'll hear goes into the charity territory where it's like,
we want to grow the industry, we want to grow
the lead, we want to support the teams. But it's
not even a butt or an or, it's an and.
And also you want to create the infrastructure to help
(17:53):
drive returns on your business. From an investment standpoint, I.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Mean sitting in the seat that I sit in, where
you have to go and defend these things every single day.
Like that is why I'm like so laser focused on
that element, like where's the content? So for example, when
you know the homepage of ESPN dot com drops the
ball and doesn't put Women's March Madness on the homepage,
you know, on the day that the tournament kicks off,
(18:17):
like as a brand, my responsibility is to call them
up and hold them accountable because they're devaluing my investment.
I want to tell a story around the tournament, around
the players that we're investing in, but each partner has
to really figure out where their moment of influence is
and figure out how they hold folks accountable. And at
the end, of the day, it's the dollars that talk,
(18:37):
and so if you can kind of use that conversation
as the way into holding people accountable, you know, that's
where you're going to get the most traction.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I'm a big believer in creating value, not driving efficiency,
and one of the things that I love that your
Pixel brand has done incredibly well is arming creators to
create more. And as much as I'm sure there's obviously
an element of paid, there's also an incredible element of
earned Can you talk about the insights and what you're
identifying as areas that you can supplement again not just
(19:08):
with financial capital, but strategic resource capital as well as
just how you're incorporating your own products to help amplify
it accelerate the industry totally. Well, you know, I think
as linear is changing, right, everybody's having to adapt very quickly,
and so you know, when you look at these investments
and I'll just say, like, are we could you know
these content engines now I look at these partnerships truly
(19:31):
as content engines, right in terms of earned media and
the opportunity to tell your story on your own platforms,
on your partner channels, on you know, athlete channels. Like
there's this.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Whole other media opportunity and reach opportunity that linear is
not helping with, and so like everybody does need to
optimize for that model. And I think if we can
look at these partnerships as content engines and you can
find a way to like draw that affinity towards the
product story you're trying to tell or the brand story.
For us with the Google Pixel obviously the I mean
(20:02):
a these phones second year in a row, it's one
mobile phone of the year, with the most recent being
this year, and you know, we want to showcase the
features of what makes this the best phone in the world. Well,
the way you do that isn't People don't want to
hear from Google Pixel. They want to hear from creators
and the fans want to hear from the people that
are on the sidelines and the people that are in
the know of the game that are relevant. And if
(20:23):
it so happens that like through the content that they're creating,
they learn more about Pixel, they see the value of
our product, we drive more consideration and then ultimately, hopefully
through consideration we drive conversion. Then we've done our job.
I think what's kind of neat is. Like the way
the content engine approach was born for us was really
out of the constraints that we were seeing in the
UK where when we signed Arsenal Liverpool and the FA
(20:47):
as these global partnerships that we have for Pixel, you know,
linear television just works different there. You can't necessarily buy
a bunch of spots and dots and run it in
Premier League media and the same way that you can
hear from an integrated perspective. And so the content and
was born, and we've now started in the UK, it's
gone to Germany, and we're definitely leveraging it here in
the US with our most recent sponsorship with the NWSL,
(21:09):
and you know, it's it's been pretty awesome, like having
real in the no creators of the NWSL tells stories
using our technology has been I mean, it's paid itself forward.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
One hundred percent. Another use case that I loved. And
it's well documented disparities that we're existing in the search
engines and the algorithms around you search for something and
(21:45):
you know you're not getting the full picture. But recently
I've seen the complete adjustment that when you're googling to
go ahead and find matches. You're now getting the opportunity
to see not just the men's pull up first, but
men's and women's for the opportunity to taggle. I'm curious
to know like the back end of that and how
it's impacted engagement on the platform, if that's something you
(22:06):
can share.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Oh yeah, I mean you, Laura, you would imagine like
I've got I remember Brandy chestaing pinging me once around
the like ahead of the twenty twenty three World Cup, Kate,
I'm looking for this jersey and I can't. Oh maybe
it was around the announcement of AFC I cannot find.
You know, she was looking for Nike drops of women's
sports jerseys and she's like, it's just not coming up
on Google Search. And so, you know, while I don't like,
(22:27):
you know, people are frying to reach out to me,
there's a whole product team on the Google side that
is looking at search behavior and ultimately, you know, when
you have five billion users that you're catering to in search,
you know you have to be really smart about where
you put the engineering resource against. But we were seeing
enough around this, especially around like proximal huge events like
the Women's World Cup. Right when you go into search
(22:49):
for your favorite footballer, if the Women's World Cup is
happening at the moment and you're searching for something specific
to the World Cup, you shouldn't have to caveat at
that moment the women's tournament versus the men's, right, especially
if from a proximal point of view, the Women's World
Cup is happening right now, right, it's live, it's live,
and so like it should automatically default your search to say, okay,
you're looking, We're assuming you're looking for the Women's World
(23:10):
Cup because it's happening right now. And then so that
was kind of one of the first steps we took
in twenty twenty through in a major way around this
kind of correcting the Internet way of working. But you
have to remember the Internet is fed by search behaviors.
There's inherent bias in how we all search, and so
you know, this goes back to kind of the content
engine is we need more people writing about women's sports.
