Mike Reynolds: Hi, I'm Mike Reynolds, a senior reporter covering the media industry with S&P Global Market Intelligence tech, media and telecom news team. Welcome to "MediaTalk," a podcast hosted by S&P Global, where the news and research staff explore issues in the evolving media landscape. Today, Nicole Serino, director of credit research and insights at S&P Global Ratings, is in the virtual house. From London, we have Richard Berndes, an analyst at S&P Global Kagan research, as well as Iuri Struta. Iuri, who follows M&A and capital markets as my colleague on the S&P Global Market Intelligence tech, media and telecom news team, is also coming to us from across the pond. How are we doing, everybody?

Nicole Serino: Hey, Mike, thanks for having us. Happy to be here.

Richard Berndes: Hi, Mike. Looking forward to getting into this good subject.

Iuri Struta: Hey, Mike. Happy to be here.

Reynolds: All right, guys. Thanks for joining. We're going to discuss the overarching story for the sports media and sports business worlds in 2024, the ascent of women's sports and attendant opportunities, and the two-part thought leadership report the four of us collaborated on. The first part is called "Women's Sports Attendance and Viewership Soar Pre-Olympics," while the second is named "Women's Sports Olympic Momentum and the Opportunities for Investors and Sponsors." We're also going to talk about the NBA's rights deal that is nearing its official announcement and is said to include a major uptick for WNBA rights. Let's get to it. Richard, what was your knowledge base about women's sports prior to the research and your thoughts coming out of this undertaking?

Berndes: I've been following women's sports for about two years professionally for S&P, and I've just seen the interest and growth around the genre grow and grow. But outside that, you've got to admire sportswomen like Nadia Comaneci, Martina Navratilova, and the US women's soccer team for their amazing achievements. And speaking as an Englishman, the English Lionesses have changed the conversation here in Europe. So yeah, it's a subject that's growing and it's of great interest to our clients.

Reynolds: Iuri, I'll ask you a similar question. Your sensibilities about investment in women's sports as you started, taking a look more closely, and what are your sensibilities now?

Struta: So I did a large piece on investment interest generally in sports, and that catalyzed the interest to look more deeply into women's sports. So, when I started to look, my impression was that I was not going to find much information on investments in women's sports, but to my surprise, there was plenty. Of course, not like in men's sports, but pretty much enough info to be able to get a sense of where things are going, and I can say now that there are a growing number of professional investors that are seeing lots of opportunities in women's sports.

Reynolds: Nicole, you were recently on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with Cheddar TV. How did the interview go? And if you could highlight a few of those discussion points for us.

Serino: Yeah, sure. I think what is most startling about our research is the growth numbers that we're seeing in the women's game right now, from record-breaking viewership to attendance to investment in the game. We have been seeing a lot of big headlines flow through big media outlets calling out a new media deal or a startling stat about a certain league or player. But what our research does is we really brought a lot of these pieces together with really cool visuals that were digestible to our audience and really helped illustrate the larger story that was at play here, which is the record growth we're seeing throughout the women's sports teams and leagues right now.

Reynolds: Guys, let's delve a little deeper into the report. Iuri, can you tell us about the investment? I think you've already mentioned the investment climate for women's sports is growing. There's been a couple of notable sales for late. Valuations for WNBA and NWSL teams are going very high. Can you give us some of the big news around soccer's Angel FC?

Struta: Yeah. So I think valuations in women's sports are just going from strength to strength. The latest deal, Angel City, this was published after our report was out. So Angel City from Los Angeles, Calif., was acquired by Bob Iger and Willow Bay for the record sum of $250 million. Angel City was founded in 2020. It was just destined for success. It was valued at $100 million before playing a single game. And, looking more broadly, even outside this overnight success, we've seen valuations grow exponentially just in the last couple of years when we had most deals in the WNBA and NWSL. From our research, it has been pretty standard to have growth in valuations of more than a thousand percent. Seattle Storm, for instance, this company was acquired for $10 million in 2010. Now it's worth at least $151 million. And generally, I think from a professional investor standpoint, the way they look at women's sports is something like a growth asset, something like a hot new startup as opposed to men's sports, which is a more mature asset class. As a result of this, I think opportunities for early investors in women's sports are massive.

