How to build a billion-dollar sports team from scratch, with Golden State Valkyries’ Jess Smith

When Jess Smith became employee number one for the Bay Area’s WNBA expansion team, the future was a blank slate. Now, the Golden State Valkyries brand is boasting a unicorn valuation in just its second season. Smith talks with host Jeff Berman about building the brand from scratch, the rise of women’s professional sports, and why so many women in the C-Suite are former athletes. Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 2:07Speaker 02

  The WNBA is 31 years old, right? So it's taken a lot of ups and downs to get it here. But what you're seeing that's different is investment. When so many people are asking, why is it working? You have to have capital. You can think you're going to do great things, and if you don't have capital, you're going to miss the mark.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Someone who is at the forefront of the revolution happening right now in women's professional sports.

• 2:28Speaker 04

  Please welcome the newest WNBA team president.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Jess Smith.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  Jess Smith, the president of the WNBA's Golden State Valkyries, Jess Smith.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  When you showed up on day one, what'd you do?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Panicked, like I'm the momentum. I have to figure this out and direct us where to go in a year and a half time until we tip off. The most fun part of that equation is the generational fandom. You know, here in the Bay Area, you know, I have two young girls. They're five and seven, and they will know nothing different than a Chase Center that's packed for the Warriors and packed for the Valkyries.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Hey, folks, Jeff Berman here. Before we dive into today's episode, I'm talking with a very special guest, my friend Jamie Batmer, Chief Investment Officer of Creative Planning, one of the largest independent wealth management firms in the country, a sponsor of Masters of Scale, and a truly exceptional company. Jamie, welcome to Masters of Scale.

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  Hey, thank you so much for having me.

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  At Masters of Scale, we have conversations with a lot of founders who feel wealthy when their company's valuation takes off. On so many levels, it feels like security. But when we look at it from a step back, it's also risk, right? There are massive tax implications when you IPO or get acquired.

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  They've been focused on that, you know, right? Just grinding every day, making their business better. People think, okay, this liquidity event is here. I'm about to have this windfall. Let's get on it. No, no, no. These are all things, like anything, you fortify the defenses years in advance. The longer runway you have, the more you put the odds in your favor. The data says you don't try and outsmart it, you try and optimally own it, right? It's through these tax dynamics, the estate dynamics. That's what we're hyper focused on. On average, one year later, an IPO is down 31%. I mean, think about that. Think if Wall Street hung up a sign that said, this investment on average will lose a third of its value one year from now.

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• 5:23Speaker 00

  Jamie, thank you so much for joining us. And now, on to the show.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. We have a very special guest on Masters of Scale today. Jess Smith, who runs the Golden State Valkyries, the fastest growing sports franchise in America, going from $50 million expansion fee to a billion dollar valuation in about two and a half years. Absolutely extraordinary growth in a category that's exploding as well. Jess, welcome to Masters of Scale.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Thank you. It's an honor to be here and talk about this.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  I'm so happy to have you here. You and I first met at Angel City, where I was a season one ticket holder. My oldest, who is not a sports fan, won't go to anything except for an Angel City game because he loves the energy of it. What did you learn at Angel City that you're now carrying forward in your new role?