(23:31):
We need and this is why we did our partnership
with the Athletic.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Can you talk about that because you're contributing from every
which way, not just from a video perspective. But actually
underwriting creators as well as coverage.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, that's exactly it is, Like you have to look
at if ultimately search is in forum by the articles
that are written, the content that floods the Internet, then
like we need to do our part to make sure
that there's enough being written about female athletes, there's enough
being written about the tournaments that are being played.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
All over the world.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And as you know, a lot of these media entities
haven't necessarily funded covering of women's sports, let alone female
journalists who have a very different story and perspective to
tell around sport as well.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
And so I mean, up until twenty nineteen, there were
only two full time paid journalists in the US covering
women's soccer. I mean, it's insane to me.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Well, and then you have a conversation with Sarah Spain
and she's going to say, like, what I see is different.
You know, I see it differently because I grew up
as a female athlete. I see it differently because I've
been paying attention for a heck of a lot longer
than a lot of other people. And you know, so
I think our partnership with the Athletic as an example,
was like both it was funding journalists to go cover
women's sports, and it was funding female journalists to go
(24:42):
cover women's sports as well. If you can't see it,
you can't be it. And we need more women writing
about sports. We need more people writing about sports, and
we just in general need more people covering sports full.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Stop, totally. And when you think about the landscape moving forward,
the momentum continues to build. And one of the things
things that I think long and hard about is how
to reconcile the hype and the demand with the infrastructure
challenges and systems gaps that exist so that we can
get to a place where this is sustainable. And not
(25:14):
only can the infrastructure meet the demand and the user
experience and all the things we know that need to
happen in order to keep that engagement there. How are
you thinking about product advancements like AI. I have to
tell you I am all in on Gemini, But when
you think about this infrastructure in the systems, the innovations
and advancements happening within Google, you think can continue to
(25:36):
help support this infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean, look, I think AI from a content perspective
is going to help. And I don't mean like replacing journalism.
What I mean is it's going to help with just
the coverage, with reposting the clips, the highlights, like making
sure that we can kind of scale in a much
more effective way how the content gets out there. I
mean AI has a huge role to play in that.
(25:58):
But also just like in general coverage, if you think
about what Reuters does, like that AI can help there,
Like it can help scale the stories that need to
be covered, not in any like in depth way, but
like just getting the coverage done in a way that
people can consume the content quickly and move on. Equally,
I think for brands, like I'm really excited to play
with AI as a brand now, you know we have
(26:21):
language around every brand would say this, right, you need
to make sure that whatever creative you put out there
is representative of your brand. For Google, it needs to
be Google grade creative, right, And you know you have
to build these AI agents to make sure that what
they're creating is at that grade that your brand needs
to see out in the world to represent itself.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
And we're getting there.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
I think there's going to be a way for women's
sports to benefit from AI. I think hugely because of
the scale of content that we're going to be able
to deliver coverage. But here's the thing, ladies, like, we
also need women training up on AI, like men are
outpacing women in the workplace and in terms of use
of AI, and we need more women using this just
(27:02):
day to day getting familiar with it so you can
be creative about how this manifests in you telling better stories,
you scaling the stories you want to tell, and even
just you know, encouraging others to tell the stories that
you want to tell.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
My most used function is can you please pull up
all the emails I missed today? Oh? I love that currently,
but no, I mean and that sounds like a great
post career incubator program to help athletes coming out of school.
So maybe we take that one offline. But I love that. Kay.
As you think about you know, obviously from a Google perspective,
you're on top of the trends and you know what's
(27:37):
coming before the rest of the world does as a
result of those proxies without giving away proprietary information, what
are you betting on in terms of what you're seeing
both in your day job but also just as that
athlete who has made the transition into this executive role
and is on the front lines. Yeah, you know what
I'm betting on.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I'm betting the world is getting so much smaller, right
despite our best efforts, the world is getting smaller. And
so what I mean by that when it comes to
sport is I think we're going to start to see
more and more scaling of things like the Premier League
and the women's teams within the Premier League, the WSL,
like all of this stuff scaling into other markets around
(28:16):
the world where fandom will continue to grow. I think
it's the same thing for cricket. Like I'm watching India
right now. India, just so you know, the search behavior
of India around the Paris twenty twenty four Olympics was
off the charts. It was the most we'd ever seen
a country engaged. When I look ahead to twenty twenty eight,
when cricket is added as an exhibition sport in the US,
(28:37):
I think we're going to see cricket go off the charts.
I'm so glad that women's cricket is right there and
ready to meet the moment. Yeah, and I think I
also think too, And I say this very personally just
as an athlete. Who I mean, I had no tools.
I had like emails that I would send out to
my friends and family when I was at the Olympics.
You know, athletes, I want more and more in terms
of training up athletes to understand the power that is
(28:59):
in hands now to be their own content creators, to
tell their own stories. It can feel incredibly overwhelming. I
mentored a few athletes after the Paris Games that are
feeling the pressure of like, you know, I need to
create content, and I'm like, you know what, though, all
you have to do is educate yourself on the tools,
and in that way you'll be able to find simple
ways to scale your story and tell your authentic story.