Reynolds: Yeah. Colie Edison, who is the growth revenue officer for the WNBA, that's exactly the term that she used. She looks at that league as a growth stock. So, Richard, sorry about England coming up short again to Spain in the men's Euro 2024 finals. But the Lady Lionesses won the Women's Euro in 2022, and they were runners-up to Spain in 2023 from the Women's World Cup down under last summer. Can you give us a sense, Richard, for how the Women's Euro 2022 and the 2023 World Cup fared in terms of viewership perspective in the UK?

Berndes: Let's start by saying congratulations to Spain. Both their men and women's teams played the best football in those tournaments, so they were deserved winners. But to your point of the impact of women's football, I think here in the UK, the TV reach, which is the cumulative total for the tournament, for the Euros in 2009, it was 2.5 million. In 2015, it grew to 12.4 million. And in 2022, it peaked at 27.4 million people. So that's like more than quadrupling in reach of the football. And coming to the World Cup, the numbers are still tracking behind the men's game. In the European finals, the women's was 14 million, while the men's was at 30 million. But I think probably the more interesting stat out of this, if you looked at the 2022–23 World Cup finals, where the men's team weren't playing, that achieved 15 million viewers in the UK, but the women's game got 13 million viewers. So that just shows me that there's a solid interest in women's sport. Outside that, it's not just measured in TV viewing. I think more importantly, it's the impact on the wider women's in sport and girls' grassroots football. The BBC has recently reported that there's now twice as many registered female football players in England as there were seven years ago. And the love is increasing. This was the 2022–23 season when there were over 1,500 new teams registered. So what we're seeing is a perfect combination of growing TV, people watching the sport on TV, and more importantly, there's more players wanting to get involved in the sport. So you're creating that dynamic for this growth that we want to see.

Reynolds: Interesting. Title IX here in the States going back some 50 years has certainly increased the opportunities and propensity for women to not only play soccer and basketball but any number of other sports. Richard, if I could stay with you for a minute, given this heightened interest again, and I guess young women perhaps aspiring to get to what is the UK Women's Super League, that's a top soccer league back home.

Berndes: Arsenal were probably arguably the biggest women's team here in the UK. Their average attendance in the 2021-22 season was just over three and a half thousand people. The following season, that has grown up to nearly 17,000 fans every match, so it's a massive increase. And the season that's just finished, Arsenal, as I mentioned, one of the, arguably the biggest team, they played Manchester United and they had 60,000 people and sold out the Emirates Stadium, which is the home stadium for the men's team. What we're seeing is with this quality football, people want to see it. And they've just recently announced that all of the Arsenal women's home fixtures will be played at the Emirates. So what we're seeing is record applications for season tickets for the forthcoming season. And in terms of media rights, this is really important because this is the rollover of the existing deal between Sky and the BBC. So hopefully what we'll see is growing participation, growing numbers, which will leave the WSL in a strong position to negotiate the next media rights deal, which is so important in sports.

Reynolds: All right, Nicole, let's bring the discussion back stateside. Talk about the Caitlin Clark effect at Iowa. Clark broke the NCAA Division I scoring record, topping the mark that was held since 1970 by the late LSU and NBA great Pete Maravich. Clark's impact on interest, viewership, and women's hoops, both the NCAA March Madness Tournament and now in the WNBA as a member of the Indiana Fever. She's doing pretty well, huh, Nicole?

Serino: Yeah, she's doing pretty well. I feel like every time I look at social media now, Caitlin has broken some new record. So yeah, it's obviously amazing to see her break all these records for herself personally as a professional women's athlete, but I think it helps speak to what we're seeing in women's sports as a whole, which is this sort of star effect throughout the game, which has helped bring more awareness to those leagues that these star players are playing in. And we see that just as an example through the record-breaking season that the entire WNBA is having, including the Indiana Fever.

Reynolds: I think that as they hit their All-Star and Olympic break, there have been 16 telecasts that have broken the 1 million viewership figure or more. It hasn't happened for a long time. So, things are pointing way up for the league. Iuri, we'll talk about Caitlin again, as well as Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso, who led South Carolina's completion of its undefeated season with the win over Clark's Iowa team in the March Madness final. They're lifting the awareness, as Nicole just mentioned, and media coverage for the WNBA. Do you think this hoops halo effect is elevating investment interest and outlays for other women's sports?

