Rising Tide 🦈 August 5, 2025

🤿 Below the Surface

Here's what's on deck this week:

• Signal Strength: Build a partnership with IMPACT in 6 steps

• In the Current: From global attendance to rookie card sales records

• Blue Zone: Need for Speed: Deep Blue partners with NHRA to highlight women’s motorsports

• Shark Bite: USWNT Head Coach Emma Hayes says what we’re all thinking

⚡️ Signal Strength  

The smartest women's sports partnerships go beyond the PR.

They build systems that scale. 

VOICEINSPORT's Stef Strack cracked the code on turning partnership agreements into measurable athlete impact. Her six-step IMPACT process is supporting 50,000 young female athletes, an 85% confidence boost, and a multi-year renewal with the WNBA Changemakers—a coalition of brands committed to driving systemic change like Ally, AT&T, CarMax, Deloitte, Google, and Nike.

By the numbers:

• 50,000 young female athletes mentored in year one of the WNBA Changemakers partnership

  • Body image workshops with Phoenix Mercury's Satou Sabally

  • Personal Style & Confidence sessions with New York Liberty's Isabelle Harrison

  • Community-building through sports with Chicago Sky's Ariel Atkins

• 140+ group mentorship sessions covering mental health, nutrition, and career development

  • Topics designed to address barriers that cause 42% of girls to drop out of sports by age 14

  • WNBA mentors from all 12 teams, including Indiana Fever’s Aliyah Boston, Seattle Storm’s Alysha Clark, and Phoenix Mercury’s Satou Sabally

  • Build Your Career in Sport Leadership Series led by women executives from WNBA Changemaker brands, starting this year

• 85% of participants reported increased confidence after sessions

• 90%+ re-registration rate for additional programming

• Multi-year renewal secured based on measurable outcomes

  • Particularly significant given the WNBA saw one of its highest ratings boosts from girls aged 12-17 last season

What they're saying: "Essentially what was happening and is still happening a lot across the industry is there'll be a one-off event for a group of girls, a one-off camp or a moment in time, and that's really not enough to change the issues that young women are facing in sport." — Strack.

How it works: The six-step IMPACT method transforms partnership agreements into sustainable programs. Here’s how:

1. Investigate: Research audience needs through direct feedback

2. Mobilize: Align all stakeholders around core mission

3. Partner: Co-design experiences that deliver mutual value

4. Assemble: Build operational infrastructure

5. Community: Integrate to identify local market activation opportunities

6. Track: Measure comprehensive outcomes beyond basic participation metrics

The bottom line: Systematic implementation separates partnerships that create lasting change from those that generate temporary headlines. When brands treat execution as strategy rather than afterthought, they build programs that deliver measurable ROI and multi-year renewals.

Get the complete IMPACT framework that turned VIS x WNBA Changemakers partnership promises into measurable wins.

📰 In the Current  

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

• England wins Euros and tournament turns out record attendance: 657,291 fans. Congrats to our incredible partner Niamh Charles on the win! (For more on Charles’ journey to becoming a Lioness, check out her interview on Courtside with Laura Correnti.)

• Caitlin Clark rookie card sells for $660K, breaking previous record of $336K — a signal in the noise via collectibles space.

• Skims announces new partnership with LOVB, league continues to accelerate growth, expanding to 30 existing partners from inaugural season. (Read LOVB CMO Stephanie Martin’s playbook on how to build those partnerships.)

• RAJ Sports x Nike host The Epicenter: Women’s Global Sports Summit in Portland, following the WNBA’s Portland Fire name reveal and their announcement of a $150MM training facility they’ll share with the NWSL’s Thorns. 

🦈 Blue Zone  

We’re proud to be building partnerships that drive business results across every sector of women's sports:

• Deep Blue launched “Women of NHRA initiative” to accelerate commercial investment in women's motorsports. The partnership kicked off with a Summit and trackside experience in Sonoma—the same day Brittany Force broke her own fastest time record at 343.16 MPH.
  

• Deep Blue client Vagisil partnered with iHeartMedia to launch Fresh Takes with Angela Yee—the first weekly broadcast radio segment dedicated exclusively to women's sports in NYC.

• Deep Blue's first capsule collection drops 8/8: the "Be The Shark" collection features three pieces including a vintage '90s windbreaker, cropped basketball jersey, and hat in partnership with Official League. A portion of proceeds supports Grow Our Game. Shop the drop here.

🌊 Shark Bite

“We should be playing in front of 80,000 today…I think we can sell those stadiums. I think it’s clear this is now fast becoming big business.” - Emma Hayes, USWNT Head Coach on UEFA Women’s Euro Final

Capacity for the Final in Basel, Switzerland was 34K and sold out following 10.2MM viewers tuning into ITV for England’s semi-final match vs Italy.