(29:20):
And so I'm excited for that too, because I think
we're going to see more and more athletes leaning into,
you know, the things that make them authentic voices that
we can all follow and fall in love with and
through that lens too. I mean, I'll just share one
last insight that I'm seeing is like, there are more
and more women that are not sports fans coming to
women's sports, and the reason is because of the cross
(29:42):
sectional kind of cultural adjacencies that we're seeing, Like, you know,
when angel Re shows up at the met Gala and
just drops you know, this like incredible dress, but also
says like I have practice.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
In the morning. There's a whole other audience now that
is kind of like, right, I can do both.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, I can do both, and I can follow both,
and I'm excited to see how.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That continues to evolve. Too. Incredible, you know, just picking
up what you were talking about in terms of the
WSL and the world getting smaller, I couldn't agree more.
And so many people have asked, some curious to get
your perspective on this. Why now? Why has women's sports mean?
You think you go back to the ninety nine ers,
you can go all the way back to ninety four
around Atlanta with you know, USA basketball? Why now? And
(30:25):
I think the use of one of your core products
and that cell phones and the internet, predominantly social media
has completely disintermediated the traditional channels. And now these female athletes,
you know, there's a fact that they create more content
than their male counterparts. They've bypassed the system and kind
of pulling it back to the WSL, you know, and
the world getting smaller. I absolutely see what we saw
(30:45):
in twenty nineteen around sort of the restlessness that we
saw in the US women's national team in terms of
taking what was rightfully theirs in equal pay, but also
using their platform to drive their agenda and bring awareness
and attention not just to what they were doing on
the pitch, but more importantly the fight they were waging
off of it. And I see it happening in the WSL.
The players are getting restless, and they're seeing it from
(31:06):
their peers in the US and around the world what
they're able to do by taking back their platform and
their narratives and creating their brands outside of a very
legacy driven market, which is, you know, encumbered by totally
hundreds of years of tradition, and so it is fascinating
to see how literally in the palm of your hand,
(31:26):
the ability to completely rewrite the script and google us
certainly at the core of that. I love that, and
I'm just you know again for what you've done both
in the boat and out, Kate Johnson, You're just one
of one, and I'm so grateful to know you and
appreciate all of the work you're doing to make sure
that this industry continues to stay afloat. Well.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Thank you, Laura, You've become a real friend on this journey,
and I'm grateful for women like you who we can like,
brainstorm with, bounce ideas off of and have these types
of conversations. So thanks for holding the conversation for all
of us.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Thank you. We can do both. We can do both.
I'm your host, Laura Crenti, Founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an Iheartwomen's Sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
(32:19):
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Want more, follow, rate, and
review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and stay
in the game by following us on social media at
iHeart Women's Sports, and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
In the show notes, thanks for listening, We'll see you
(32:39):
next time. Court Side
Having the background as a young teenage girl who had
found this sport that she was passionate about and feeling
seen by a brand showing up and advertising as like
these are goals that I can actually set for myself.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It had an impact on me. Welcome back to Courtside,
where we're going to break down the business of women's
sports with the people shaping its future. So grab your popcorn.
I'm your host, Laura Currenty. Today on court Side with
Laura Crenty, we're talking about what happens when you bring
an Olympians mindset to the business of sports and why
(00:36):
that perspective might be exactly what our industry needs right now.
My guest is Kate Johnson, a silver medallist and vice
president of Global Sports and Entertainment Marketing Partnerships at Google.
Before she was leading global strategy, Kate was on the
podium literally in two thousand and four as a medalist
with the US women's rowing team. Now she's channeling that
(00:57):
competitive edge into Google's multi layered investment in women's sports,
backing leagues, teams, creators, and the infrastructure needed to support
it all. In this conversation, Kate and I dig into
the playbook, how our experience as an athlete informs her
approach to leadership and decision making, the metrics Google looks
at when evaluating partnerships, and why creators are becoming one
(01:18):
of the most powerful accelerators for women's sports. We're also
going to talk about what's still missing and where the
next wave of innovation and opportunity is likely to come from,
from rowing to revenue models. This episode is packed with
insight for anyone thinking about where women's sports goes next,
and more importantly, how to be part of building it.
Let's get in the boat with Kate Johnson and we're
(01:40):
back in the studio with brand executive Kate Johnson, but
more importantly, a decorated olympian. Kate. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Laura,
you're such a natural. Love hearing your voice, Kate. I
start all of my shows with this very simple question,
when did you fall in love with rowing? Oh? My goodness,
it's so you know.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I've been reflecting on this a lot lately because a
journal that I started keeping when I was in eighth
grade before I found rowing, has re entered my life unexpectedly.
I thought I'd lost it. I found rowing as a
freshman in high school, we'd move from California to Oregon.
And you know, I'd been inside in a swimming pool
in California, which wasn't a problem, but when you moved
(02:20):
to the rainy state, You're like, oh my god, I
need to get outside. So I found a new sport
that took me outside. And you know, I always say
it was one of those things where it took a
coach saying I think you're going to be great at
this for me to decide, like, I'm going to just
keep showing up till I figure this thing out.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I did not row in high school, but we had
an incredible crew team, and I remember the endless amounts
of ERG competitions and ERG talks that would circulate the halls.
Talk to me about what that was like training starting
in high school all the way through to what ended
as an Olympic journey.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I mean, it is amazing how much you could talk
about the thing that you are absolutely upset with to
the exclusion of people who are just sick and tired
of hearing it. But I I mean I would people
say it clicked, like I fell in love with this sport.