Struta: Absolutely, Mike. I think star players, when we have them, it just elevates the entire game. And look at what Lionel Messi has done for US soccer. And Caitlin Clark, as you mentioned, for the WNBA just boosts viewership, and investors are watching very closely all these metrics and looking to invest.

Reynolds: Richard, I think the Women's Super League was established in 2010. It became fully professional in 2018 with a dozen clubs. You mentioned the soaring attendance figures. What about viewership? Who are some of the top players that people are watching at home and checking out in the stands?

Berndes: Yeah, sure. In terms of TV viewing, the WSL is shown by the BBC free-to-air over here, but also Sky shows it on pay-per-view. The BBC has reported a 24% increase this season that has just finished on their highest performance, which is nearly a million viewers on the biggest game last year. But in terms of players, the biggest story really has been actually a departure from the WSL. Emma Hayes, who was a very successful manager at Chelsea Women's Team, left the club to actually become head coach of the US national team. Now she's got a fantastic record in the game and changed how the women's game was played, bringing in innovative tactics and also importantly, new thinking about women's health and how it impacts their soccer performance. But in terms of players, I think Khadija Shaw at Manchester City had an amazing season last year, and Grace Clinton at Tottenham also had a great season, so it'll be interesting to see how they're going to kick on next season.

Reynolds: Richard, what about some of the other top women's circuits in Europe? And are any of their rights deals nearing expiration?

Berndes: Yeah. The biggest leagues are the same as in the men's game. It's Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and England here in Europe. They have the most successful sides and have the best players. And in terms of revenues, some of the biggest monies, the combined revenue has gone up and up. In 2012-13, they were getting combined revenue of €9.8 billion. In 2021-22, that's peaked at €17.2 billion. So you can just see this continued growth and interest in the European game. Outside of the domestic leagues, the big story is the Champions League as it is in the men's game. It's the biggest tournament in Europe and it's the trophy all the top teams want to win. And again, looking at some of those revenue figures, in terms of total revenue for the 2021-22 season, it was putting in €15.2 million. And the previous season, it was only €1.4 million. So you can again see this massive interest as the quality of the games gets better, the interest grows. You can only see that going up now. Obviously, this is still some way behind the men's game, but you can just see the direction of travel in terms of growing viewership, growing money as interest in the sport grows and grows.

Reynolds: Nicole, according to reports, the WNBA appears on the cusp of a major rights increase as the NBA nears finalization of its deals. We're talking about, I think, $200 million a year perhaps from Walt Disney Co., ESPN, NBC Sports, and Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime Video. There might be another two packages, presumably from the incumbents of CBS Sports and ION Networks Inc., which could add another $60 million. So even for a guy like me who's not much at math, $260 million versus $60 million currently is a nice uptick.

Serino: Yeah, for sure. That is a nice uptick. And it's exactly what we want to see. We've already seen this play out in this season for the NWSL with last year's landmark media partnership for $240 million. As Richard was alluding to, media rights will make up a growing share of women's sports league revenue, with over 50% of the total revenue in the Women's Super League in the UK coming from their current media contracts. So, it is absolutely crucial that we see more women's leagues negotiating for bigger and greater deals that will not only give them more revenue to continue to expand and grow but put more eyes on the game and make it easier for everyone to watch women's sports.

Reynolds: The big jumps in media rights fees for the WNBA and the NWSL, what does that say to the investment community? It's only got to perk up their ears even more.

Struta: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this will inevitably attract more investors into the asset class. And the bigger the rights, the bigger the valuations of women's teams and the quality of investors, I shall say. We know that some institutional investors need an asset class to reach a certain size before even considering investing because small investments, even if they grow exponentially, for them, don't move the needle too much. So they need to make larger investments. So the bigger the asset class, the higher the quality of the investors.

Reynolds: All right. This will mark the first Olympics where the participants will be 50-50 women and men. Back in the States, there were significant upticks in viewing for the Olympic trials last month here. Nicole, are you feeling the Olympics buzz?