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I mean, that whole opportunity to be a part of that organization taught me everything, you know, truly. I take 15 years before that happened in the sports industry and in a variety of different leagues, learning how Major League Soccer operated different than the National Hockey League and operated different than Major League Baseball. And by the time I joined Julie Erman and Karen Orman and Natalie Portman at Angel City, there were five of us in our homes on our laptops in the pandemic, saying, we're going to build the most powerful women's sports team in the world. And that was really what we set out to do. We, first of all, were really curious. I think when you go into a brand new product, sports or not, you have to understand the landscape and understand who you're going to be. And we did a really good job of defining who we were going to be and what we were going to do from day one. You're building something for an audience that's been untapped.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  And when you can tap into them and build them an elite product that they've been waiting for, they show up and help to build that atmosphere. They have to show up and be loud and invest in the product to make it operate. That's part of the science and really what goes into the behind the scenes. When I first got to Angel City and was thinking, how are we going to fill this venue? One of the main questions I had was, well, what is the actual crossover between the men's and women's teams that are sharing venues? Whether that's shared ownership or not. And what I found through a very exclusive study, which was me calling people, there was really no more than 10% that you saw crossover. So that was an immediate light bulb to us. You should be building for the 90 and then inviting the 10 to be a part of that, of course. And so, you know, there's a lot that goes into it.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  But I think knowing your audience and building that product for them is the most important.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  What are you looking for in terms of what the markers are of when the brand is landing? And how are you adjusting as you go to build that deep brand connection?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  I mean, for the Valkyries, to be honest, it landed right away. And I think some of that is you look at the power of the WNBA even as we were coming into it, right? The first expansion team since 2008, the Bay Area, which has its own energy. This is where people look to see what comes next, right? What we saw right away was merchandise sales. And mind you, we had no players. We launched our brand a year before. We actually launched on an opening day of the WNBA season in 2024, a year before we would take the court. And we sold merchandise in 60 days in 70 countries and all 50 states.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Why did the brand land so well with people?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  It was its own. It was powerful. It was representative of the Bay, but of something bigger than that. And we wanted very aggressively to be like, when you saw the color, you thought of us. It's our job to build out what that means. But what is that colorway was going to be really, really important. But when we saw this Valkyries Violet, like, we knew it was ours, right? It was something that could be used from a lifestyle perspective, but it was powerful.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  The one true category leader brand where I've worked is the NFL, and that is a big category leader. I've spent most of my career working with insurgent or challenger brands. You were in Major League Baseball, you were in the NHL, you were in the MLS. They all are, you know, kind of category leaders. When you jumped over to Angel City and then to the W, what changed for you in terms of how you had to think about what you were doing? Because you were at least at more of a challenger brand than you'd done before.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  I mean, I think if you look at my resume in the most respectful way, I was also at challenger brands within those leagues.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  And I think for me, in hindsight, that served me so well in experience standpoint. I had to work to educate, to be a part of making these brands mean something more than simply the top team in the top media market. And I love that. You know, very candidly, for me and my personal background, I come from being the first person in my family to graduate from college. My mom had me young. And I credit that from getting access to sport early. I played basketball, you know, amongst softball and some other sports, but basketball was my favorite. And it taught me a lot. But as I had a chance to move into working in women's sports with the investors that wanted to make it great, I was able to take that traditional sports experience and also my lived experience and not lose sight of why we're doing it.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  I think when you're building a powerful brand like an Angel City, like a Golden State Valkyries, and knowing what you're going after, you can't ignore the fact that the communities you're representing are still underserved. And I think there's ways to build with mission and capital coexisting. And that's what's made those two products really powerful, is they're doing both. They're unapologetic about being great, and they're not going to stop. But the why and the opportunity for engagement and visibility and actual societal impacts also exists.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  You're talking about a community that's underserved. How do you define that community?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  I mean, one fandom, right? Being a women's sports fan has been really difficult. When we were building the Valkyries, so many people came up to me and said, please make it cool, right? I want the club experience. I want to eat sushi at a basketball game and drink champagne. Like, we've got you, right? Secondly, you can't ignore that the communities that are represented through our athletes have been underserved, you know, specifically in the WNBA. When you look across these incredible athletes and their platforms and who they represent, it's important that we have those conversations and also talk about accessibility, right? Women still don't have the same access to sport as men. That's just a fact. That's okay for us to say and okay for us to engage with and know things like 94% of women in the sea level suite have had access to sport.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  So how do we change that? It's pretty simple. We're a sports team. We get a chance to work with our partners and community to provide more access to sport. And there's a lot of things like that that we get a chance to do.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  There's historically been this boom bust cycle in women's sports, right? You have a Women's World Cup happen, the viewership is off the charts, to your point, and then, you know, there's a drop off because you haven't had the sustained flywheel where brands are investing because the dollars are there, the media companies are investing more, not only in the rights, but in the promotion. When that happens, there's more money, for example, for revenue sharing for players, which can incentivize more people. I mean, right? There's a flywheel that happens. It looks like we are breaking or we have broken that that negative cycle and we're in the positive cycle and it will sustain. How, am I right? Is that the right way to think about this?