You know, I grew up in Portland, Nike's backyard. They
ran this campaign in the nineties called if You Let
Me Play, And I remember these young young girls and
(03:18):
women being in these posters and these advertisements in seventeen
magazine if you Let Me Play, I'll be more likely
to succeed in the classroom, I'll be more likely to
seed in life.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I do believe this.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Having the background of Nike in my upbringing as a
young teenage girl who had found this sport that she
was passionate about, and feeling seen by a brand like
showing up and advertising as like these are goals that
I can actually set for myself.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It had an impact on me.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So, you know, it was my sophomore year in high
school when I set the dream of going to the Olympics.
I'd been rowing for less than a year. I had
had a taste of what it felt like to compete internationally.
Speaking of scores, back then, US rowing would rank you nationally,
so you know, your rowing club in Poughkeepsie or Portland,
Oregon or wherever you know would submit your your test
(04:07):
scores and then you'd get ranked.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
And there was something.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
About seeing your name ranked on a national list of individuals.
You know, the first ranking I got was tenth, and
so all of a sudden I was getting.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
After only rowing for a year, after rowing for a.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Year, I was getting feedback right away that I had
you know, I had, I had something here right, And
there's a saying or don't float, But to know that
I had the foundation of you know, being strong on
the ergometer was definitely you know, confidence building. And then
it just became falling in love with the sport. You know,
I rode the single in high school. I rode the eight,
so I knew what it was like to compete for myself.
(04:41):
I knew what it was like to compete for others.
And I do think you know, they say rowing is
the ultimate team sport, but you cannot go out in
the boat without all nine women in the boat. And so,
you know, you it made you feel really responsible early on.
You know, you didn't want to mess up for fear.
You know, you didn't want to show up late because
then the boat can't launch without you. You didn't want to,
(05:02):
you know, do something that would keep you from missing
practice or get grounded. And yeah, I think that that
self responsibility, responsibilities to self responsibility to others was ingrained
early on, and that was part of kind of my
obsession with it. Was like it felt so good to
show up for others, but then also to like figure
out how to always better your best, which was.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
The name of the game. I love that. You definitely
don't want to be dead weight in the boat, that's
for sure. Don't want to be dead weight. No, so
give us a quick snapshot of your Olympic journey. There's
only so many people that get to achieve that moment
of greatness. What was that like for you? Well, you know,
when I.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Was getting recruited to colleges, so you know, four years
as a high school rower was the top recruit in
the country. By the time I was getting recruited to schools.
And it was right around that time where Title nine
was adding a lot of public universities women's rowing programs
were being added to balance out kind of the Title
nine requirement of public institutions. And so rather than just
(05:58):
the IVY leagues, I was looking at you know, Michigan,
you know UCLA, certainly, you see Berkeley likes you know,
traditional and non traditional rowing schools, and I went to Michigan.
I built you know, I was part of the first
class of recruited women. We built a rowing program. We'd
never been to the national championships before I got there,
and by the time I graduated, we were second in
the country. So being a part of building something was
(06:19):
really exceptional. I think it set me up for the
Olympics because in my kind of generation of Olympians, the
women's eight had placed I think fifth or six at
the Sydney Olympics, and so we were really in a
rebuilding moment for US women's rowing, and that kind of
that adage of you stand on the shoulders of giants,
like I was so aware of the women that had
(06:40):
come before me. And then what we had is this
opportunity to build something brand new with Title nine kind
of at our backs, pushing this feeding system into the
national team system. And so, you know, US rowing would
identify the top forty women in the country from college,
invite you to a training camp, and you literally were
compete with everyone until you made the boat. And that
(07:02):
there's something about that dynamic that's quite exceptional. You know,
you compete against everyone, and then you make the boat
and you have to make it work, like you make
it click, and there's there's both an art and a
science to it. There's and it's the same thing in
the corporate environment, right, Like there's dynamics to teams that
are like almost unspeakable, you just can't say it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
But like you know that team.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Thrives because of just the way they gel, you know,
so you do as much science as you can to
get to the right team. And my team, my team
was scrappy.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
We were green.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Very few of us had ever took Two of us
had only been to an Olympics. And you know, it
was phenomenal when I in my Olympic year, I actually
broke my eighth rib eight times and it looked like
I wasn't going to make it. And I chose a
word that I wanted to define myself in that Olympic year.
And the word that I chose was relentless. And I
didn't tell anybody this was my word, but it dug
(07:50):
me out of this massive hole. It was, you know,
on my mirror when I would get dressed in the morning.
And by the time our coach launched us for the
Olympic final, he went down the boat and shook everybody's hand,
and he grabbed my hand and said I don't know
what you did to make this boat this year, but
you were absolutely relentless.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And I just share that because it's like a skill I've.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Gone back to again and again even in my corporate life,
like picking a word to get yourself, you know, reignited, refocused.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Or even out of a hole. And so you know,
relentless is very much the word of twenty twenty five
in the world of building in women's so I would
say it's more applicable than ever. Relentless, resilience, I've got
a bunch of bar words that I live by. So
talking about that skill set right, because you go through
this incredible journey so many athletes that have competed at
the highest level, such as yourself, that have seen and
(08:38):
experienced so much and then it's over, and then it's
over and you pivot and so much of that identity
shedding and also reconfiguring who Kay Johnson is post rowing.