Serino: Yes, thanks, Mike. So first off, we are seeing the IOC take some steps for the Olympics in order to acknowledge and really take advantage of the rise in the interest in women's sports. As we know, and as we detail within our report, the US women win a lot of medals. So much that if the US women had their own sovereign, they would come in fourth place in the medal counts, only behind the US, China, and Russia. So now, some steps that they've taken for this Olympics, each federation is to have one female and one male flag bearer at the opening ceremonies. The Olympics are also improving the coverage of female events and will schedule equal prime-time coverage for men and women's events, as well as changing the last event to be the women's marathon from what it has historically been, which is the men's marathon. It's nice to see, at this special time that we have in women's sports right now, that it's actually being acknowledged. And then when it comes to Olympic buzz, yes, of course, I'm feeling it. Just 10 days ago or so, I was at a very hot and humid US women's soccer sendoff game at Red Bull Arena, where the US Women's team beat Mexico one-nil. And to your point around US Olympic trial viewership being at an all-time high as we highlight in this report, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is excited for the Games to start here in the US. In terms of events and athletes, as a former women's collegiate soccer player, I'm most excited to see the women's soccer competition, of course. I'm obviously excited to see the US play, but also really excited to see these big teams around the globe play. There's a big match, a rematch against Spain and Japan I'm really looking forward to the group stages, but also excited to see other stars and other competitions like Coco Gauff, who's been really impressive in our last couple of tournaments, as well as Simone Biles. This is where we really see her shine. I'm hoping they can win some more medals.

Reynolds: I'm sure they will. As we're all watching here in the States, there'll be no shortage of ads. NBCU expects to break its record. Some sources tell me that figure could approach $1.4 billion before all the counting is done. Nicole, are you surprised that ad sales and sponsorship against women's sports have certainly been leaping alongside the rise in viewership and media rights?

Serino: No, I believe that similar to the IOC and media rights deals that we're seeing, companies are all trying to capitalize on the recent record ratings for women's sports. And as a consequence, it only makes sense we should see these record-breaking ad sales. And this is what we've seen so far, even before the Olympics had started. We've seen global advertisers hiring more female athletes for their marketing campaigns, with more air-time dedicated to women's sports, and the increased use of female sports stars in these advertisements. It really only makes sense that ad sales are going to keep rising.

Reynolds: Everybody, we're getting to the end here. I want to finish up with a bit of a look ahead. Iuri, what do you see in terms of women's sports investment opportunities in the next few years?

Struta: Hey, yes. So I think from my discussions with some investors, there is a sense that in the US and the UK, women's sports have reached a certain maturity, especially in terms of valuations, and some investors are seeing a lot of opportunities in continental Europe, where valuations have not grown as much.

Reynolds: Richard, what's on your radar in terms of women's sports over the next few years?

Berndes: Yeah, I think I can echo what Nicole's been saying. I think the really important factor for women's sports is maximizing media rights and securing those commercial opportunities that the opportunity presents itself. These are going to be the key things to embrace. Let's be blunt, sponsors and advertisers chase events that offer scale and the right commercial demographics to sell to their customers. Women's sports now have this, and let's just hope the opportunity is grasped. But I think more importantly, I think what we want to see is the great sporting achievements and the performances and the viewing and exposure we're seeing now. Let's hope it filters right down to the grassroots so we get the next generation of the Caitlin Clarks coming through. I think that's really important to see if we can achieve that.

Reynolds: Absolutely. Nicole, your thoughts? Are we all going to be working on another women's sports report?

Serino: I sure hope so. I think this report has been a great success. But I think one of the greatest challenges we faced when writing this report was collecting and aggregating data and seeing what that data says will hopefully guide us on our next report and topic. But I think I can speak for all of us and say we're definitely hoping that we can give this next report a more global view.

Reynolds: All right. More work, fellas. Anyway, as for me, I'm curious about how the Women's March Madness Tournament will compare relative to the 2024 events. Massive viewership. More immediately, we'll see what the WNBA's audience will be. Will it accelerate after the Olympics? The league's players are on all the national teams and continue into the September-October postseason when they're up against football.

Anyway, I wanted to thank our guests today, Nicole, Richard and Iuri, for talking about women's sports and our thought leadership sports report. Thanks, guys.

Serino: Thanks, Mike, for having us.

Struta: Thanks, Mike, for having me.

Berndes: Thanks, Mike. It's been a great discussion.

Reynolds: All right, everybody. That concludes this episode of "Media Talk." I just want to thank S&P Ratings' Nicole Serino, Kagan's Richard Berndes, and my colleague at S&P Market Intelligence, Iuri Struta. Thanks, everybody. This is Mike Reynolds. Appreciate all of you listening. We'll catch up soon on the next edition of "MediaTalk."