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I still think there's a lot of young leagues emerging, which are great, right? We've got two volleyball leagues, we've got professional baseball. So I think we also have to remember there's a lot of brand new leagues and it's going to take them some time to mature. The WNBA is 31 years old, right? So it's taken a lot of ups and downs to get it here. But what you're seeing that's different to your point and what we can't ignore is investment. When so many people are asking, why is it working? To me, three pronged, but the first is investment. You have to have capital. You can think you're going to do great things. You can have all these great ideas. And if you don't have capital to actually build that out in the simplest of forms, like hiring staff and good people to run your product, then you're going to miss the mark. The second are people.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  You know, I look back even from my own consumer mind at the pandemic, you know, that was such a shift in how we're seeing fandom and the responsibility of fandom in women's sports happen. The bubble happened and all of a sudden people were watching and people are talking about these incredible viewership metrics and merchandise sales are going up. Well, then all of a sudden you're getting better windows and better production and more visibility and your algorithms on your phones are changing. And people really understood their power in that equation. And the third is media. You know, I think we can't ignore that media continues to be one of the most prominent ways that women's sports are put in the right places to gain consumers, right? Whether you're looking at these college basketball

• 13:43Speaker 02

  numbers over the last number of years, let's not forget, it wasn't even allowed to be called March Madness at one point. And now you can go to one network and find the games and look what's happening. And then those viewers are following these athletes into the W. That's huge. Seems really simple. It's not, right? There's only so many windows on these networks. But as the product continues to prove its power, that's going to continue to increase it like never before. But it's not just basketball, right? Like women's softball ratings are unbelievable, right? There's so much potential out there for that flywheel, to your point, to continue. And it's not going anywhere. I think the most fun part of that equation to think about, though, is the generational fandom. You know, here in the Bay Area, you know, I have two young girls, they're five and seven, and they will

• 14:25Speaker 02

  know nothing different than a Chase Center that's packed for the Warriors and packed for the Valkyries. And that mindset of young girls and boys idolizing these athletes, just, you know, seeing Veronica Burton and Steph Curry as the same, that's really where this takes like real shape, you know? And so as we follow their fan journey in the next 10 plus years, it's going to be really, really cool.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Former boss of mine is very fond of saying it's easier to catch a wave than create a wave. You have, in your last gig at Angel City and here at the Valkyries, it feels like you're doing both. How do you think about that?

• 14:56Speaker 02

  I think about it every day, all day. It's exhausting and wonderful at the same time because it matters, right? I think for us, you know, we knew even being this expansion team, you know, first expansion team since 2008, there was a weight to this. Us getting this right showcased what was possible and dictated what investment was going to come next. So we are always thinking about that. Our success matters much differently than just, we want to be the best at everything that we want to do. And by the way, we do. But two, like not to overthink that it should be fun. You know, I think one of the things people miss in these conversations or miss in the everyday that I get to do is like, how do we have fun with this? You know, for instance, the mascot, because Violet does a ton for us. Number one, she's so cool. She's our bestie, as you know. Being able

