Female athletes drive 2.8x better conversion than influencers

Your Women's Sports Business Digest

March 19, 2026

Temwa Chawinga won back-to-back NWSL MVP awards and set the single-season scoring record. When Always Alpha met her, she was still buying her own Nike boots to play in.

That gap between on-field dominance and commercial support would be unthinkable for a male MVP. But it's exactly what Allyson Felix and Cosette Chaput see when brands apply partnership models designed for male athletes to women (who earn 80-90% of income from marketing, not playing contracts).

🤿 Below the Surface

Here's what's on deck this week:

  • Signal Strength: The mistakes brands make when measuring partnerships in women’s sports

  • In the Current: From flag football to F1, brands are showing up where women's sports momentum is undeniable

  • Blue Zone: Business of Women's Sports Summit one month countdown starts NOW

  • Shark Bite: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on what 30,000 fans at an NWSL opener means for the city

⚡️ Signal Strength  

The New Sports Marketing Designed for Women

Always Alpha built the first management firm designed exclusively around female athletes because the existing model didn't fit.

Female athletes earn 80-90% from marketing and sponsorships. Yet brands evaluate both using the same metrics they do for female influencers: primarily follower counts.

"One thing that comes up a lot is what we call vanity metrics," Chaput says. Brands miss out on the fact that female athletes garner attention that create fandoms instead of traditional audiences.

The conversion data: Peloton instructors Becs Gentry and Kirsten Ferguson each have roughly 200,000 Instagram followers. Brands see that number and think “that’s not big enough.” What they aren’t accounting for is that their engagement rates run 10-12%. 

The industry benchmark sits around 3%. What they should be thinking is “they get engagement that’s 4x higher than the standard.”

Where the opportunity sits: Three categories remain "exceptionally behind" despite selling almost exclusively to women: 

  • Beauty

  • Fashion

  • Parenting and motherhood brands

Felix created the first Olympic Village nursery at Paris 2024, breaking into this category. Large players like Nike and Sephora are getting warmed up, but partnerships have to evolve to fit the ways in which female athletes capture and engage their fans. 

Brands that don’t keep up with the exponential growth are going to wonder why their answer to the partnership equation looks so small.

Read the complete playbook.

📰 In the Current  

We monitor the current so you can ride the wave. Here's what you need to know this week:

  • Flag football is headed to the 2028 Olympics, and Under Armour is already building its presence in the space, partnering with Just Women's Sports to spotlight USA wide receiver Isabella Geraci as participation surges at the high school and collegiate levels.

  • Alexis Ohanian told Sports Illustrated his portfolio, which spans Angel City FC, Chelsea women's soccer, Athlos, and League One Volleyball, is driven entirely by commercial returns — a direct rejection of the charity framing that dominated early women's sports ownership.

  • The PWHL lands its first national U.S. broadcast. Ally Financial and Scripps Sports will air the New York Sirens vs. Montréal Victoire on ION March 28, reaching 126 million households, as the league posts a 20% year-over-year attendance increase.

  • Sephora named F1 Academy's official beauty retail partner, targeting a fan base where women account for 3 of 4 new F1 fans and 42% of women F1 fans already watch the women's racing series.

🦈 Blue Zone  

We’re less than a month away from the 4th annual Business of Women’s Sports Summit presented by GEICO.

Join us on April 14th with the biggest stakeholders and power players in women’s sports to talk about the ideas, insights, and opportunities to keep the industry moving forward.

Tickets on sale now 👉 BOWS2026.splashthat.com

Newly announced speakers include Indiana Fever star Aliyah Boston along with Amber Cox (COO & GM) and Joey Graziano (CCO). Maggie Murphy (Managing Director, Aston Villa Women FC), Jennifer Rizzotti (President, Connecticut Sun), Chad Babel (Founder & CEO, MADE Hoops), and Kamal Bhandal (SVP, Global Invisalign Brand, Consumer and Americas).

🌊 Shark Bite

Many of the parents in attendance [for Boston Legacy’s inaugural NWSL home opener] said they were excited for their children to have female athletes to look up to. That included Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who brought her two sons and daughter to the game.

“ The power of knowing that these are our role models who are not just on the field, but connected to our community off the field is really incredible,” she said. “We are looking forward to deepening this partnership. We're well underway with their permanent home right in Boston and White Stadium.  It's just a really wonderful moment to celebrate together.”

Boston Legacy FC set an NWSL record for the highest-attended inaugural home opener in league history, drawing 30K+ fans to Gillette Stadium on March 14, 2026 against Gotham FC. 

Brands evaluating women's sports partnerships right now are making category-creation decisions.

20% of Always Alpha's clients never had agents before. You're watching infrastructure get built in real time.

– Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment

Interested in learning what Deep Blue is up to? Have an idea?  

Reach us at [email protected].

Rising Tide is published by Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, the first-of-its-kind firm designed to identify, create, and influence business models and growth opportunities in women's sports for forward-thinking brands.