Can you talk about that transition and what led you
to the world of marketing.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I mean that transition is brutal, and nobody tells you
how hard it is going to be. You know, if anything,
it feels like bad juju to even think about what
comes next while you're still trying to train for your
Olympic goal. I mean, I stood on that Olympic podium
in Athens and I knew I was done. And it
was incredibly scary because I was kind of new in
my rowing career. But I knew I'd found everything. And so,
(09:16):
you know, I tested myself enough that I was ready
to go explore other parts of myself. So I threw
myself into New York City, which felt incredibly overwhelming, incredibly
like and choose your own adventure. You know, any dream
you could dream was possible here. But I think the
thing that I missed the most, and people ask me this,
like what did you love the most about the Olympics?
And you know, the thing I love the most wasn't
actually that podium moment was the structure. It was the accountability.
(09:38):
It was again showing up for your teammates and for
others and finding your best amongst a group of people.
And so when I decided, Okay, what do I want
to do next, you know, I looked at the things
that I loved about rowing. I loved international travel. I
loved again working towards a common goal with a group
of people. So I didn't know what I wanted to do,
but I had the parameters of like how I wanted
to work and the way I wanted to work, and
(10:00):
I think that led me to certainly to sports marketing
in a very random way in that I wrote a
letter to the editor of New York Magazine kind of
sharing a point of view on Tiki Barber's retirement, and
an executive at IMG had read this letter and then
kind of inner office mailed it to me as I
was starting as an assistant in this company, and from there,
you know, that led to me really getting a signed
(10:22):
to an Olympic marketing client, Johnson and Johnson at the
time was a sponsor at Beijing two thousand and eight,
and so my first real job within you know, sports
marketing was working on the Beijing Olympics, you know, fresh
out of the boat literally, and it's been an incredibly
rewarding career. It's taken me all over the world. Like
I said, I lived in London for four years working
(10:42):
on the London twenty twelve Olympics with different clients, and
then moved to Visa after London to lead originally their
Olympic marketing vertical and there was a moment in that
and I do have to share this where, you know,
a job opened up above me. It was the head
of Global sports Marketing at Visa, the VP of Partnerships,
And I remember watching these dudes come in and interview
(11:05):
for this job, and my you know, my boss is
interviewing them and I'm kind of watching and I'm like,
these guys are my peers, Like what am I doing?
Why am I not throwing my hat in the ring.
So I sent my boss a note and I said,
I think I'm I going to go for this job,
and he's like, yeah, let me think about it, you know.
And he came back to me after a weekend of
thinking about it, and he's like, you should. You should
throw your hat in the ring. And so I just
say that because you know, we hear that quote like
(11:26):
men are ninety percent likely to go for a job
they're fifty percent qualified for. Women are fifty percent likely
to go for a job they're ninety percent qualified for.
I was so qualified for that job, but if I
hadn't thrown my hat in the ring, I probably wouldn't
have been tapped for it either, you know, Like that's
what kind of women are up against a little bit
is like and so so I share that just to
say like, that's why we need, you know, female sponsors,
(11:48):
Like I say, fine, go get yourself a mentor, but
more importantly, go get yourself a sponsor. Get someone who
will advocate for you when you're not in the room,
who will say, put that woman's hat in the ring
for that job, you know, because you know it Just
it doesn't happen enough for women.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I don't think. I think the journey that you've been on,
the experience the mindset you talked about, relentless resilience. When
(12:22):
you're a competitor, I often think of like what do
you have to lose? Like you leave it all on
the field or in your case, the water. And now,
in your role at Google, have been one of the
most instrumental and influential executives shaping the commercial side of
women's sports. And I have to ask, twenty one years
since you stand on the podium in Athens, what your
observations have been in your role at Google in terms
(12:44):
of what you experienced as an athlete and now what
you're helping to shape as an executive, and has all
that much changed? Are you seeing strides in the trajectory
of where we're headed. What would you caution?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
You know, it's funny because like when you pause to
reflect on where we are today, what I see are
the million little steps, big and little steps that were
taken along the way. Right Billy jan King and the
Women's Sports Foundation. I remember that travel and training grant
that I applied for when I was a rower that
the Women's Sports Foundation offered, you know, that was supporting
(13:15):
young women.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I also remember, you.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Know, having to advocate to get your name on your
jersey right when the men automatically got it, and in
these D one schools, it was like an added budgetary
item to get like your name on the back of
your kit. Like that's where we were then. That's not
even a conversation now. So in some respects, I'm like, man,
this has come so far. In other respects, I'm so
over having the same conversation that we are still having.
(13:41):
The last five years have been insane, like the acceleration
the hockey stick. I say the last five years because
you know, five years ago when I started at Google,
we had a conversation with the espns of the world
and the wnbas We're coming into a partnership and we
were sharing that, Hey, look, if we're going to do
the WNBA, like we have a math problem, like there's
not enough inventory in the marketplace for us to invest in,
(14:04):
and so you know, being Google.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Can you we pause on that just for one second.