• 15:38Speaker 02

  to bring her, you know, out into the community and have her showcased as a part of our brand in so many different spaces that otherwise we wouldn't be invited into is such an advantage.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  What went into framing Violet's personality and what's really working there?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  You know, you're in Valhalla. You definitely feel like you're in another universe, right? And so she's an added element that why wouldn't there be a Violet Raven running around, you know, that we call our best friend? The Raven is a big part of the Norse mythology. The ability to make her Violet in color and in name, we call her Vi sometimes too, you know, is an opportunity to continue to define our brand. When you see her, you see her, she's like bright and energetic. What are the things that ravens love to do? Well, they love shiny things. They're songbirds. They love music. So her entire personality is really a tribute to, you know, the prowess of a Raven as well. So of course, she's a great dancer, you know, she can throw it down with the best of them. But those moments of, you know, defining who

• 16:34Speaker 02

  she is help reinforce our brand and give us another layer to, you know, that line of Norse mythology that we like to, you know, that we like to toe.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  You were employee one at the Valkyries?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  So you're doing a startup inside a legacy institution, a fairly young one relative to the leagues that we think about maybe more popularly in America, but it's still an interesting dynamic. When you showed up on day one, what'd you do?

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Panicked. No, I mean, after going through a startup with Angel City, for those that have done it, it's relatable. And you sit there and you realize when you talk about momentum, oh, that's me. Like, I'm the momentum. I have to figure this out and direct us where to go in a year and a half time until we tip off to build this team to the potential that I knew it could be built to. You are building the plane as you're flying it, as they say, and that is so true, right? So you start doing all the jobs, you know, but you're also hiring into the jobs that you need. What's been great about building at Golden State is some of the advantages that we've had are, one, we are Golden State. There is a reputation that they've worked really hard to build. There are facilities that they've worked really hard to build. So within those very first weeks, we were making commitments

• 17:47Speaker 02

  to renovate our practice facility, build a locker room inside Chase Center. And having Golden State and the power of Golden State say yes to those things and help me with those things was definitely a game changer and one I don't take for granted or candidly take much credit for. Like, they had infrastructure to help me. The most important things, you know, are getting that set and then building this brand the right way, right? You can't go to market too soon, even though you're kind of panicked about the timeline, until you know who you are. And so really putting a bow on who we were going to be, the Valkyries name, the Valkyries branding, the Valkyries launch, how we're going to tell this story and keeping it a secret, you know, which is really hard to do, having merchandise ready for the moment as well. And getting that right opened the permission for us to have

• 18:29Speaker 02

  season ticket holders start to engage with us and very candidly have brands start to engage with us. Even when I got there, I come from partnerships, it's my background, I love it. And so many brands were like, let's talk. And I had to say, not yet. Because what it meant to be a Valkyries partner wasn't defined yet. And so we had to really figure that out and be really confident in that before we went to market because you can only go to market once. So if you go to market too quick and you don't know what you're asking for, it ends up being more harmful than helpful.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  We love all of our guests equally at Masters of Scale, obviously, because they're all absolutely amazing. But occasionally, I personally have a holy balls, I can't believe I get to do this for a living, oh my goodness moment. I had one of those recently with Jim Collins. He's the foundation of my business education because as someone who did 10 years in public service before I went to the private sector with no formal business training whatsoever, I had to teach myself. One of the things that Jim talks about on our recent episode and in his new book is what he calls who luck.

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  It's the luck of people who cross paths with you and they play a huge role in your life. My guidance to folks is you've got to find ways to just increase the chances that you're just going to have a marvelous conversation or bump into somebody or to be curious about something.

• 19:45Speaker 00

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• 22:04Speaker 00

  Partnerships is so much more art than science. How did you land on what that go-to-market looked like for your partnership strategy?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  It really went back to when we're building the Valkyries, who are we and what are we doing? And how did partnerships fit into that? So when we talk about mission and capital coexisting, one, the knowledge that, yeah, we're going to have a full arena, and the media is going to be great, and we're going to hire into the right roles. So the social media and the everything that you're looking for for metrics is going to exist. But why would you do this partnership? And how are you going to reach our fans in a deeper level which exists with this caliber of end is what we had to define. And so where we landed was, for all of our founding-level partners, there was going to be an impact council. And so right now, we have nine founding partners that sit around the table together. We've got Sephora, JPMorgan Chase, Kaiser Permanente, Ollie Vitamins, Rakitin, et cetera. And they're

• 22:55Speaker 02

  not just investing with us, they are having unique programs in the community that are driving outcomes. But also, we're going to start talking a little bit more about what we're going to do as a group, because it's not done yet, it's not seen yet. I think in partnership, you have the opportunity to say honestly, that's the exciting part about being our partner, is that the trajectory of women's sports and women's sports fandom is just getting started. So how are we actually navigating this together with deep impact for your brand and your outcomes, but also learnings that we can apply directly together?