But I think it's a really really important point because
I do think there's such a misnomer and why aren't
brands spending more money? And when you say that there's
literally not enough inventory to buy? Can you talk about
that dichotomy? Because I do think it is a point
of both contention and confusion if you're not in the
inner workings of our industry to understand there's money that
(14:29):
should be spent. But until all of these you know,
parts of the ecosystem come to fruition, is really difficult
to actually spend that money.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
It's really difficult to spend that money. It doesn't take
just like it's not a brand that solves it by themselves,
it's not the league that solves it by themselves. It
is like the ecosystem has to solve it. You know,
brands have to hold media partners accountable. Leagues have to
hold media partners accountable. Leagues have to hold brands accountable
to how they activate. You know, an example, there would
(14:59):
be decouple rights. I mean, I have a crazy story, Laura,
when I in my final year at Visa, we went
in to sponsor the women's soccer team, the US women's
soccer team, the most winning team in the world. All
we wanted to do was sponsor the US women were
we allowed to know at that time US Soccer did
not let you decouple the rights?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And how long ago is this?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
This was this was ahead of the twenty nineteen Women's
World Cup, and the conversations we had to have where
I'm like, are you kidding me? I mean, this is
I'm saying I want to sponsor this team and you
actually won't let me. You're forcing me to sponsor the men.
If it were reversed, you know, you just like roll
the women's rights in. You know, you don't hold the
brand value a bonus media, bonus media. You know, brands
(15:39):
don't actually have to activate, no accountability there, like you know,
it's a freebie. And it was just insane to me
that we wanted to have the reverse conversation and like
we literally couldn't. So we had to get really creative
about language and our contract about you know, no less
than fifty one percent of our dollars. We're going to
the US women's team, because that's who we were going
to stand up, right, you know. Fast forward to a
(16:00):
year and a half later when I joined Google. The
good news was like, you know, we did go to
the WNBA, and I said, listen, this is where we're
going to start. We're going to start with a WNBA.
But it wasn't just like a brand to league conversation.
It was a brand media partner league conversation. It was
a three way party Laura gent Teli at ESPN, ourselves,
and then certainly Kathy and team over at the WNBA.
(16:21):
And we were saying, okay, so for the twenty fifth
anniversary of the WNBA, what's ESBN going to do?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And we could say that as Google, because we spend
a lot with Disney, we spend a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
With you can put your thumb on the scale.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
We were able to say like, hey, listen, like you know,
we're going to spend in all these other places, like
come on, let's add to some production here. And the
reason why that's so important. I share this just for
anyone who's listening and trying to figure out what the
business case is that they need to take forward to
sell Executives on this, Like Lorraine was amazing our global CMO,
you know, but she also still held us accountable to
(16:53):
the math. We're not a charity. Brands are not charities,
and women's sports, by no means is a charity. So
how can we influence the system and such that we
can help our investment grow, because that's good business, that's
good for us, that's good for everyone. And so you know,
we committed verbally to you know, increasing the level of hours.
We far surpassed it. I think we've even stopped, like
(17:13):
we have to come up with new numbers because we
blew right by them. We had three hundred hours of
content that we wanted to contribute to the sports ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Off the back of that partnership. We've long since succeeded that.
And when you say three hundred hours, that's in production,
it's in production.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
It's like content that wouldn't have been there if it
weren't for us, if it weren't for us, leaning in.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Which I think is really interesting, Kate, Like you're saying,
you know, to help our investment grow. I actually haven't
heard it positioned that way. A lot of the conversation
you'll hear goes into the charity territory where it's like,
we want to grow the industry, we want to grow
the lead, we want to support the teams. But it's
not even a butt or an or, it's an and.
And also you want to create the infrastructure to help
(17:53):
drive returns on your business. From an investment standpoint, I.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Mean sitting in the seat that I sit in, where
you have to go and defend these things every single day.
Like that is why I'm like so laser focused on
that element, like where's the content? So for example, when
you know the homepage of ESPN dot com drops the
ball and doesn't put Women's March Madness on the homepage,
you know, on the day that the tournament kicks off,
(18:17):
like as a brand, my responsibility is to call them
up and hold them accountable because they're devaluing my investment.
I want to tell a story around the tournament, around
the players that we're investing in, but each partner has
to really figure out where their moment of influence is
and figure out how they hold folks accountable. And at
the end, of the day, it's the dollars that talk,
(18:37):
and so if you can kind of use that conversation
as the way into holding people accountable, you know, that's
where you're going to get the most traction.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I'm a big believer in creating value, not driving efficiency,
and one of the things that I love that your
Pixel brand has done incredibly well is arming creators to
create more. And as much as I'm sure there's obviously
an element of paid, there's also an incredible element of
earned Can you talk about the insights and what you're
identifying as areas that you can supplement again not just
(19:08):
with financial capital, but strategic resource capital as well as
just how you're incorporating your own products to help amplify
it accelerate the industry totally. Well, you know, I think
as linear is changing, right, everybody's having to adapt very quickly,
and so you know, when you look at these investments
and I'll just say, like, are we could you know
these content engines now I look at these partnerships truly
(19:31):
as content engines, right in terms of earned media and
the opportunity to tell your story on your own platforms,
on your partner channels, on you know, athlete channels. Like
there's this.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Whole other media opportunity and reach opportunity that linear is
not helping with, and so like everybody does need to
optimize for that model. And I think if we can
look at these partnerships as content engines and you can
find a way to like draw that affinity towards the
product story you're trying to tell or the brand story.
For us with the Google Pixel obviously the I mean
(20:02):
a these phones second year in a row, it's one
mobile phone of the year, with the most recent being
this year, and you know, we want to showcase the
features of what makes this the best phone in the world. Well,
the way you do that isn't People don't want to
hear from Google Pixel. They want to hear from creators
and the fans want to hear from the people that
are on the sidelines and the people that are in
the know of the game that are relevant. And if
(20:23):
it so happens that like through the content that they're creating,
they learn more about Pixel, they see the value of
our product, we drive more consideration and then ultimately, hopefully
through consideration we drive conversion. Then we've done our job.
I think what's kind of neat is. Like the way
the content engine approach was born for us was really
out of the constraints that we were seeing in the
UK where when we signed Arsenal Liverpool and the FA
(20:47):
as these global partnerships that we have for Pixel, you know,
linear television just works different there. You can't necessarily buy
a bunch of spots and dots and run it in
Premier League media and the same way that you can
hear from an integrated perspective. And so the content and
was born, and we've now started in the UK, it's
gone to Germany, and we're definitely leveraging it here in
the US with our most recent sponsorship with the NWSL,
(21:09):
and you know, it's it's been pretty awesome, like having
real in the no creators of the NWSL tells stories
using our technology has been I mean, it's paid itself forward.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
One hundred percent. Another use case that I loved. And
it's well documented disparities that we're existing in the search
engines and the algorithms around you search for something and
(21:45):
you know you're not getting the full picture. But recently
I've seen the complete adjustment that when you're googling to
go ahead and find matches. You're now getting the opportunity
to see not just the men's pull up first, but
men's and women's for the opportunity to taggle. I'm curious
to know like the back end of that and how
it's impacted engagement on the platform, if that's something you
(22:06):
can share.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Oh yeah, I mean you, Laura, you would imagine like
I've got I remember Brandy chestaing pinging me once around
the like ahead of the twenty twenty three World Cup, Kate,
I'm looking for this jersey and I can't. Oh maybe
it was around the announcement of AFC I cannot find.
You know, she was looking for Nike drops of women's
sports jerseys and she's like, it's just not coming up
on Google Search. And so, you know, while I don't like,
(22:27):
you know, people are frying to reach out to me,
there's a whole product team on the Google side that
is looking at search behavior and ultimately, you know, when
you have five billion users that you're catering to in search,
you know you have to be really smart about where
you put the engineering resource against. But we were seeing
enough around this, especially around like proximal huge events like
the Women's World Cup. Right when you go into search
(22:49):
for your favorite footballer, if the Women's World Cup is
happening at the moment and you're searching for something specific
to the World Cup, you shouldn't have to caveat at
that moment the women's tournament versus the men's, right, especially
if from a proximal point of view, the Women's World
Cup is happening right now, right, it's live, it's live,
and so like it should automatically default your search to say, okay,
you're looking, We're assuming you're looking for the Women's World
(23:10):
Cup because it's happening right now. And then so that
was kind of one of the first steps we took
in twenty twenty through in a major way around this
kind of correcting the Internet way of working. But you
have to remember the Internet is fed by search behaviors.
There's inherent bias in how we all search, and so
you know, this goes back to kind of the content
engine is we need more people writing about women's sports.
(23:31):
We need and this is why we did our partnership
with the Athletic.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Can you talk about that because you're contributing from every
which way, not just from a video perspective. But actually
underwriting creators as well as coverage.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, that's exactly it is, Like you have to look
at if ultimately search is in forum by the articles
that are written, the content that floods the Internet, then
like we need to do our part to make sure
that there's enough being written about female athletes, there's enough
being written about the tournaments that are being played.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
All over the world.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And as you know, a lot of these media entities
haven't necessarily funded covering of women's sports, let alone female
journalists who have a very different story and perspective to
tell around sport as well.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
And so I mean, up until twenty nineteen, there were
only two full time paid journalists in the US covering
women's soccer. I mean, it's insane to me.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Well, and then you have a conversation with Sarah Spain
and she's going to say, like, what I see is different.
You know, I see it differently because I grew up
as a female athlete. I see it differently because I've
been paying attention for a heck of a lot longer
than a lot of other people. And you know, so
I think our partnership with the Athletic as an example,
was like both it was funding journalists to go cover
women's sports, and it was funding female journalists to go
(24:42):
cover women's sports as well. If you can't see it,
you can't be it. And we need more women writing
about sports. We need more people writing about sports, and
we just in general need more people covering sports full.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Stop, totally. And when you think about the landscape moving forward,
the momentum continues to build. And one of the things
things that I think long and hard about is how
to reconcile the hype and the demand with the infrastructure
challenges and systems gaps that exist so that we can
get to a place where this is sustainable. And not
(25:14):
only can the infrastructure meet the demand and the user
experience and all the things we know that need to
happen in order to keep that engagement there. How are
you thinking about product advancements like AI. I have to
tell you I am all in on Gemini, But when
you think about this infrastructure in the systems, the innovations
and advancements happening within Google, you think can continue to
(25:36):
help support this infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean, look, I think AI from a content perspective
is going to help. And I don't mean like replacing journalism.
What I mean is it's going to help with just
the coverage, with reposting the clips, the highlights, like making
sure that we can kind of scale in a much
more effective way how the content gets out there. I
mean AI has a huge role to play in that.