• 23:26Speaker 00

  There's a tension, when you're building a mass brand, to having your stars engaged in social activism. And there's a higher level of tension when a brand itself, whether it's the W or a club engages in that as well. How do you think about striking that balance in a time where the country feels so divided in so many ways?

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Our athletes and every athlete of the WNBA are their own people and platform. And I think that the communities they represent and the attention that they get is warranted because of the genuineness of how they're sharing these stories and what it means to them and what it's meant to them and those around them. I think we've had a lot of male athletes do the exact same thing, but I think because they are women, rightfully so, in the communities they represent, there's a lot more attention to it. So for us, we want every athlete to be themselves and to have platforms to support that. Then as a team, how we're looking at it is, who are we as a team? And what are we representing? And

• 24:31Speaker 02

  for us, we want to make sure that we're providing safe and celebrated spaces for athletes and for our fans. And when you walk into a game at Ball Hala, it's joyful. That's our job, is to maintain that and to protect that. While they're two separate things, I think when you look at the convergence of the opportunity for them to come together, there are definitely moments of representation that you can't find anywhere else. Our Pride game was a great example of that, and none of that was forced. We are a part of the San Francisco Pride Weekend, like almost every team here, I believe every team in the Bay Area, and the Friday night, we have a game. It's a celebration. We then win, you know?

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  In epic fashion, of course. And the celebration of that win feels deeper and more meaningful because of who's gathered there and having that moment together.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Going back to my NFL experience, the league looked at it as shield, the league, club, and then player. The reality of where we are in sports right now is by and large, and the Valkyries and Angels are both exceptions to this in many ways, it's really player, club, and then league. We're in a moment right now where there are so many marketable stars in the league, both as you're building the club and as you're looking at accelerating this wave that's building. How do you think about player marketing versus club marketing versus league marketing?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, the players of this league are incredibly powerful and only continuing to rise. And I think one of the dominant moments of looking back at the growth that you're seeing is that traditional sport fan finding that visibility through college basketball and following these classes of athletes into the WNBA. That is a new fan coming into the WNBA, right? And they care deeply about those athletes that they already have worn their jerseys for. And to your point, they might choose their W team based on who that athlete is, because they don't have the legacy fandom of their family saying, this is our team. So it's a really unique point in time where these fanbases are going to grow, not just from geography, but simply from the player themselves. What we can control as a team

• 26:44Speaker 02

  is being who we are, representative of this region, regardless of who's on our team. And we always need to do that. What's our culture? What are our values? Who are we going to be? And then who comes into it with the power that they have? We hope that when they are here, one, that they stay forever, because it's so much fun regardless of the athlete that's here. But even if they follow an athlete elsewhere, that they remain engaged with us. Even if we're not their top team, because that athlete has decided to move on, they're still going to follow us on social media, we hope. They're still going to talk really great about us. They're going to look back at those retro jerseys that they bought, and they're going to want that moment or crave that moment again, if we've done our jobs correctly. And from a league, the opportunity is to harness all of it, to make sure that every media partner understands the power of all of these athletes. You've got Asia

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Wilson, I mean, just one of the most dominant athletes of all time.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Generational.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Yes, generational in our league. Next to Paige Becker's, Katelyn Clark, look at Olivia Miles is doing this season.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, insane.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Right. Like, there's 20 stories like this. How are you telling them? When do they converge? When do they stand alone? How do they represent diverse fandom throughout our country and internationally? I think it's going to be really, really fun to follow.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Going from a $50 million expansion fee to a billion-dollar valuation in about two and a half years is a pretty extraordinary thing. What lessons can you draw from your experience that would be applicable to someone who's not in sport as they're trying to go on a similar scale journey?