(25:58):
But also just like in general coverage, if you think
about what Reuters does, like that AI can help there,
Like it can help scale the stories that need to
be covered, not in any like in depth way, but
like just getting the coverage done in a way that
people can consume the content quickly and move on. Equally,
I think for brands, like I'm really excited to play
with AI as a brand now, you know we have
(26:21):
language around every brand would say this, right, you need
to make sure that whatever creative you put out there
is representative of your brand. For Google, it needs to
be Google grade creative, right, And you know you have
to build these AI agents to make sure that what
they're creating is at that grade that your brand needs
to see out in the world to represent itself.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
And we're getting there.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
I think there's going to be a way for women's
sports to benefit from AI. I think hugely because of
the scale of content that we're going to be able
to deliver coverage. But here's the thing, ladies, like, we
also need women training up on AI, like men are
outpacing women in the workplace and in terms of use
of AI, and we need more women using this just
(27:02):
day to day getting familiar with it so you can
be creative about how this manifests in you telling better stories,
you scaling the stories you want to tell, and even
just you know, encouraging others to tell the stories that
you want to tell.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
My most used function is can you please pull up
all the emails I missed today? Oh? I love that currently,
but no, I mean and that sounds like a great
post career incubator program to help athletes coming out of school.
So maybe we take that one offline. But I love that. Kay.
As you think about you know, obviously from a Google perspective,
you're on top of the trends and you know what's
(27:37):
coming before the rest of the world does as a
result of those proxies without giving away proprietary information, what
are you betting on in terms of what you're seeing
both in your day job but also just as that
athlete who has made the transition into this executive role
and is on the front lines. Yeah, you know what
I'm betting on.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I'm betting the world is getting so much smaller, right
despite our best efforts, the world is getting smaller. And
so what I mean by that when it comes to
sport is I think we're going to start to see
more and more scaling of things like the Premier League
and the women's teams within the Premier League, the WSL,
like all of this stuff scaling into other markets around
(28:16):
the world where fandom will continue to grow. I think
it's the same thing for cricket. Like I'm watching India
right now. India, just so you know, the search behavior
of India around the Paris twenty twenty four Olympics was
off the charts. It was the most we'd ever seen
a country engaged. When I look ahead to twenty twenty eight,
when cricket is added as an exhibition sport in the US,
(28:37):
I think we're going to see cricket go off the charts.
I'm so glad that women's cricket is right there and
ready to meet the moment. Yeah, and I think I
also think too, And I say this very personally just
as an athlete. Who I mean, I had no tools.
I had like emails that I would send out to
my friends and family when I was at the Olympics.
You know, athletes, I want more and more in terms
of training up athletes to understand the power that is
(28:59):
in hands now to be their own content creators, to
tell their own stories. It can feel incredibly overwhelming. I
mentored a few athletes after the Paris Games that are
feeling the pressure of like, you know, I need to
create content, and I'm like, you know what, though, all
you have to do is educate yourself on the tools,
and in that way you'll be able to find simple
ways to scale your story and tell your authentic story.
(29:20):
And so I'm excited for that too, because I think
we're going to see more and more athletes leaning into,
you know, the things that make them authentic voices that
we can all follow and fall in love with and
through that lens too. I mean, I'll just share one
last insight that I'm seeing is like, there are more
and more women that are not sports fans coming to
women's sports, and the reason is because of the cross
(29:42):
sectional kind of cultural adjacencies that we're seeing, Like, you know,
when angel Re shows up at the met Gala and
just drops you know, this like incredible dress, but also
says like I have practice.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
In the morning. There's a whole other audience now that
is kind of like, right, I can do both.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, I can do both, and I can follow both,
and I'm excited to see how.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That continues to evolve. Too. Incredible, you know, just picking
up what you were talking about in terms of the
WSL and the world getting smaller, I couldn't agree more.
And so many people have asked, some curious to get
your perspective on this. Why now? Why has women's sports mean?
You think you go back to the ninety nine ers,
you can go all the way back to ninety four
around Atlanta with you know, USA basketball? Why now? And
(30:25):
I think the use of one of your core products
and that cell phones and the internet, predominantly social media
has completely disintermediated the traditional channels. And now these female athletes,
you know, there's a fact that they create more content
than their male counterparts. They've bypassed the system and kind
of pulling it back to the WSL, you know, and
the world getting smaller. I absolutely see what we saw
(30:45):
in twenty nineteen around sort of the restlessness that we
saw in the US women's national team in terms of
taking what was rightfully theirs in equal pay, but also
using their platform to drive their agenda and bring awareness
and attention not just to what they were doing on
the pitch, but more importantly the fight they were waging
off of it. And I see it happening in the WSL.
The players are getting restless, and they're seeing it from
(31:06):
their peers in the US and around the world what
they're able to do by taking back their platform and
their narratives and creating their brands outside of a very
legacy driven market, which is, you know, encumbered by totally
hundreds of years of tradition, and so it is fascinating
to see how literally in the palm of your hand,
(31:26):
the ability to completely rewrite the script and google us
certainly at the core of that. I love that, and
I'm just you know again for what you've done both
in the boat and out, Kate Johnson, You're just one
of one, and I'm so grateful to know you and
appreciate all of the work you're doing to make sure
that this industry continues to stay afloat. Well.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Thank you, Laura, You've become a real friend on this journey,
and I'm grateful for women like you who we can like,
brainstorm with, bounce ideas off of and have these types
of conversations. So thanks for holding the conversation for all
of us.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Thank you. We can do both. We can do both.
I'm your host, Laura Crenti, Founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an Iheartwomen's Sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
(32:19):
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Want more, follow, rate, and
review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and stay
in the game by following us on social media at
iHeart Women's Sports, and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
In the show notes, thanks for listening, We'll see you
(32:39):
next time. Court Side
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