• 28:12Speaker 02

  It's very relatable to startup world and funding and what you need. The reality is, you have to be really, really specific about who you are and what you're building, and unapologetic about the outcomes that you're going to go get. And you have to get funding to do so. I talked about this a little bit earlier, but why we've been successful, the belief that Joe Lacob and Peter Guber have in me and have in our entire team is astounding. And they've had it from day one. They ask really hard questions and want you to have a stance, but when you believe and know something's going to work out, they say yes. And I think having the right investors is really, really important. And staying true to your core product is really, really important for the opportunity to expand it

• 28:56Speaker 02

  elsewhere. I think the journey is hiring into revenue, making sure there's two main things that remain focused on our OKRs every year, and that's revenue and fans, right?

• 29:09Speaker 00

  But not a ring, a ring.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, no, if you're asking Joe, that's it. Yes, 100%. For me, and what I can control, which is not signing an athlete myself or playing basketball, no. Winning, and winning is a part of that. When you're looking at the behind the scenes, I'm building a startup, yes, you have to be the best and want to win. But outside of that, we are focused on growing and deepening our audience and driving revenue, which will allow us to grow and deepen our audience.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  When you look back on the journey to this point, what's something that you wish you had a mulligan for? What do you wish you had to do ever?

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. I only get one?

• 29:44Speaker 00

  You can take as many mulligans as you want.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  I mean, something I give myself credit for is understanding the power of hiring and staff into revenue versus needing to accomplish revenue and then hire afterward, because it hurts your product. That said, I would have done it even quicker in year one. I knew that this was on its way to the continued growth that we're seeing for the Valkyries. And I think we could have met the moment even deeper if I had been more aggressive on the front end around some of those resources. I should have followed my gut feeling in that moment.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  I feel like this is a key to blitzscaling that we often, you look back and almost everywhere you talk to who's had a similar kind of rise, because we could have gone even faster.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  We could have gone faster and bigger.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  And that's a great problem to have, because the market has continued to reward us, you know, for what we're putting out there. But that's my responsibility.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  One of the unusual things about working in professional sport is you are fiercely competing with the other clubs. And also, the overall product rises when you share best practices and everyone is lifting. How do you think about that when a fellow club president calls you up and has a set of questions? You're like, gosh, I really want to help because I care about the product, but also, I don't want them to beat us at the end of the season?

• 30:57Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I don't think the commercial advantages are going to take away from the on-court competitiveness. My responsibility is to have the best home-court advantage those players have ever seen. That's what we tell them. And to make sure that the world knows who they are. But from a commercial standpoint, I think one of the fun parts about this moment in time in building in women's sports, and I think specifically the WNBA, is everyone cares about growing the WNBA first. And that's really cool to be a part of. The league's success is our success, right? That visibility, these opportunities to work with our players in big ways. We need to have a seat at that table and feel really compelled to be a part of something that's bigger than ourselves. And then you level down a bit, and no matter how good other folks get, we're going to be competitive and want to be better.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  One of the other places, there's a really interesting tension for the Valkyries, because you've done such an extraordinary job building the brand, building a community presence, bringing the community into the club, is just absolutely obliterating records for season tickets sold, season ticket holders, filling 18,000-plus people for every game. But you want to be accessible. You want a broad base of people coming to games and experiencing what it means to be at Balhala. And the secondary market reflects that you are probably leaving some money on the table, because it's not cheap to get even a secondary market ticket to a game. How do you think about ticket pricing? How do you think about

• 32:23Speaker 00

  community access and accessibility, where you also want to make money?

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, money is important, right? And it's important to our players, you know, in this current construct as well. Making sure that you are pricing fairly for the product on the court is incredibly important, right? You are reflecting the caliber of what they're seeing. And so if you're building an elite product from a game experience standpoint, obviously, these are the best athletes in the world competing, you know, what your venue has to deal with. It's, you have to be aggressive enough to make sure that that's a reflection of them, right? And so I think the accessibility piece comes in two forms. One, of course, access to tickets. You know, you can find a $15 ticket if you buy early enough to a Valkyries game. Does that mean that the last minute before a big matchup, when we're playoff bound, that you're going to find a $15 ticket?

• 33:08Speaker 02

  No. But that's a reflection of the core product. We make sure that we keep tickets aside and donate tickets, you know, on behalf of ourselves, on behalf of our partners, for every single game. But I think the most important thing to keep in mind is the ticketed product is just a small part of our business. And when you look at the most successful sports brands around the world, they often see 1% of their fans ever go to a game. But how are we building everything else? You know, we launched a bar network this year. We have 40 bars across Northern California committed to playing every single Valkyries game. One, that visibility is important. But two, we're now supporting small business and allowing our community to gather wherever they want to, that's accessible for them.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  If you and I are back, hopefully, having a follow-up conversation two, three years out, pick your horizon, what does success look like for you, for the Valkyries, and for the W?

• 33:57Speaker 02

  I mean, the W, I like smirk because we're just getting started, right? More expansions coming. We had Portland and Toronto. We're going to see Philadelphia and Cleveland and Detroit come in. Those are major markets, opportunities for more rivals. That's good for everybody. Two is visibility, and that's going to come in two forms. One, this media deal, like, we're just getting started. The casual viewer that is going to begin flooding into this league through the exposure of the WNBA. The number of times I walk into a sports bar now and like, well, it's not that often. I don't get out that much. But when I do, you're hearing every different group of people talk about the W in real time, the scores, the standings, the playoffs. So that media deal is going to continue to

• 34:39Speaker 02

  be transformative in ways that we can expand that. And three, there's actually more games. When you look across just the span of the mature sports leagues and think about if any one of them added 15% more games, well, that's what's happening in the WNBA, right? So as a team, that's three more ticketed opportunities for us. That's three additional on-the-road games and viewerships for six total games. That's a big deal, right? And so I think those pieces in two, three years timeframe, they're going to make a giant opportunity, you know, for us to go get when it comes to fandoms, deepening fandom and driving revenue.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  How do you think about sports gambling in this respect? Is that a place you want to lean in to help drive the more casual fan into the W?

• 35:19Speaker 02

  I think, much like any league, it's something that you have to get right versus rush into. There's so many different layers and repercussions. And yes, fandom, but also, you know, responsibility that comes with that. And so my personal take is, we shouldn't be rushing into that. If and as that comes to be in a formal setting, it has to be done right, and in a way that preserves what the game is, right? The game and the fairness to it and everything around it is really, really important.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  As a student athlete yourself, as you cited, the 94% of women in C-suite roles play to organize sport. And yet, we do see this drop-off that you referenced, particularly in high school, as girls like my niece, who are super active, pull out. What do you think's happening there? I know you all are invested in helping turn that around. What are some of the keys to bridging that?

• 36:16Speaker 02

  I mean, one of the very obvious ones is it's puberty. And I think so many people aren't talking about that. But a lot happens, you know, to children at that age. And specific to girls, one of the projects we did at Angel City was, we partnered with Nike, and for every C deposit, we donated a sports bra to a young girl in need. And to know that one of the main reasons young girls stop playing sports is they don't have access to a sports bra, is defeating, right? And so there are simple fixes like that, of making sure we can fund and give access to the equipment that young girls need, and also how they feel, you know, around their coaches during that time, the safety that they feel, having

• 36:58Speaker 02

  access to the right period products so that they don't feel embarrassed in those moments, you know, that something may happen. There's a lot that happens in a young woman's life at that time, let alone any other societal things, you know, going on. So we want to be eyes wide open and very well aware of that. In fact, we have a partnership with Cora, who works on feminine products. And it's not a secret. You know, it's something that every girl and woman goes through. And how do we make sure that we're building confident young women at every age, whether they're playing sports or not, is really important to us.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Just before we wrap up, I want to invite a very special guest in. Would that be okay with you?

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 37:32Speaker 00

  Okay, so I'm going to introduce the amazing Rosie Berman. She happens to be my niece. We do share her last name. She's a huge Valkyries fan. And when she found out you and I were in a conversation, she was dying to come in. So I'm going to have her come take my seat and ask you a couple of questions.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Please, please do.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Awesome. Rosie, come on.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Hi, Rosie.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  Take the host chair. Let's get this set up for you.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Ready to go in Balhala?

• 37:55Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 37:56Speaker 07

  Um, I'm starting playing a bunch of sports at the same time. Do you have any advice for me?

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Well, first, are you having fun?

• 38:02Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  That's the most important part of anything that you do, is you really have to like it. In sports, when you really have fun doing it, you're probably going to play harder, do your best, and really find ways to get great outcomes. And even when you don't, you're probably going to learn something from it. So honestly, just have fun. Just get out there and try your best at everything that you do. Don't worry about anything else.

• 38:21Speaker 07

  Yeah. And then my second question is, how many people come to the games usually?

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Well, we've been really fortunate to have the best fans, as you've probably know, because it seems like you've been there.

• 38:33Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Over 18,000 fans come to Chase Center for every single game. We've sold out every game in our history, which is a great testament to the community that's around us. And you can hear them, right? It's pretty loud.

• 38:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 07

  And then, what's the process for picking the players on the team?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Well, two years ago, we were in a brand-new team, an expansion team that came into the WNBA. And we went through an expansion draft, meaning that we got to actually steal a player from other teams. They could protect some, but then we kind of took a look at their roster and said, oh, I'll take this one. Then what we did from there is we added free agents, so players that weren't currently on another team or had an option to go elsewhere, or players that weren't in the WNBA yet. And for us, that meant some international players as well. And then this year, that process was a little different, because there were two new expansion teams, and they got to steal players from us. So they took two players from us. And then same thing, we went to free agency and signed some new players like Gabby Williams and Kia Stokes, and were able to put our team together for this year. What do you think about Violet?

• 39:33Speaker 07

  Uh, she's really cool.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  I really like her, too.

• 39:36Speaker 07

  My first game was on Violet's birthday, and I got to see her fly.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  You were there for that?

• 39:41Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  So fun fact, that was my birthday, too. So it was a great celebration for that. I was very nervous for her flying, but she did a great job. That was really, really cool.

• 39:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  That's so cool you got to see that. Thank you for being a part of Balhala and our fan group. It means a lot. And I hope you still have tons of fun while you're playing sports.

• 39:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Awesome. Good to see you.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  Good job, Rosie. Well, as the saying goes, everyone watches women's sports. And part of the reason for that is what you and Violet and the Valkyries are doing. And we're so grateful for you. Thank you for being on Masters of Scale.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 40:15Speaker 00

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• 41:31Speaker 09

  Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

• 41:35Speaker 10

  There's going to be two types of companies. Those are great at AI, and those that went out of business because they weren't.

• 41:40Speaker 11

  How do we build a future that is human-centered?

• 41:45Speaker 12

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• 42:15Speaker 00

  Masters of Scale is a Wait What original. Our executive producer is Eve Trow. Senior supervising producer is Tricia Bobita. Associate producer is Masha Makatenina. Video editor is MG Frederick. Senior talent executive is Stephanie Stern. Mixing and mastering by the audio boys themselves, Aaron Bestinelli and Brian Pugh, with original music by the remarkable Ryan Holiday. Visit mastersofscale.com to find the transcript for this episode and to subscribe to our newsletter. And be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.